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Milman Parry's <em>The Making of Homeric Verse</em>* (Oxford, 1971) and his student Albert Bates Lord's <em>The Singer of Tales</em> (Harvard, 1960) (Holy shit! 3rd edition is coming out in October!) never cease to fascinate me. I think that they'd be even more interesting if I re-read them now, with an eye to hip-hop being a modern expression of a lot of the oral techniques that Parry and Lord identified in oral poets from Homer to the early 20th-century Balkans.
Often you can access article pdfs, especially for recent articles, just by googling the title. (Peter Kruschwitz, who does quite a lot with graffiti, is particularly good about making his stuff available.) The article you mention is available on Virginia Campbell's academia.edu page:
You may have to signup to download it, but it's free. You should also give Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) a try, as it can be very useful when tracking down references.
for accuracy or for fun?
Fun Simon Smith's from Carcanet https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Catullus-Carcanet-Classics/dp/1784105503/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=carcanet+catullus&qid=1620331565&s=books&sr=1-1
Benner's <em>Selections from Homer's Iliad</em> would seem perfect for you. It has notes, vocab, and a short Homeric grammar at the end. Amazon link.
this guy has a bunch of really well formated trilingual greek classics including symposium: Symposium: Greek, Latin and English https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HH1IYJ8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_B43YHXJRF94T1793S5CR
i have their iliad and love it. english is by section and greek/latin is line by line interlinear. haven't been able to find any information on who this guy is but they're a hero (at least for me who finds learning greek via latin very efficiently and effective). text works pretty well with the available greek and latin kindle dictionaries.
You sound a lot like me in terms of interests! For an introduction to Roman history, I highly recommend Mike Duncan's History of Rome Podcast. In terms of books, Mary Beard's SPQR is a good overview; Adrian Goldsworthy has many excellent books on a number of topics (The Fall of Carthage, about the Punic Wars, is my favourite); Tom Holland's Rubicon is the best place to start for the fall of the Roman Republic; and Philip Matyszak's Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day is a great introduction to daily life in Rome.
For philosophy, the Introducing graphic guides are usually very good. Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy gets a lot of criticism for his unfair treatment of some philosophers, but the first section of the book, on ancient philosophy, is the best and most comprehensive introduction I know. For primary reading, I recommend the following dialogues of Plato: Euthyphro, the Apology, Crito, and the Meno, my personal fave.
For poetry, you should check out M. L. West's collection Greek Lyric Poetry for some shorter stuff, and for longer stuff you should read Homer's two great poems and Virgil's Aeneid. For Homer, I prefer the Lattimore translations, but Fagles is also good. Avoid Stephen Mitchell and especially E. V. Rieu. For the Aeneid, the Fitzgerald translation is probably the best, but Fagles and Sarah Ruden are also good.
Hope this helps!
Plato's Republic and Laws and Aristotle's Politics are classics. The Attic Orators have a good number of legal speeches.
Edit: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics was written to be studied by future Athenians going into the political and legal fields.
Thank you! I don’t deserve much credit as an “artist”, though; this is all just the result of me messing around with ArtBreeder. In fact, even the idea of using it to colorise ancient busts comes from u/Autow’s colorisation of a bust of Caracalla.
The Chicago series is pretty great. It's a bit dated now, but still worth reading.
But you might like Roche's selection of 10 plays:
https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Plays-Signet-Classics-Euripides/dp/0451527003
It's a little loose, but very readable. It doesn't have all of the plays you're looking for, but maybe enough to serve as a gateway.
I used Greek: An Intensive Course by Hansen & Quinn to play catch-up before graduate school. The textbook is really useful for learning the grammar.
https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Intensive-Course-2nd-Revised/dp/0823216632
I actually made some paradigms a while back, when I was teaching. Here are some noun and verb paradigms-- I think I'm a little bit odd in that I preferred rote memorization, and so charts were always my best friend.
Once you start learning the patterns (noun ideas are often feminine third declension, etc.), I think it'll become easier. I also bought this pack of flash cards from Amazon when I was studying for my MA exam.
The roots ados and odos mean two different things in Ancient Greek (even though they look/sound so similar in English letters, they are very distinct words in Greek); the first means song (poem, etc), and the second road (or way, etc). Thus, as /u/Tjdamage pointed out--we get the two different definitions in English. Hope that fills in the etymologies a little. I recommend Skeat https://archive.org/details/etymologicaldict00skeauoft for quick reference in the future.
