This is it, Veeky Forums

>not starting with the Sumerians
>not starting with the earliest surviving work of literature
you're not gonna make it

I'm not saying it's not good advice but OP seems to have taken it literally. It's an issue of quantity vs quality. There's people that spend their whole lives studying just a part of OP's reading list. Powering through all the ancient greek texts available, without reading secondary sources is not going to be a very meaningful reading. Of course it will be infinitely better than not reading at all, but you'd be much better off picking what interests you and going deep into it.

I can speak of philosophy because that's what I'm more familiar with. Reading Parmenides poem with no commentaries, aid or an interest or knowledge of metaphysics will prove to be a cryptic and not very rewarding read. Similarly, reading the whole corpus of Aristotle can be really rewarding as far as understanding his ourttdated philosophical system in detail, but skipping the physics in favour ofa closer reading about his ethics or metaphysics might be a more sensible choice. Same with Plato. Even when his writings are infinitely more readable one should approach philosophy with a set of questions or issues that he wants to investigate (Plato is great in this regard because his dialogues kickstart many branches of philosophy based on certain questions). Otherwise one will end up with an encyclopaedic knowledge of a philosopher's texts instead of a working knowledge of what he had to say about Beauty or virtue, and the relevance of such ideas in posterior thought.

TL;DR: Read secondary texts, faggot.

It's one book. Yes read it along the way. (And skip the cheap bible version)

If only we could start with them and the other civilizations. So much was lost from the Greek period, but it's noting compared to the staggering amounts lost from the ancient world period.

>not studying memes

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>translations

Bah, how could I forget. I will make note to read it, being one of the most important texts that predates Homer.

I was considering this, but now you've convinced me. The last thing I want to do is to rush through everything at once and have a cheap superficial understanding of it all. Thank you.

Don't forget "The Epic of Gilgamesh"

>not reading only one book in your life and understand the ins and outs of it completely
wew kid

hijacking thread

also memeing the greeks. is pic related good for odyssey?

good for iliad?

>Fagles

i think the feathering of the pages in annoying so i went with the penguin classics edition (black cover).

Fagles is good for first timers. Very readable.

>starting with the Greeks
>not starting with Greek

You're fucked, honestly. Mistranslations are way more common than you think, and I won't even try to describe how different the style and sound of Greek are from English. When I happen on a quote in translation of something I've read in Greek I usually don't even recognize it because it reads so differently.

>tfw want to read books in the original language but too stupid to learn other languages

ancient greek the same as modern linguistically?

Think for a second. Would people differentiate the two if they were the same?

>what is Old, Middle, Early Modern, and Modern English

Urdu and Hindi are lingustically the same but are still different languages

>Aristotle
>ourttdated philosophical system
This is your problem.

Ancient Greek is a broad spectrum with Homer/Hesiod at one end and the NT and other koine stuff at the other. Modern Greeks can kind of sort of understand koine but Homer wouldn't be readable at all. Of course modern Greeks learn ancient Greek in school so that muddies the picture a bit.

Nobody is too stupid to learn other languages. I speak four and sometimes I wonder about how much of a retard I am. It's uncanny.
So get to work and stop whining.

>linguistically

>tfw to smart 2 learn a language
I think solely abstractly. Language does not factor into it at all.
>subvocalization
heh kid.

ultrakek

I did the same thing as you 2 years ago, and working on the Romans. Like there's no need to read all primary works and ignore secondary-sources; I know those seem boring and not as fun as reading the primary sources first. It's definitely an awarding experience and I don't regret all the time I invested in it rather other-things, and I heavily recommend other people living in Western cultures to do similarly.
Now, over that time I read a bunch of reviews on a lot of the translations I read, how they compare, others' criticism on what or what not to read for studying the Greeks or what's necessary in order to read Plato and Aristotle, and so on--both here and many other forums and boards, books, and other in-person discussions. And participated in many courses and lectures, both online openware and in-person, and observed and surveyed what many courses had for their recommended reading, and the recommended reading on many of the texts I've read. And after such, here's the concise list of books I recommend you to read that covers from the preliminaries to Ancient Greek civilization to the end of the Classical era at the time of Alexander's conquests that are from reputable publishers and writers, and provide accurate translations and commentaries.

