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Stephanus pagination

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For other uses, see Pagination (disambiguation).
Volume 1, Page 142 of the 1578 Stephanus edition of Plato, showing the opening of Theaetetus

Stephanus pagination is the system of reference and organization used in modern editions and translations of Plato (and less famously, Plutarch). Plato's (and Plutarch's) works are divided into numbers, and each number will be divided into equal sections a, b, c, d and e. As such, this system is often used to reference Plato - for example, Symposium 172a would refer the reader to the opening of Plato's Symposium.

This system of pagination is based on an edition of Plato by Henricus Stephanus (Henri Estienne). The numbers refer to page numbers in the various volumes of his edition of 1578. No work spans more than one volume; so, there are not multiple occurrences of the same page number for a single work. As there were multiple volumes, however, the numbers need to be used in conjunction with a title in order to make any sense, i.e. 172a by itself could refer to passages in several dialogues, but Symposium 172a refers only to one passage.

More specific citations often add line numbers, e.g. Symposium 209a5-9, but these generally refer to John Burnet's Oxford Classical Text, not to Estienne's line divisions.

The spurious dialogue Halcyon was included in the corpus of Lucian's works and does not have Stephanus numbers.

Bekker numbers are the comparable system for the works of Aristotle.

Stephanus numbers

Volume 1

Volume 2

  • (327a-354c) Republica I
  • (357a-383c) Republica II
  • (386a-417b) Republica III
  • (419a-445e) Republica IV
  • (449a-480a) Republica V
  • (484a-511e) Republica VI
  • (514a-541b) Republica VII
  • (543a-569c) Republica VIII
  • (571a-592b) Republica IX
  • (595a-621d) Republica X
  • (624a-650b) Leges I
  • (652a-674c) Leges II
  • (676a-702e) Leges III
  • (704a-724b) Leges IV
  • (726a-747e) Leges V
  • (751a-785b) Leges VI
  • (788a-824a) Leges VII
  • (828a-850c) Leges VIII
  • (853a-882c) Leges IX
  • (884a-910d) Leges X
  • (913a-938c) Leges XI
  • (941a-969d) Leges XII

Volume 3

Volume 3, pages 32-33, of the 1578 Stephanus edition of Plato, showing a passage of Timaeus with the Latin translation and notes of Jean de Serres
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