This is one heck of a syllabus for yourself. Remember to be kind to yourself! Keep an open mind and follow your interests. For instance, if you find yourself hating Plato, feeling totally unmotivated to read anything because you're dreading what's "next on the list," I'd advise you to let yourself change it up. You can drop a book here or there or read summaries / excerpts. What's important is your engagement with the texts, not some grinding completion-ism.
Feel free to DM anytime if you need help with Latin/Greek. I'd suggest picking up LLPSI and its companion pieces for Latin. I suggested Italian Athenaze below, but note that it is not nearly as beginner friendly as LLPSI. Athenaze works best if you've already learned Greek grammar and have some basic vocab. LLPSI works from scratch.
I chose not to work on the laurel wreath much since I couldn't really figure out the actual hue of the leaves, also, the hair was mostly left untouched since I wasn't able to know how the person's hair depicted here appeared originally, something else I want to point out is the fact that I tried to restore the black circle, but, I chose to leave it alone for the most part, I hope you like what I did regardless of the aspects from the fresco that I left aside, hopefully you understand how difficult this is for me at times given the fact that I sometimes lack sources vel sim.
P.s: Thank you for the support, it means a lot to me, getting others to appreciate my efforts provide me with a sense of purpose and fulfillment, also, keep in mind the fact that I don't earn a penny with this (it'd be great if I did someday though 😂), I do what I do since I'm passionate about it, last but not least, if you like what you see, feel free to check my instagram, there's where I post most of what I do :)
I chose not to work on the laurel wreath much since I couldn't really figure out the actual hue of the leaves, also, the hair was mostly left untouched since I wasn't able to know how the person's hair depicted here appeared originally, something else I want to point out is the fact that I tried to restore the black circle, but, I chose to leave it alone for the most part, I hope you like what I did regardless of the aspects from the fresco that I left aside, hopefully you understand how difficult this is for me at times given the fact that I sometimes lack sources vel sim.
P.s: Thank you for the support, it means a lot to me, getting others to appreciate my efforts provide me with a sense of purpose and fulfillment, also, keep in mind the fact that I don't earn a penny with this (it'd be great if I did someday though 😂), I do what I do since I'm passionate about it, last but not least, if you like what you see, feel free to check my instagram, there's where I post most of what I do :)
For just a few more bucks you can get this highly acclaimed modern collection of translations of many more plays, including the Oedipus trilogy: https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Plays-Aeschylus-Sophocles-Euripides/dp/0812983092/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=M430IGIIJFTO&keywords=the+greek+plays&qid=1666403247&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjk3IiwicXNhIjoiMC41OSIsInFzcCI6IjAuNzMifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=the+gre...
I’m sure the one you’ve linked would be fine as well, but I really recommend this anthology!
I know you said you’re not looking for stuff on how music sounded, but this was too cool not to share.
We are reading the Odyssey in my Greek class and the lecturer showed us this. It’s a reconstruction of Demodocus’ song about Ares’ and Aphrodite’s affair (Odyssey 8.267-366). I haven’t looked into this at all yet, but I think my lecturer said that one of the researchers got his hands on some ancient musical notation which inspired the melody they’ve used. I’m sure you’ll find useful stuff if you look through their bibliography.
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/sh/index.htm
(I’ve included the 2nd link just in case the audio files on the actual article don’t work. This one has an embedded sound cloud thingy)
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Aristotle-Translation-Bollingen/dp/0691099502
If you’re talking about individual works though, I like Reeve’s New Aristotle series for Hackett. And the Oxford commentaries on Aristotle are usually great and standard my cited in the literature.
ok so i really like Poochigian (the translator of the book i linked). i think he's funny, making it less wordy and really getting the humor across without losing the Greek side of things. like as someone who's read a good portion of Clouds in Greek and is currently doing Frogs right now you can tell (kind of) how the Greek is set up by looking Poochigian's translation, if that makes sense. but it isnt wordy, long, nor dense, as some translations that stick close to the Greek are. I actually considered using his Lysistrata as a translation to use for a Lysistrata production I was planning to do (actually doing Frogs, now, translating with a team).
i believe i used this book for a class, Arrowsmith/Lattimore/Parker that you mentioned. i like their translations, but a tad dry, sorry! i do have this one too, which is Sommerstein, who i like, too.
