Editing Stobaeus

{{Short description|5th-century Greek anthologist}}
{{for|the composer|Johann Stobäus}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
[[File:Stobaeus Eklogai apophthegmaton 1536 page 1.jpg|right|thumb|Page one of the ''Florilegium'' of Stobaeus, from the 1536 edition by [[Vettore Trincavelli]].]]
'''Joannes Stobaeus''' ({{IPAc-en|dʒ|oʊ|ˈ|æ|n|ᵻ|s|_|s|t|oʊ|ˈ|b|iː|ə|s}};<ref>[[Joseph Emerson Worcester]], ''A Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language'', Philadelphia, 1888, [https://books.google.com/books?id=k4tAAAAAYAAJ&q=sto&pg=PA588 p. 588]</ref> {{langx|grc|Ἰωάννης ὁ Στοβαῖος}}; {{fl.}} 5th-century AD), from [[Stobi]] in [[Macedonia (Roman province)|Macedonia]], was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors. The work was originally divided into two volumes containing two books each. The two volumes became separated in the manuscript tradition, and the first volume became known as the ''Extracts'' (also ''Eclogues'') and the second volume became known as the ''Anthology'' (also ''Florilegium''). Modern editions now refer to both volumes as the ''Anthology''. The ''Anthology'' contains extracts from hundreds of writers, especially poets, historians, orators, philosophers and physicians. The subjects 
range from [[natural philosophy]], [[dialectics]], and [[ethics]], to [[politics]], [[economics]], and maxims of practical wisdom. The work preserves fragments of many authors and works which otherwise might be unknown today.

==Life==
Nothing of his life is known.<ref name="eb1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Stobaeus, Joannes|volume=25|page=929}}</ref> The age in which he lived cannot be fixed with accuracy.<ref name="mason">Mason 1870, pp. 914–5</ref> He quotes no writer later than the early 5th century, and he probably lived around this time.<ref name="mason"/> His surname apparently indicates that he was a native of [[Stobi]] capital of [[Macedonia (Roman province)|Macedonia Secundus]],<ref name="mason"/> while his given name, [[John (given name)|John]], would probably indicate that he was a Christian, or at least the son of Christian parents,<ref name="mason"/> However, from his silence in regard to [[Christianity|Christian]] authors, it has also been inferred that he was not a Christian.<ref name="eb1911"/>

==Work==
Stobaeus' anthology is a collection of extracts from earlier Greek writers, which he collected and arranged, in the order of subjects, as a repertory of valuable and instructive sayings.<ref name="mason"/> 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. The full title, according to Photius, was ''Four Books of Extracts, Sayings and Precepts'' (Ἐκλογῶν, ἀποφθεγμάτων, ὑποθηκῶν βιβλία τέσσαρα<!--ἐν τεύχεσι δυσί--> [''Eklogon, apophthegmaton, hypothekon biblia tessara'']).<ref name="eb1911"/> He quoted more than five hundred writers, generally beginning with the poets, and then proceeding to the historians, orators, philosophers, and physicians.<ref name="eb1911"/> The works of the greater part of these have perished.<ref name="mason"/> It is to him that we owe many of our most important fragments of the dramatists.<ref name="eb1911"/> He has quoted over 500 passages from [[Euripides]], 150 from [[Sophocles]], and over 200 from [[Menander]].<ref name="mason"/> It is evident from this summary, preserved in [[Photios I of Constantinople|Photius]]'s ''Bibliotheca''<ref>Photius, ''Cod.'' 167</ref> (9th century), that the work was originally divided into four books and two volumes,<ref name="eb1911"/> and that surviving manuscripts of the third book consist of two books which have been merged.<ref name="mason"/>

At some time subsequent to Photius the two volumes were separated, and the two volumes became known to Latin Europe as the ''Eclogae'' and the ''Florilegium'' respectively.{{sfn|Scott|Ferguson|1936|pp=82–85}} Modern editions have dropped these two titles and have reverted to calling the entire work the ''Anthology'' ({{langx|la|Anthologium}}).{{sfn|Scott|Ferguson|1936|pp=82–85}} In most of the manuscripts there is a division into three books, forming two distinct works; the first and second books forming one work under the title ''Physical and Moral Extracts'' (also ''Eclogues''; Greek: {{lang|grc|Ἐκλογαὶ φυσικαὶ καὶ ἠθικαί}}), the third book forming another work, called ''[[Florilegium]]'' or ''Sermones'' (or ''Anthology''; {{lang|grc|Ἀνθολόγιον}}).<ref name="mason"/> 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 have been amalgamated by altering the original sections.<ref name="eb1911"/> Each chapter of the four books is headed by a title describing its matter.<ref name="mason"/>

===Introduction===
We learn from Photius that the first book was preceded by a dissertation on the advantages of philosophy, an account of the different schools of philosophy, and a collection of the opinions of ancient writers on geometry, music, and arithmetic.<ref name="mason"/> The greater part of this introduction is lost. The close of it only, where arithmetic is spoken of, is still extant.

