The Greeks

Parmenides and Heraclitus have none of their own writings left, but we do have some fragments that were recorded by other contemporaries. philoctetes.free.fr/parmenidesunicode.htm and community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Philosophy/heraclitus.pdf should be more than good enough.

Personally I didn't really care for Strauss' Trojan War. Maybe read it much later, if at all. The "Greek epic fragments" is unnecessary for a first time/casual reader; read later if at all. Basically all you need to know is that the Homeric epics are part of a larger "epic cycle," of which only Iliad/Odyssey were written by Homer; everything else is almost entirely lost, and probably wasn't that great to begin with.

Never actually seen anyone read the cambridge companion. If you pick one up, might as well get the companion to greek tragedy instead of the one about greek AND roman drama.

Once you get to Plato pick up a few secondary sources. Cambridge companions to Plato/Plato's Republic, AE Taylor's "Plato the man and his work," relevant 150ish pages in Copleston's "history of philosophy," "bloomsbury companion to Plato" would be the best. Copleston>Bloomsbury>Taylor>C.Companions

Once you get to Aristotle prepare to get fisted. If you read him at all, (a) you probably won't want to actually read the complete works, (b) anything you do read will need to be heavily accompanied by modern criticism. Probably better off buying the cheap modern library "basic works" and even then probably not reading all of it. IMO you shouldn't even think about Aristotle until you finish Plato. At that point you can start deciding what to do. I've been reading Aristotle & accompanying criticism for almost 9 months now and am literally halfway through. Probably not worth the time for a casual reader.

Good advice but I wouldn't recommend Apollodorus at all as he's extremely dry. IMO Hamilton's mythology is a better primer, and Ovid is better for enjoying the myths in more depth.

I am 99% sure the oxford classics "first philosophers" in the OP pic includes fragments of and brief comments on both of them.

DESU not a bad crash course.

Good advice except your Ovid BS

Parmenides is awesome

I've read a lot of secondary literature on Plato's work, but none of it was nearly as helpful as the work of John Sallis and Heidegger. Specifically: Being and Logos (JS) and The Soohist (H). There is a lot of bullshit out there.

Hey, this is a good post. Thanks.
What secondary accompanying criticism have you been reading alongside Aristotle, and how did you decide what criticism to read?

broke: reading the greeks to understand moderns
woke: reading the moderns to understand the greeks

good post
OP, don't listen to the morons who tell you "you need to start with the pre-socratics, which I have totally read tee hee xD". Just start reading Plato's Complete Works (find a good translation, not that Jowett trash), read the easy ones first ( Apology, Crito, Phaedo, etc.), and progress to the harder ones. DO NOT READ THE REPUBLIC FIRST.
Do all that and, assuming you have a more or less good knowledge of Greek mythology, you should be set.

Also

plato.stanford.edu -> search for anything you find confusing, I *guarantee* you'll find a better answer there than anything in this shithole.

What translation would you recommend?

amazon.com/Plato-Complete-Works/dp/0872203492

This one is really good, HOWEVER, make sure not to buy the kindle edition, as it is, for some reason, a totally different translation.

Actually, if you want a PDF edition of the book, here's a link: s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=30273821702075210498

you'd be suprised how relevant the presocratics are

>tfw you start with the pre-Socratics and now the Earth is made of fire

These are the real essentials, if you want an actual starting point. The other stuff is good for branching out.

>implying the world isn't made of particles of the four roots orbiting the centre of the universe due to the power of Mind

Since this is sort of a classics thread: I'm almost finished with Metamorphoses by Ovid. It's been a hard read at times, I think a lot of the stories went over my head but some of the stories were extremely beautifully told. Echo and Narcissus or Actaeon turned into a deer and crying out for his family who was close by while getting torn to shreds by dogs come to mind. Whats everyone elses opinion on it?

Also started with the Greeks but went with the Alexander Pope translations. Am I fucked? I enjoyed them tho

Pope is more like an original piece of poetry that adapts the Iliad, not exactly a translation. But it's awesome in its own right.

The translations that usually get recommended here are the Fagles and Lattimore ones. Haven't read Lattimore, but I like Fagles.

It's great. The best and definitive english version is the one commissioned by Sir Barth I think the name was, but it included Dryden and Pope among numerous other great poets of the period, in composition it was a lot like KJV bible and was made in the same time period as well

No he is by far the best. Just get a shitty paperback Lattimore to read alongside if you fell lost at anytime. Pope is incredible, he was a manlet prodigy who was writing non-fiction didactic verse at 16

do you really think The First Philosophers is really necessary? I know sounds a bit arrogant and totally lazy, but could Stanford's presocratics be enough? I've read that and heard the history of philosophy podcast. I know the main ideas of each presocratics, basically.

In that case, no you don't have to.

I'd recommend reading their fragments though, there's a public domain translation here sacred-texts.com/cla/app/index.htm

thanks friend. will do

It sacrifices the quality and integrity of the story for the sake of poetic devices, both in form and structure. Like another user said, it's good but don't take it as a faithful translation of the original. It's like a different adaptation of the epics.

Not really necessary. You could also read the first few chapters of Russell's History (inb4 hate) and/or listen to the first couple of episodes of "History of Philosophy Without any Gaps." I would say that's more than enough on the presocratics.

>"History of Philosophy Without any Gaps."
hey, I did that, see >history of philosophy podcast.
should've been clearer but anyways, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Took notes on each presocratic as I was listenning to focus more. Paused on Socrates though, I want to read plato and aristotle on my own before having someone straight telling me what plato and aristotle said and what they meant by it. I guess I'll continue with the podcast as I go along

Oh shit sorry, I'm in Europe and 2AM posting again.

If you want to start on socrates without preformed opinion I would just read Apology and Crito, then you can continue listening. They are both short and easy dialogues and after that you'll have a pretty solid understanding of who Socrates was.

Are you actually learning Ancient Greek? Because there really is no point otherwise.

Thx anons, glad I read Pope's

What about Plotinus?

what about him?

I don't see him on any of these lists but his explanation of monism was key to my personal understanding of metaphysics. The neoPlatonists were way ahead of the game in regards to fundamental realities that play out favorably in modern physics/field theory/electrical engineering

the socratics are free mason faggots

>tfw you accidentally read the very hungry caterpillar as your first book instead of the greeks and now you have irreversible brain damage and unable to obtain the enlightenment of patricianhood.

huh?