How do I start with the Greeks?

How do I start with the Greeks?

By actually starting with the romans because the greeks are totally inapplicable to today

Just read the Iliad. Yes you will think it's a massive book, yes you will also don't understand anything the first 50 to 100 pages. Just struggle through, try reading it aloud and look at some internet resources every now and then.

Start with Plato. You're going to get meme'd into thinking that you need to study a dozen irrelevant presocratics, and have a scholarly understanding of Greek mythology and history. But in reality, a book with footnotes, and google should clear all of that up. He's a pretty easy read for a beginner; though you might want to find some analyses of the text you're reading, so that you can absorb it to its fullest potential.

Entire Ulysses is a reference to the Odyssey. Yeah, pretty inapplicable today.

How is a century old book like Ulysses applicable today?

It was written for an entirely different target audience.

I already did
Odyssey and Aeneid too

Then move on to Greek playwrights, historians and poets. Sappho, Pindar, Aeschylos, Sophocles, Euripides, Homeric Hymns Hesiod, Herodotus and Thucydides are all amazing imo.

>But in reality, a book with footnotes, and google should clear all of that up.
yikes.

How is it difficult to read a 200 page general description of Greek myth/culture and a general summary of the presocratics of similar length?

read Thucydides History, Herodotus Histories, Xenophons Anabasis, Frogs, Three Theban Plays, Electra