Markos wrote:In my humble opinion (I know that many will disagree with me) a second year text better than the Anabasis is the simplified Anabasis:
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Spending the second year with the simplified Anabasis would also provide an excellent preparation for spending the third year with the unadapted Anabasis.
Jefferson Cicero wrote:Thank you, everyone, for your answers and suggestions. I think I'll try the Loeb edition of the Anabasis, and I'll certainly download those Bedwere audio files. If the Loeb proves too difficult at first, then I'll get the Easy Selections and then move on to the Loeb.
I wanted to know if the Anabasis was the traditional second year text because it seemed to me that most of the texts used in recent decades just didn't seem to fit right for a second year learner. Most seemed too difficult, some seemed too easy, etc. So I thought that maybe the Anabasis was traditional for a reason. I'll see how it works, but I'll need to brush up on my Greek quite a bit first.
I can understand why some Latin or Greek teachers didn't want to use The Gallic Wars or the Anabasis in recent times, but it appears to me that their objections seemed politically motivated, and I don't care about all that. I just need a good second year text that works.
Jefferson Cicero wrote:I can see why Lucian or Lysias might be as good or better than Anabasis for a second year text...
Qimmik wrote:
The reason why Caesar and the Anabasis have been displaced from second-year reading lists, I think, is that today most students don't start Greek until they reach the university level
So did you use Chase and Phillips as a textbook then? how did you find it?
Qimmik wrote:...they can start reading Homer in the second year (Homer occupied most of the second-year curriculum in my day...
Plato's Apology is relatively easy--easier than the dialogues--...
I think Lysias isn't as hard as he's made out to be...
I picked up a copy of Xenophon's Hellenica the other day and found it's written in a very straightforward Greek and reads easily.
I think that students ought to be engaging with more difficult material in the second year, and getting used to the ways Greeks expressed themselves, even if it means something of a struggle--because ancient Greek will always be something of a struggle.
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