It’s usually recommended for those who have gotten beyond the textbook stage to start with Xenophon. I personally find the Gospel of John and the letters of John (don’t know if they’re the same author) to be easier, but maybe that would seem like proselytizing. In any case, I found an author that is easier than Xenophon.
His name is Hermas. He’s only known for this vision he had which lead him to Christianity or maybe he was already Christian when he had the vision, I’m still reading it. It’s about 30K words long. Here’s an excerpt to show you what I mean:
Ὁ θρέψας με πέπρακέν με Ῥόδῃ τινὶ εἰς Ῥώμην. μετὰ πολλὰ ἔτη ταύτην ἀνεγνωρισάμην καὶ
ἠρξάμην αὐτὴν ἀγαπᾶν ὡς ἀδελφήν.μετὰ χρόνον τινὰ λουομένην εἰς τὸν ποταμὸν τὸν Τίβεριν εἶδον καὶ ἐπέδωκα αὐτῇ τὴν
χεῖρα καὶ ἐξήγαγον αὐτὴν ἐκ τοῦ ποταμοῦ. ταύτης οὖν ἰδὼν τὸ κάλλος διελογιζόμην ἐν
τῇ καρδίᾳ μου λέγων: Μακάριος ἤμην, εἰ τοιαύτην γυναῖκα εἶχον καὶ τῷ κάλλει καὶ τῷ
τρόπῳ. μόνον τοῦτο ἐβουλευσάμην, ἕτερον δὲ οὐδὲ ἕν.μετὰ χρόνον τινὰ πορευομένου μου εἰς Κώμας καὶ
δοξάζοντος τὰς κτίσεις τοῦ θεοῦ, ὡς μεγάλαι καὶ ἐκπρεπεῖς καὶ δυναταί εἰσιν,
περιπατῶν ἀφύπνωσα. καὶ πνεῦμά με ἔλαβεν καὶ ἀπήνεγκέ με δἰ ἀνοδίας τινός, δἰ ἧς
ἄνθρωπος οὐκ ἐδύνατο ὁδεῦσαι: ἦν δὲ ὁ τόπος κρημνώδης καὶ ἀπερρηγὼς ἀπὸ τῶν ὑδάτων. διαβὰς οὖν τὸν ποταμὸν ἐκεῖνον ἦλθον εἰς τὰ ὁμαλὰ καὶ τιθῶ τὰ
γόνατα καὶ ἠρξάμην προσεύχεσθαι τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ ἐξομολογεῖσθαί μου τὰς ἁμαρτίας.
The full text and the Lightfoot translation (published late 19th cent) can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MEWxrLwKyetmLc_OjhVDBFi8zOyAwOCx/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rhjzxypaIe-UKrYRiRPDPWETyqN_Jyff/view?usp=sharing
I got these texts from here:
https://github.com/gcelano/OGA
Because I digitize everything I read in Greek and because I have an algorithm for calculating how well I understand a text, I can safely assert that my reading score for Hermas was 94.5% whereas for ch 14 of Athenaze I scored 94.7%. By the way, there is a stark difference between ch 14 and ch 13. In ch 13, my score was 97.6%. If you score under 90% you’re really struggling, not having a good time and might even mistakenly conclude that learning Greek is hopeless and impossible. I should mention in passing that the Gospel of John I did have an easier time with, scoring 96%. The score is arrived at as follows: for each word you read and understand you get 1 point, for each word whose meaning you don’t understand you get zero points. If you understand all of the words but fail to understand what the pronouns refer to or what the subject and object of the sentence is then you subtract one point. You then add up the total points and divide by the total words and there you have your score. I have to admit that there is a noticeable bias to admit defeat and count a word as being not understood, so whatever score you give yourself, in reality it’s probably a little bit less.
If anyone knows of any other easy to read ancient authors, I would be interested in hearing about it.