What of the Greeks should I read after the Illiad and the Odyssey? I'm thinking of saving the Aeneid for later...

The standard edition of Plato's complete dialogues is by Cooper and Hutchinson. It includes everything attributed to Plato (even those which are today recognized as certainly pseudepigraphia)

Which one specifically? I can only find 'Plato: Five Dialogues', 'A Plato Reader: Eight Essential Dialogues', and 'Plato Symposium'.

amazon.com/Plato-Complete-Works/dp/0872203492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463068770&sr=8-1&keywords=complete works of plato

make Plato your best friend for the next year

Thanks m8.

>Which one specifically? I can only find 'Plato: Five Dialogues', 'A Plato Reader: Eight Essential Dialogues', and 'Plato Symposium'.

plato
plato: the republic strikes back
plato: return of the philosopher

kek

> nobody mentions Hesiod, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, the presocratics
> just read Homer and Plato bro

Cmon Veeky Forums, you can do better. Help the poor soul.

Did you go to Columbia? I do and this is basically the freshman syllabus

Go back to /soc/, you attention whoring pleb.

I just listed the most important greeks. They should be the freshman syllabus for any university.

Any specific publications you recommend?

As for literature I recommend everything that Aeschylus wrote. Also, Hesiod is basic.

In case you wanna get into philosophy there's no other way, you gotta read the presocratics.

>you gotta read the presocratics

Which publications would you recommend?

I haven't made a graph yet, but here's my list.

~Secondary Literature~
A Brief History of Ancient Greece
Mythology (Edith Hamilton)

~The Homeric Epics~
Iliad, Odyssey (Homer)

~Other Foundational Works~
Theogony, Works and Days (Hesiod)

~Greek Poetry~
The Complete Odes (Pindar)
Greek Lyric Poetry (An OWC collection of what remains of Greek poetry, besides Pindar)

~Greek History~
Histories (Herodotus)
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides) (Definitely get the Landmark editions for both this and Herodotus)

~Greek Drama~
The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides (Aeschylus)
Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone (Sophocles) (If you go with the OWC edition here, they excise Colonus and replace it with Electra. Either set up is fine, the Oedipus Cycle was not written as a trilogy so it can be read in any order)
Medea and Other Plays (Euripides)
Birds and Other Plays (Aristophanes) (The titles for these are coming from the OWC editions. I'm sure other editions are fine, but this is how I got them).

~Greek Philosophy~
The First Philosophers: The Pre-Socratics and the Sophists (Another OWC collection, but I've heard good things about the Penguin edition of this too).
*Euthyphro,* *Apology,* *Crito,* *Meno,* *Phaedo,* Cratylus, *Symposium,* Phaedrus, *Republic,* Laws, Timaeus, Gorgias, Parmenides, Theatetatus, Sophist, Statesman (Plato) (Read in order. Ignore assholes who just tell you to read "Plato." Most people don't need to read everything he's written. This selection is more than enough, and I've put asterisks around the very important ones if you just want to cut to the chase. The best way to get these is Cooper's collection, though I highly recommend getting Bloom's translation of Republic specifically and reading his interpretive essay afterwards).

Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, The Organon [Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, Sophistical Refutations], Physics, De Anima, Metaphysics, Poetics, Rhetoric (Aristotle) (Once again, should be read in order. Once again, telling people to read all of Aristotle is asinine unless you're a philosophy major or really interested in ancient and medieval philosophy. By far the best way to read this is the Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes.)

~The Hellenistic Schools~
Diogenes the Cynic: Sayings and Anecdotes with Other Moralists (Cynicism)
The Essential Epicurus (Great Books in Philosophy) (Epicureanism)
Lucretius - On the Nature of the Universe (Epicureanism)
Epictetus - Discourse, Fragments, Handbook (Stoicism)
Seneca - Dialogues and Essays (Stoicism)
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (Stoicism)

The texts under the last category all refer to OWC editions, but I'm sure there are other fine editions elsewhere. I find OWC to be consistently the highest quality though, so it's easy just to lean on them. The exception is Epicurus, where I'd suggest the GBP edition.

There's plenty I left out here. More drama, more Plato/Aristotle, there's Theognis, middle and late Platonism (which is really fun), etc. But this is more than enough for someone not studying Greek literature/history/philosophy, and will give you an excellent foundation for all of Western literature.

I should also note that I am aware that I cross into Roman literature. I did that because 1. It's the best way to flesh out the Hellenistic Schools given the relative dearth of original Greek writing from their founders; 2. Because it provides a nice segue into Latin/Roman literature if you're interested in that; and 3. It's good shit in its own right.

By the way, for Homer translations. Read Lattimore or Fitzgerald first, and if you liked that read it again with Pope. Skip Fagles, except for like, a fourth reading if you're really curious. He's not terrible, but there are both more accurate (Fitzgerald, Lattimore) and more beautiful (Pope) translations.

I've also heard great things about Caroline Alexander's new translation, but I haven't read it yet so I can't vouch for it.

Thanks pal.

Why do people throw Plato in with Homer? They're completely different.

Unless you have a specific interest in philosophy there's zero reason to read Plato's dialogues.

No problem, OP.

All of you hating the Aeneid have obviously never read it in Latin. And even the translation should make you realize that Virgil is several steps ahead of Homer (well, 800 years) in terms of style, intelligent metaphors and language. Had he lived in 1600, he would have equalled Shakespeare.

Great post, thanks a lot.

You're welcome!

Ahahahahaha no

In metaphors alone Homer blows Virgil right out of the water

...

Aeschylus and Sophocles are essential reading after Homer in my opinion. You get to continue some of the characters stories that were in the Illiad and Odyssey and they are great works of art in their own right (Oedipus plays, Theban plays etc.).

He really doesn't, and I adore Homer. The Carthaginian murals and the search for the Golden Bough are just incredible.