[1/2]

Recommended introductions preliminary readings (optional):
>Egypt, Greece and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean
>Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford World's Classics)

My recommended guide step-by-step:
1) Pre-Homer: read "Mythologies" by Edith Hamilton (Apollodorus is just a meme by classic majors here) and read Hackett's "Anthology Of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation" as a supplement to the proceeding myths
2) Homer: read Iliad and Odyssey translations by Steven Lattimore. Read the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod's Telegony translations included in the Hackett anthology as-well as the Trojan epic cycle accounts and fragments (no need to get a book on Hesiod after this). then read the "Cambridge Companion to Homer"
4.) Lyric poets: "Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation" by Hackett, which covers, summarizes, and gives commentary to the relevant fragments of the Lyric and elegant poets and the relevant odes of Pindar that relevant for reading later writers.
5.) Greek History: read the Landmark editions of Herodotus and Thucydides.
6.) Greek tragedy: there's no need to read all the extant plays of the three tragedians. For significant plays, I recommend you read the following Hackett's editions:
"Theban Plays" and "Philoctetes" by Sophocles; "Orestia" and "Prometheus Bound" by Aeschylus; "Medea, Hippolytus, Heracles, Bacchae" by Euripides, and "Odysseus at Troy" plays by Euripides and Sophocles.
7.) Greek comedy: read the Complete plays of Aristophanes (publisher doesn't really matter)
8.) back to Greek history: read Xenophon's Expedition of Cyrus (OWC edition) and Landmark's "Hellenica"
9) Greek philosophy (pre-Socratics and Plato):
>Pre-socratics: Read Hackett's "Pre-Socratic Reader"
>Plato: Read the Hackett editions of "A Plato Reader", "Laches and Charmides", "Socrates and the Sophist", "Gorgias", "Theatetus", "Sophist", "Statesman", "Parmenides", "Timaeus" and "Philebus"; don't buy their Complete Works of Plato or any other full collections. Read Plato's 7th letter online.
10) Back to Xenophon: Read his "Conversations of Socrates" edition by Penguin and "The Education of Cyrus" edition by Cornell University press
11) Aristotle: Read Hackett's "Selections", then their editions of "Metaphysics" and "Nichomean Ethics"
12) Orator speeches: read "Legal Speeches of Democratic Athens"
13) Read Landmark edition of Arrian's "Campaign of Alexander"

Hopefully this helps you.

[2/2]

saved

>Steven Lattimore
Who?

He wrote the Iliad you pleb

Please explain why you didn't include The Republic in your reading of Plato here.

I meant Richmond Lattimore, my bad nigger.

Republic is the last dialogue in the collection of dialogues in the "A Plato Reader" (whose order is: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, and Republic). "Socrates and the Sophists" is also a collection of dialogues like the "A Plato Reader".

Oh, I see. Thank you.

Please share your Roman reading list

I actually started by reading Plato and then working my way backwards with the presocractic. I feel like I got a lot out of it despite not having read Homer or any of the tragedians because of how easily readable Plato's dialogues are.

You're the mvp user, now do what said please

Plato's dialogue 'Ion' is basically him trashing the common notion that Homer and the other epic poets were wise teachers, and does so again in the Republic, where he says the only poets who should be allowed in his ideal State are those who know about the topics they write about, which he just described in 'Ion' that Homer was flawed in many ways and not an expert in the crafts and expertise he describes in his poems, and essentially implies the unnamed hypothetical traveling poet who he mentions that the people should chase of, is Homer. He also trashes him in Phaedrus and Gorgias; and mentions him a lot in Cratylus and Laws, and casually quotes and cites references to his work (and Hesiod) in other dialogues. He also talks about the tragedians and lyric poets in those works in the same manner, and Aristotle deals with them a lot in his Rhetoric and Poetic treatises.
I don't have one. I haven't read all of them enough to give a concise list. Plus, their philosophical works aren't as numerous or as relevant to later and modern writers, and their poetry and drama aren't as significant or unique. Where they do best in--history--isn't like the Greeks where Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon's histories are all chronologically connected and tied together, which the Romans really didn't do, and so a lot of their histories tend to overlap each other and the approach of how one should read them for whatever purpose is more numerous and vague.

I probably should've mentioned that I already knew who Homer were before reading Plato. I'm fairly knowledgeable when it comes to greek mythology so my method isn't ment to be prefered if you're clueless about ancient greece.