Again, it's a pretty broad topic, so it depends on your interest. But starting with comparative linguistics could help you see some of the similarities between Greek and Latin, but also how those languages fit within a larger language family.
Fortson's book is the gold standard for Indo-European: https://www.amazon.com/Indo-European-Language-Culture-Benjamin-Fortson/dp/1405188960
The poet/Classicist Anne Carson did a translation with facing Greek text:
https://www.amazon.com/If-Not-Winter-Fragments-Sappho/dp/0375724516
If I recall correctly, it's not a scholarly text (i.e., there's no app crit, and it's cleaned up a bit). I don't know if that matters to you.
This doesn't have the "Brothers Poem" from P.Obbink (but that may be a forgery anyhow).
My main reading this week wasn't actually all that classical. I had a final paper about the evolution of the late roman army into the medieval era so I spent the past few days nose deep in "a companion to medieval arms and armour" by David Nicole
A Companion to Medieval Arms and Armour https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851158722/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_73PGKJMS3ZDRQ8ZEB9CD
It's actually a pretty great read for this sort of topic. Highly recommended.
Hesiod and Ovid are both great, and will give you a lot of the most famous stories.
If you want to supplement them and/or want more general overviews, try the two works put together here: https://www.amazon.com/Apollodorus-Library-Hyginus-Fabulae-Handbooks/dp/0872208206/ref=sr\_1\_1?keywords=apollodorus+library+and+hyginus+fabulae&qid=1642712592&sprefix=hyginus+apo%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-1
The fact that someone translated Harry Potter into ancient Greek is completely insane to me, but it seems like it does exist and it is actually in ancient Greek.
My favourite audiobook site is LibriVox - free, legal, public domain audiobooks, usually read by volunteers. You should find most of the major classical authors on there. I just checked with Thucydides, Ovid, Tacitus and Euripides, and all of them were there.
Also, Ian McKellan (Gandalf) did amazing audiobooks of the Iliad and the Odyssey. I'd highly recommend finding them if you can.
Just for everyone's info, the Shankman edition is not annotated by a modern commentator--it is Pope's own annotations (with the text, etc edited by Shankman).
I did find an edition with some helpful annotations by TA Buckley, but those annotations look to have been done in the mid-19th century, and it's not terribly easy to find in physical-book form.
I am honestly amazed that there does not appear to be a modern (or even 20th century!) annotated edition of this poetic masterpiece!
A friend of mine and I wrote a paper not long ago about the Flood in the Metamorphoses, Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh. It might be interesting for you to read.
https://www.academia.edu/23609548/Two_Thousand_Years_of_Flood
A few reasons:
Latin syntax does not depend as heavily on word order as English and the Romance languages do. Furthermore, it doesn't use prepositions nearly as much, and there's no articles ("a" and "the"). All of this means that there is way more freedom to position words for a variety of effects.
For instance, the famous first words of Vergil's Aeneid are arma virumque cano, which means 'I sing of arms and the man.' cano is the word meaning 'I sing,' and its position at the end of the clause is perfectly normal for Latin. But this means that Vergil can declare his subject as the first word of the poem.
(If you look at English translations of this line, you'll see how translators try to match the effect, usually be creating somewhat awkward English.)
As for the fetish, part of that reflects an era when anyone who had a significant amount of schooling meant studying a great deal of Latin. These poets provided the touchstone for taste and style, which had a self-reinforcing effect.
But in my opinion, Latin is infinitely better for poetry than English. English is much clearer than Latin for prose, though.
If you're really curious, someone wrote a book to answer your question:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Latin-Poem-Cant/dp/0198788126
Hi all, here is the join link! The password is "odyssey".
I've had a lot of interest from folks in an earlier time for people in Europe, and I may schedule one of those later in the week. I'm a K-12 teacher and the expectations for what we are supposed to be doing from home keep changing so it's hard to plan ahead too far as I don't know what my availability will be. Will keep this thread updated as things develop.