===''Eclogues''===
The first two books consist for the most part of extracts conveying the views of earlier poets and prose writers on points of physics, dialectics, and ethics.<ref name="mason"/> The first book was divided into sixty chapters, the second into forty-six, of which the manuscripts preserve only the first nine.<ref name="mason"/> Some of the missing parts of the second book (chapters 15, 31, 33, and 46) have, however, been recovered from a 14th-century [[wikt:gnomology|gnomology]].{{sfn|Scott|Ferguson|1936|pp=82–85}}

His knowledge of physics — in the wide sense which the Greeks assigned to this term — is often untrustworthy.<ref name="eb1911"/> Stobaeus betrays a tendency to confound the dogmas of the early [[Ionian philosophy|Ionian philosophers]], and he occasionally mixes up [[Platonism]] with [[Pythagoreanism]].<ref name="eb1911"/> For part of the first book and much of the second, it is clear that he depended on the (lost) works of the [[Peripatetic school|Peripatetic]] philosopher [[Aetius (philosopher)|Aetius]] and the [[Stoicism|Stoic]] philosopher [[Arius Didymus]].<ref name="eb1911"/>

===''Florilegium''===
The third and fourth books are an anthology devoted to subjects of a moral, political, and economic kind, and maxims of practical wisdom.<ref name="mason"/> The third book originally consisted of forty-two chapters, and the fourth of fifty-eight.<ref name="mason"/> These two 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.<ref name="eb1911"/>

==Editions==
The [[editio princeps|first edition]] of books 1 and 2 was that by [[Wilhelm Canter|G. Canter]] (Antwerp, 1575).<ref name="mason"/> There were subsequent editions made by [[Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren|A. H. L. Heeren]] (Göttingen, 1792–1801, in 4 vols. 8vo.), and [[Thomas Gaisford]] (Oxford, 1850).<ref name="mason"/> The first edition of books 3 and 4 was that edited by [[Vettore Trincavelli|Trincavelli]] (Venice, 4to. 1536).<ref name="mason"/> Three editions were published by [[Conrad Gessner]] (Zurich, 1543; Basle, 1549; Zurich; 1559), and another by Gaisford (Oxford, 1822, 4 vols. 8vo.).<ref name="mason"/> The first edition of the whole of Stobaeus together was one published at Geneva in 1609.<ref name="mason"/> The next major edition of the whole corpus was that by [[Augustus Meineke]] (Leipzig, 1855–1864). The modern edition is that by [[Curt Wachsmuth]] and [[Otto Hense]] (Berlin, 1884–1912, 5 volumes). Wachsmuth and Hense's edition attempts, as far as possible, to restore the text of the ''Anthology'' as it was written by Stobaeus.{{sfn|Scott|Ferguson|1936|pp=82–85}}

