[B-Greek] Is Thucydides helpful reading material?

Ann Nyland nyland at tsn.cc
Thu Oct 19 20:41:26 EDT 2006


Hi Elizabeth,
Thucydides is helpful all right, tedious at times, but necessary to read as 
is Plato, but for "rapid headway" try Xenophon or Lysias first. Lysias's 
Against Eratosthenes is a good one to start with.
Thucydides is definitely worth reading, and a "must", but certainly not to
start with. I wouldn't call his Greek terribly typical, it's more uptight
and inclining to the stuffy, I always thought of him as a Roman by nature,
and Virgil as a Greek by nature. I'd suggest starting with the
logographers - their speeches had to be easy and punchy for the jurors to
understand and enjoy and some of them are quite hysterically funny - here's
a good book, "Selections from the Attic Orators" (I have the 1962 reprint,
ISBN 0-89241-129-5) all in Greek with notes in English by Jebb - the notes
are extensive, and the Greek is easy (for Attic) - it has Antiphon,
Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates - and Isaeus, but avoid him, as it's
inheritance law, very boring and dry: "The estate did in fact belong to my
mother's sister's son's brother, although Ciron is claiming it belongs to
his uncle's wife's 2nd cousin's son... etc."
Herodotos is great too, and a fun read, but the Ionic dialect, although that
helps when you start on Homer (and then go for the Odyssey rather than the
Iliad, unless you enjoy reading in graphic detail and at length the ways in
which a spear can pass through the internal organs). However, the
differences in dialect could be confusing at first, probably best to get a
good grounding in Attic first. Avoid the playwrights at first, the choruses
can be very difficult.
Ann Nyland

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Elizabeth Kline" <kline_dekooning at earthlink.net>
To: "greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 7:20 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] Is Thucydides helpful reading material?


> Assuming one wanted to make some rapid headway in Attic would
> Thucydides be helpful reading material? I have been looking over the
> opening lines of Thucydides History and wondering if this would be
> something worth reading. Is Thucydides representative of Attic prose
> syntax?
>
> I am not too concerned about the difference between Thucydides and
> the NT greek which I assume would be substantial.
>
> Elizabeth Kline
>




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