https://zoom.us/j/539255622?pwd=ejEvb1gyb2wveFJIYVlvMXVnaUtOdz09
In my course on intro to Ancient Rome I'm wrapping up now, we've used The Romans: From Village to Empire which is a nice general overview, and complemented it with Ancient Rome: Social and Historical Documents from the Early Republic to the Death of Augustus which is a sourcebook which can be helpful when doing your assignments :)
Get the "New Latin Primer" by Mary English and Georgia Irby. There is unfortunately no answer key that comes with the text for the exercises at the end of each chapter, but I absolutely swear by it as both a comprehensive source of reference as you are learning, and as a source for people who are interested in Rome, yet don't have a specific interest for research. It has 36 lessons, every lesson has cultural information or a short biography of a pivotal Roman figure, and the book uses nothing but excerpts from classical Roman texts, with one lesson towards the end focusing on Medieval and Early Modern Latin from British thinkers. It also has a superb glossary and grammar index at the back, with information about poetic meter and stress rules too. I studied philosophy, so I can't offer advice on where to go from your current position, but I would imagine that going through this book would help you a lot, and it's loaded with references to other books that could help you refine your direction. I could definitely read and translate Latin well after completing it.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199982015/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_XE1H3Z6V8YA1WVXB3S8J
The Invention of Ancient Slavery is a text I read in my first year of grad school that I still think about and reference regularly.
Not a translation, but if you already haven’t check out this:
The commentary is very helpful!
There was a book a few years ago called Lord of the Rings and Philosophy. I believe there is a chapter devoted to the parallels between the ring of Gyges and the One Ring.
Other comments on Wagner's Ring Cycle are also relevant. Tolkien absolutely got inspiration from Wagner.
Having some historical knowledge of history and culture is always helpful to frame the works within their context. How overtly helpful that is will vary; for example, I found Aristophanes funnier when I understood what he was commenting on, and I find Latin poetry more interesting when I can see it within the context of a larger tradition, that sort of thing. That being said, I don't think it's impossible to enjoy a work without that.
If you get a reader meant for students, some will have introductions and notes that give you a summary of what's going on. If you want a general reader, this one has sections on various aspects of history and culture, although like any textbook, it isn't comprehensive. Sometimes if you look online, though, you can find things online that will give you information as well; sometimes classics departments even have things posted online, which is nice.
Not a book but I highly recommend William Neigdinger's lectures on Rome. (You can find them on Amazon)
Super entertaining and he does his own research so you'll learn things literally no one else knows.
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Rome-Lecture-6-Kings/dp/B006JITHS8
This is the book on the Fayum portraits that I mentioned: The Mysterious Fayum Portraits: Faces from Ancient Egypt https://www.amazon.com/dp/050028217X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_s9FzDbVTZS8XF
Unfortunately, it’s ridiculously expensive on Amazon. Not sure why, because it’s still in print and like $25 at the bookshop near my house in Cairo. Maybe AUC Press doesn’t have a distributor in the US. Perhaps you can find it a university library.
Good luck with your work and research!
I really quite like my Langenscheidt Pocket Dictionary! Latin to English and English to Latin. The copy I got has a rubberized cover so it doesn’t get torn up as easily. :)
It's not exactly what you asked, but you would probably really enjoy The Shape of Ancient Thought by Thomas McEvilley. "Spanning thirty years of intensive research, this book proves what many scholars could not explain: that today’s Western world must be considered the product of both Greek and Indian thought—Western and Eastern philosophies. Thomas McEvilley explores how trade, imperialism, and migration currents allowed cultural philosophies to intermingle freely throughout India, Egypt, Greece, and the ancient Near East."
https://www.amazon.com/Shape-Ancient-Thought-Comparative-Philosophies/dp/1581152035
Boatwright, Gargola, Lenski, and Talbert's <em>The Romans: From Village to Empire</em> is my textbook of choice for Roman history
This is a good one for Thucydides.
>twenty pages that can be assigned in a lecture course
wat? are you teaching them or changing their diapers?
Primary source material wins every time.
Whatever you do, don't use Wheelock.
If you'd like a class, do this: http://www.paideiainstitute.org/intensive_latin_and_greek_summer_2016
If you'd just like a book, use this: https://www.amazon.com/Lingua-Latina-Illustrata-Pars-Familia/dp/1585104205?ie=UTF8&keywords=familia%20romana&qid=1458311671&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
For a real "nuts and bolts" approach, I would use Hanson and Quinn's "Greek: An Intensive Course". It's intense indeed, but it shows you everything behind the curtains since it is a grammar based approach. The are a lot of other books. Some like Athenaze try to use a more intuitive (and slower) approach, with a lot more vocab. I'm sure people here will have other suggestions, but I don't have experience with Reading Greek.