*[[Thomas Gaisford]] (1822–1824), [https://archive.org/details/iannoustobaioua03stobgoog ''Iōannou Stobaiou Anthologion – Ioannis Stobæi Florilegium'', Volume 1], [https://archive.org/details/iannoustobaioua02stobgoog ''Iōannou Stobaiou Anthologion – Ioannis Stobæi Florilegium'', Volume 2], [https://books.google.com/books?id=whTgAAAAMAAJ&q=Ad+manuscriptorum+fidem+emendavit ''Ioannis Stobaei Florilegium, ad manuscriptorum fidem emendavit et supplevit Thomas Gaisford'', Volume 3], [https://books.google.com/books?id=OAbgAAAAMAAJ ''Ioannis Stobaei Florilegium, ad manuscriptorum fidem emendavit et supplevit Thomas Gaisford'', Volume 4]  Oxford: [[Clarendon Press|Clarendon]], 
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*[[Augustus Meineke|August Meineke]] (1855), [https://www.archive.org/details/iohannisstobaei00stobgoog Florilegium Vol 1–2 (1855)], [https://www.archive.org/details/iohannisstobaei00meingoog Vol 3–4 (1856)], [https://www.archive.org/details/ioannisstobaeie01meingoog Eclogues Vol 1 (1860)], [https://www.archive.org/details/ioannisstobaeie02meingoog ''Ioannis Stobaei Eclogarum Physicarum et Ethicarum'', Vol 2 (1864)], Leipzig: [[Bibliotheca Teubneriana|B. G. Teubner]].
*Curtius Wachsmuth, Otto Hense, [https://www.archive.org/details/joannisstobaeian01stovuoft Eclogues Volumes 1–2 (1884)], [https://www.archive.org/details/joannisstobaeian03stovuoft Florilegium Vol 1 (1894)], [https://www.archive.org/details/joannisstobaeian04stovuoft Vol 2 (1909)], [https://www.archive.org/details/adw8682.0005.001.umich.edu ''Vol 3'' (1912)], [https://www.archive.org/details/adw8682.indx.001.umich.edu ''Appendix'' (1923)], Berlin: [[Weidmannsche Buchhandlung]].

=== Translations ===
The entire work has not been translated into any modern language.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}} However, many of the individual authors have been collected and translated separately as part of collections of those authors' fragments. 
* '''[[Hermetica]]''':{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hermetica-ii/F5187119F7B83D0E2B61A0DEBC56B59F|title=Hermetica II: The Excerpts of Stobaeus, Papyrus Fragments, and Ancient Testimonies in an English Translation with Notes and Introductions|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=2018|editor-last=Litwa|editor-first=M. David|location=Cambridge|pages=|doi=10.1017/9781316856567|isbn=<!--9781316856567-->978-1-107-18253-0|s2cid=217372464 }}

==References==
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
* {{cite book |author1=[[Photius]] |title=[[Bibliotheca (Photius)|Bibliotheca]] |chapter = 167. John Stobaeus, Anthology |chapter-url=https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/photius_copyright/photius_04bibliotheca.htm#167 |via=Tertullian Project |access-date=3 March 2023}}
*Charles Peter Mason, "{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20101119222838/http://ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3247.html Stobaeus]}}" entry, in [[William Smith (lexicographer)|William Smith]] (1870), ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]''. Volume 3, pp.&nbsp;914–5.
*{{cite book |first1=Walter |last1=Scott |first2=Alexander Stewart |last2=Ferguson |year=1936 |title=Hermetica |volume=1 |publisher=Clarendon press}}
*[[Harry Thurston Peck|Peck, Harry Thurston]]. ''Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'': [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DS%3Aentry+group%3D18%3Aentry%3Dstobaeus-harpers "Stobaeus"]. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

===Further reading===
*{{cite book |last=Dorandi |first=Tiziano |title=Stobaeana: tradizione manoscritta e storia del testo dei primi due libri dell’Antologia di Giovanni Stobeo |date=2023 |publisher=Academia |location=Baden-Baden |isbn=9783985720958 |doi=10.5771/9783985720965}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Pichugina* |first1=Victoria K. |last2=Bezrogov |first2=Vitaly G. |last3=Volkova |first3=Yana A. |title=Quotation As Basis For Education: Experience Of "Anthology" By Ioannes Stobaeus |journal=European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences |date=30 September 2019 |volume=69 |pages=630–638 |doi=10.15405/epsbs.2019.09.02.72 |url=https://www.europeanproceedings.com/article/10.15405/epsbs.2019.09.02.72 |access-date=22 March 2023|doi-access=free }}
*{{cite book |last1=Reydams-Schils |first1=Gretchen J. |title=Thinking Through Excerpts: Studies on Stobaeus |date=2011 |publisher=Brepols |isbn=978-2-503-52976-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4c33SAAACAAJ |access-date=3 March 2023 |language=en}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}} 
* {{wikisource author-inline}}<!--please do not remove-->
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140116190639/http://catalog.perseus.org/catalog/Mtlg2037Stoba Stobaeus – Perseus Catalog]
* [http://www.greek-language.gr/Resources/ancient_greek/library/browse.html?text_id=53 Excerpt from the ''Florilegium'' (original Ancient Greek text)] {{in lang|el}}
* {{Librivox author |id=12841}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Ancient Greek anthologists]]
[[Category:Ancient Macedonian anthologists]]
[[Category:Roman-era Macedonians]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:Year of death unknown]]
[[Category:5th-century Byzantine writers]]