Which one author to start with?

[Tertius Robertus]

Salvete, graeci!

Since I have finished my grammar, I would like to start at once to read greek in the wild. Therefore, my question is: which one author to choose from?

This such question has been asked before and has always been aswered in the following terms: "pick the one you are interested in".

Ok. But I want one who is such to have a fairly constant style. I mean some one author who uses concrete words a lot and whose constuctions are all the same of the same (and quite easy to deal with). Like Caesar in latin.

Can it be so?
Cheers!

[vir litterarum]

It really depends on whether you want to start with Homeric or Attic Greek. If Attic, then the best options are Plato or Xenophon, preferably the Apology or the Anabasis because there are several excellent commentaries available for the beginning reader.

[annis]

Ok. But I want one which has a fairly constant style. I mean some one author which uses concrete words a lot and whose constuctions all the same of the same (and quite easy to deal with). Like Caesar in latin.

Xenophon is most like Caesar for Greek. The Anabasis has long been the usual first author after beginning Greek, at least in the English-speaking world. You can find lots of material for it. The syntax used in beginners' books isn't much like the syntax of Greek in the wild, so it'll be tough going at first, but that's true for any author.

You might find some of Lucian's dialogs (Dialogues of the Dead, and Dialogues of the Gods) pleasant as an occasional diversion. They're short and they don't usually contain anything too trickified. I think he was a standard beginners' author in the Renaissance.

http://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Θεών_Διάλογοι — cut-n-paste URL - phpBB filters URLs badly when they have unicode

[annis]

It occurs to me that there's one more thing you must start on now — prose composition. It will solidify your grounding in grammar and is a good way to build vocabulary, which is going to be a major concern from now on.

The North and Hillard comp book is probably the best start — it's available in many places, along with the key, including recent reprints which are reasonably priced.

[Tertius Robertus]

thanks guys, xenophon's anabasis shall be my pick.

cheers!

[Essorant]

Homer.

[aloimonon]

It really depends on whether you want to start with Homeric or Attic Greek. If Attic, then the best options are Plato or Xenophon, preferably the Apology or the Anabasis because there are several excellent commentaries available for the beginning reader.

Concerning the Anabasis, could you please list those readers of which you are aware? Currently, I am aware of only these two readers:

http://www.amazon.com/Xenophons-Anabasi ... 464&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Xenophon-Persian- ... 00&sr=8-10

Could anyone add to the list of Anabasis readers?

[mingshey]

[aloimonon]

[mingshey]

Thanks mingshey,

The fault is mine, because in this case I had forgotten to mention that I'm was looking for a compact hard copy for when I'm on the road and have free time.

Again, thanks for your help- maybe I'll just print out PDF out.

Oops, I'm sorry!
I've been too far accustomed to referring only to free online materials.

[aloimonon]

Thanks mingshey,

The fault is mine, because in this case I had forgotten to mention that I'm was looking for a compact hard copy for when I'm on the road and have free time.

Again, thanks for your help- maybe I'll just print out PDF out.

Oops, I'm sorry!
I've been too far accustomed to referring only to free online materials.

Hi again, mingshey, I think that your proposal was a great one, no need to apologize! The fault was mine because I was unspecific in my request. I've downloaded all of your suggested PDFs which I did not already have. I can print out the Anabasis reader by Goodwin and reasonably accomplish my goal.

Again, thanks for your help.

[savarez]

http://www.amazon.com/Xenophons-Anabasi ... 464&sr=8-2

Good choice for a hard-copy. Copious notes. Easily available both new and used since this edition is used in almost everywhere for second year Classical Greek.

The only thing I wish were different is that the sections are not numbered. It would be nice if the sequences were numbered consistently with the Oxford editions from Clarendon (which appear on Perseus).

[Dimitri]

Annis,

In reference to your October 4th posting about prose composition that it will ground you in grammar. Can you elaborate more on this since this interests me a lot and is necessary for all Greek scholars to be able to write well. Are you familiar with certain books/materials that will help?

thanks,
Dimitri Guest

[annis]

[Dimitri]

Annis,

thanks very much for your informative response!

Dimitri

[tronDB]

I know that you've already chosen your author (Xenophon), but I just thought I'd chime in here and offer to the rest of the board an unconventional starting text which I believe really helped me out in the beginning of my reading career: Lysias' "On the Death (Murder) of Eratosthenes." It's an excellent but often ignored starter text. Short, simple vocab that appears in almost every grammar, lots of idioms and "conversational" style, and much information about Athenian culture and legal life. Also, it's far less literary (consciously artistic in its use of language) than Plato and Xenophon, which presented me with a lot of frustration when I first started them. My recommendation to new readers: Start with "On the Death of Eratosthenes," then move to more literary stuff like Plato or Xenophon.

[thesaurus]

I know that you've already chosen your author (Xenophon), but I just thought I'd chime in here and offer to the rest of the board an unconventional starting text which I believe really helped me out in the beginning of my reading career: Lysias' "On the Death (Murder) of Eratosthenes."

I'm still getting on my feet, and I did this for one of my first real texts and enjoyed it. I used it in the "Greek for Post-Beginners" series that I found on Amazon. It has lots of commentary and grammar discussion.