If you read all the Greeks and forget the Romans, it doesn't make much sense

Homer isn't simply some guy who compiled canonical religious texts for the Greeks in which reading the summary of his poems and of mythology can suffice in completely understand their context in their culture. Homer was considered to be just an entertainer who adapted his own version of telling common stories, but a lot of the poetic entertainers of the old times were seen as suitable didactic teachers to society in their sayings by some of Plato's contemporaries. They told conflicting accounts of the same myths, and thus their credit ability of their works lie on them individually and not the myths they adapted. There was those who took the stories they said seriously, and those who just regarded them as fiction (like Plato).

Regarding the different depictions of mythical heros is also important too. Homer's Odysseus is a pretty admirable guy, while in Sophocles' Philoctetes he's nihilistic and harsh, while in Sophocles' other play, Ajax, he's respectful and admirable; and while in Euripides' Trojan Women and Iphegenia at Aulis he's also an asshole.

I would say Homer is pretty significant, and with regards of how someone should start off reading the Greeks, and aren't restricted to doing so in a very limited time, I don't see why people should skip over him when he's very crucial to the Western canon.

Have you ever thought about writing a guide? you seem like you know your stuff.

You feel for a meme bro
Sorry, you lost

>Similarly, reading the whole corpus of Aristotle can be really rewarding as far as understanding his ourttdated philosophical system in detail
>LE PHILOSOPHY IS LINEARLY PROGRESSING MEME
DUDE WE'RE SO MUCH SMARTER NOW THAN PEOPLE WERE BACJ THEN LMAO

> there's no need to read all the extant plays of the three tragedians
>incomplete Hesiod
>incomplete Plato

laughinggirls.jpg

Just kidding. Overall a decent list. To anyone considering it, the basic point to keep in mind is:

(a) Do not do what OP is doing and decide you're going to read everything before you've even started, because you have no idea what's in store for you and you will probably get worn out.

(b) Do not limit yourself to the "start with the Greeks" charts. If you like what you're reading, read more of it. If you end up liking myths, read the Homeric Hymns, read Hesiod. If you end up liking drama, read more than just the Oresteia. If you end up liking Plato, read more of him (having the option to do so at will is why you SHOULD buy the complete works).

What genres are you interested in? Most of the (good) Romans are a blast, but they have very different literary strengths than the Greeks.

The rest of the other tragedies by them aren't that interesting or that impactful on later writers, and not worth it if you're reading through the Greeks just to understand their culture and context for later works.
I should've included works and days, but I got blindsided and thought it wasn't as interesting poem when I was first writing that comment, as I tried to twim down to make it palatable for new readers. But reconsidering it, I do believe now it's worthy of getting included.
there's dialogues of Plato that aren't worth reading for the average classics and philosophy reader. Laws, for example, is boring and overly long and doesn't have much philosophically to justify someone doing their first run on Plato to read it. There's a few interesting details that surround it that are interesting (it being his alleged last dialogue, how it differs from the republic, and how there's cultural reflections revealed in it--such as the bit where the Cretan character says that homers poetry is foreign in Crete--but it isn't anything sufficient enough to do so. This also applies for the spurious dialogues, rival lovers, critias, Minos, mexenus, and so on that aren't worth it. I didn't mean to say you shouldn't get the complete works little on, but I myself read it cover to cover my first run and I wouldn't recommend others to do the same and read any unnecessary dialogues. I think reading them split up individually is better because those Hackett editions actually have full essays and annotations and textual commentary on those dialogues, rather than just short proluges and sparse annotation like in the complete works. Some say, however, it's better to have such things to the
minimum as say that you should try to read through the dialogues unassisted to form your own theories,!which is somewhat true to an extant, but I do believe for first time readers who aren't familiar with all the proceeding philosophy after Plato to get such additional help. Dialogues like Meno, republic, Theaetetus, Parmenides, and timaeus would certainly help to have them.

What is some good secondary literature on The Republic?

Leo Strauss is a good scholar on Plato and wrote a lot on his republic. The Cambridge companion to Plato also provides a good chapter on the Republic and how his later thoughts on it, as well as ones on his political thought and estimated dating of dialogues.

Thanks a lot, user!