Joannes Stobaeus , so called from his native place
StobiStobi was an ancient town of Paionia, later conquered by Macedon, and later still incorporated into the Roman province of Macedonia Salutaris . It is located on the main road that leads from the Danube to the Aegean Sea and is considered by many to be the most famous archaeological site in the...
in North
Macedonia (Roman province)The Roman province of Macedonia was officially established in 146 BC, after the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated Andriscus of Macedon, the last Ancient King of Macedon in 148 BC, and after the four client republics established by Rome in the region were dissolved...
, was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from
GreekGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
authors.
Of his life nothing is known, but he probably lived during the latter half of the 5th century AD. From his silence in regard to
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
thinkers, scholars deduce that he was probably not a Christian.
The extracts were intended by Stobaeus for his son Septimius, and were preceded by a letter briefly explaining the purpose of the work and giving a summary of the contents.
Joannes Stobaeus , so called from his native place
StobiStobi was an ancient town of Paionia, later conquered by Macedon, and later still incorporated into the Roman province of Macedonia Salutaris . It is located on the main road that leads from the Danube to the Aegean Sea and is considered by many to be the most famous archaeological site in the...
in North
Macedonia (Roman province)The Roman province of Macedonia was officially established in 146 BC, after the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus defeated Andriscus of Macedon, the last Ancient King of Macedon in 148 BC, and after the four client republics established by Rome in the region were dissolved...
, was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from
GreekGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula....
authors.
Biography and works
Of his life nothing is known, but he probably lived during the latter half of the 5th century AD. From his silence in regard to
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
thinkers, scholars deduce that he was probably not a Christian.
The extracts were intended by Stobaeus for his son Septimius, and were preceded by a letter briefly explaining the purpose of the work and giving a summary of the contents. From this summary (preserved in Photius's
Bibliotheca) we learn that Stobaeus divided his work into four books and two volumes. In most of our manuscripts the work is divided into three books, of which the first and second are generally called Physical and Moral Extracts, and the third
FlorilegiumIn medieval Latin a florilegium was a compilation of excerpts from other writings. The word is formed the Latin flos and legere : literally a gathering of flowers, or collection of fine extracts from the body of a larger work. It was adapted from the Greek anthologia "anthology", with the same...
or
Sermones.
The introduction to the whole work, treating of the value of philosophy and of philosophical sects, is lost, with the exception of the concluding portion; the second book is little more than a fragment, and the third and fourth books have been amalgamated by altering the original sections. From these and other indications it seems probable that the extant writing is only an
epitomeAn epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment....
of the original work, made by an anonymous
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
writer of much later date.
The didactic aim of Stobaeus's work is apparent throughout. The first book teaches physics --in the wide sense the Greeks assigned to this term-- by means of extracts. It is often untrustworthy: Stobaeus betrays a tendency to confound the dogmas of the early Ionic philosophers, and he occasionally conflates
PlatonismPlatonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism. The central concept of Platonism is the Theory of Forms: the transcendent, perfect archetypes, of which...
with
PythagoreanismPythagoreanism is a term used for the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were much influenced by mathematics and probably a very inspirational source for Plato and Platonism....
. For part of this book and much of book II he depended on the works of the
peripateticThe Peripatetics were members of a school of philosophy in ancient Greece. Their teachings derived from their founder, the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, and Peripatetic is a name given to his followers. The name refers to the act of walking, and as an adjective, "peripatetic" is often used to mean...
philosopher
AëtiusAetius was a 1st or 2nd century BCE peripatetic philosopher.None of Aetius' works survive today, but he solves a mystery about two major compilations of philosophical quotes. There are two extant books named Placita Philosophorum and Eclogae Physicae. The first of these is Pseudo-Plutarch and the...
and
Didymus ChalcenterusDidymus Chalcenterus , ca. 63 BCE to 10 CE, was a Hellenistic Greek scholar and grammarian who flourished in the time of Cicero and Augustus.- Life :...
.
The third and fourth books, like the larger part of the second, treat of ethics; the third, of virtues and vices, in pairs; the fourth, of more general ethical and political subjects, frequently citing extracts to illustrate the pros and cons of a question in two successive chapters.
In all, Stobaeus quotes more than five hundred writers, generally beginning with the poets, and then proceeding to the historians, orators, philosophers and physicians. It is to him that we owe many of our most important fragments of the dramatists, particularly of
EuripidesEuripides was the lastof the three great tragedians of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias...
. He also wrote several important fragments concerning
StoicismStoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The stoics considered destructive emotions to be the result of errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not undergo such emotions...
.