Which of the Greek and Roman classics did you personally enjoy reading the most?

Which of the Greek and Roman classics did you personally enjoy reading the most?

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Plato

Archilochus and Vergil

homer and plato. mostly plato

I guess that is dependent upon how you compare them. Is it like you only pick your top favorite work by them or simply everything?

Aristotle might be my favorite, but I really love Thucydides. Xenophon is awesome just from the aspect there's a lot to read, that's fairly diverse, and even if his writing style and thought aren't on par with others he's just a top-tier comfy read desu.

Metamorphoses or The Satyricon. Maybe the Biblioteca.

Metamorphosis

1) Lucretius
2) Lucretius
3) Lucretius
4) Lucretius
5) Lucretius
6) Lucretius
7) Lucretius
8) Ovid
9) Lucretius
10) Lucretius
11) Lucretius
12) Homer
13) Lucretius
14) Lucretius

Plato, most of his stuff
Seneca, the epistles
Plutarch, the moral essays
Lucretius, De Natura Rerum

Honestly, the cream of philosophy is found in these. Aristotle of course supplants the last three in importance, but if we're talking about stuff that's simply enjoyable and comfy to read, he has to (and only in this sense) be excluded. And Cicero, while perhaps more piquant in the actual Latin, is otherwise rather dull in reading (though 'On Duties' and a few others should be required reading).

Aristophanes. He's a bit less respected than the more intellectual ones, but I like scat humor. And his Plato's relation to him is interesting.

I never read Romeo and Juliet but read Hamlet, Macbeth Julius Cesar.
Is it worth it?

For example I would tell anyone who has seen movies, plays of Hamlet to still read the play itself because of just how much it encompasses

Parts of it are tremendously silly. But other parts can still set you on track to welling up with tears. It has a rhythm to it we haven't surmounted yet that your imagination can't help but take hold of and get carried away with. It is beautiful despite being overplayed. But if there's anything that can't be overplayed, it's our dude Bill Shakespeare.

But anyway, back to the topic at hand..

Of the Greeks, Thucydides. Of the Romans, either Tacitus or Catullus.

Socrates when he bantered. Also his Apology.

The Aeneid. Homer BTFO

>plutarch

How much have you read?

Not him, but read all of The Lives before moving on to other Plutarch writings. One of the few authors that has added serious value to my life. Highly recommend.

Aristotle also has some top class banter, it's just more subtle. Mostly when he intellectually dices other philosophers up.

Yeah I wanted to know how much of the Moralia he (and, now that you responded, you) had read. Lots of people know the Lives, few have even heard of the moralia.

Plotinus.

Seneca the best

fpbp (first poet, best poet)

are his works dialogues as well or does neo platonism take a different route

A little off topic but dont want to start a thread i recently got a cambridge companion to plato. do i read this first or during or after.

Roman poetry is fun to translate because it's all personal banter with crass jokes.
I tried approaching Cicero, but this nigger is unreadable and I don't want to degrade myself to translations.

After, 100%. There are maybe 2 or 3 essays there which will give you a general overview of Plato that doesn't require reading him first, but the rest of that Companion is about specific dialogues, or specific topics as addressed over multiple dialogues, and none of it will make sense if you haven't already read them.

Consider reading Copleston's section on Plato (about 150 pages total) for a general intro to Plato and his big ideas. Cambridge companions are great, but the essays are of varying quality, scope, and difficulty; it's harder to get into a groove with them than it is with a continuous narrative like Copleston's, and the Companion will be much more demanding on your understanding not just of Plato in general, but what each specific work brings to the table; a more general overview is readable even if you don't remember the details, or haven't read big chunks of Plato.

Also worth checking out:
Continuum companion to plato
Cambridge companion to plato's republic
AE Taylor's "plato the man and his work"

Let me know if you have any more questions; I've read all of Plato and 9-10 secondary critical volumes about his work, including both cambridge companions.

Fuck bro cheers. 7/7 reply Umm maybe what was the best critical work of his overall and what one/s would help with his epistemology and theory of forms I have already read quite a few dialogues but recently restarted because of long breaks in between. Also not a scholar this is personal interest sort of thing though I do write sort of critical essays To Help myself with comprehension and retention as I work back through this time. Also any further reading into his maths as a way to "shut people down" that I've noticed like saves mathematics for his finisher moves. Top effort on your readings BTW, was this for university or just because?

Homer, Sophocles, Theocritus, Ovid

I really liked books on history: Herodotus and Thucydides duo.

What does Veeky Forums think of Sparta? I can't help but idolise them despite all the modern disparagement against it

Aristotle's Politics gives some viewpoints on Sparta. Besides Crete and Carthage, Aristotle thinks that Sparta was also a well assembled polis. Though, he criticizes the most famous part of Sparta - militarism.

They aren't dialogues, they're essentially treatises.

Aristophanes, Ovid, Lucretius
>A bit past classics:
Lucian, Ausonius

OP here. I've read the moralia. And again, I'll preface by acknowledging that as with most of the Hellenic/Roman philosophers, there was as much synthesizing and reiterating going on as there was original ideas and notions, but (imo) the writing of Plutarch stands head and shoulders over most others for sheer pleasurable reading on the marrow of philosophy. The stuff you need and use on a day to day basis.

His Lives is perhaps the more "important" work for the insights it affords us, and also unto itself a pleasure to read. And again, any number of other figures were more original and more "important." Aristotle obviously, but too, dudes like Cleanthes, Zeno, Heraclitus, Epictetus maybe. But I'll reiterate that there's something to Plutarch's style that just seems like he knows intimately a truth that Socrates held near and dear, the ephemerality and range of human conversation. As such, Plutarch reads with our imagination and our own knowledge in mind, and he's occasionally a riot. Just comfy stuff. As per my original list, Augustine would perhaps be added, but at that point, he's beyond the time frame we're perhaps looking at.

Emerson used to 'warm up' by reading sections of the Moralia before writing.

Ah, now that's a pleasant tidbit of info. Emerson also has that same "big soul" just peering out of his pages, that warm talkative style you also see in Montaigne that feels like you're visiting that deep friend of yours and he's just happy to see you. Though admittedly, I haven't read Emerson nearly as much as the other aforementioned

greek are ghey

Petronius, Apuleius, Suetonius, Seneca.

Have you read all of the moralia?

My modern library paperback edition of the Lives also has the Emerson quote "a bible for heroes" on the cover. He must have really had a thing for plutarch.

I've only read the lives so far, and only about 1/3 of them, but sprinkled throughout the bios and definitely in the coupled comparisons, that parallel with montaigne is totally on point. He doesn't appear to be condemning, just commenting, gently judging, and offering suggestions for improvement.

Yes, and along with a few other books, like the above poster said, among the books which have had the biggest impact on my life and outlook. Encourages you to remain poised in the balance, and well-rounded.

I haven't read ALL of the lives, admittedly there's a book wherein the component parts, I've picked through, and thus, once I ran out of all the most immediately interesting figures, couldn't help but forget.

Homer, Virgil, Catullus, Aeschylus. They are all love.

What are the essential dialogues of Plato? I'm looking to get into him but not sure where to start.

The Republic, perhaps!

>Thucydides duo.
How does it compare to Herodotus?

last days of Socrates, basically his first 4 starting with apology. then phado symposium republic.

I enjoyed Quintilian very well...

Aristotle

Thucydides is usually considered the greatest historian of all time and his writing style is absolutely the opposite of Herodotus.

You should read The Peloponnese War by him if you like history, especially Greek. It's also probably one of the best texts out there covering numerous things (political science, forms of governance, oration etc.)

William Gass also includes it as one of his 50 literary pillars.