I put this post here in hopes both Latin & Greek Lovers would see it.
A little clarification: 1. By “easiest” I mean just that. Needing the least handholding.
I think traditionally Caesar was often the first Latin author students tackled. 2. By
“authors/texts” I mean a complete text, not selections. So for example, a dialog by
Plato I would consider a text but “Pericles’ Funeral Oration” is not a text - it’s a selection.
A letter by Cicero I’d consider a text, The “Catalogue of Ships” no. I’m not looking for
modern compilations of ancient texts either such as a Loeb “Fragments,” etc.
BTW, I wouldn’t ask without first googling around myself but all I got for “1st Latin Authors”
was Octavio Paz! Hence this polite request.
Hi Andrew, for Greek I’d say Euclid or other technical texts where simple repetitive structures are used by the author, and where the difficulty is more in the content than in the Greek itself.
IMHO, the Greek New Testament is easier to translate than anything written in Attic Greek. Of these, the gospel and epistles of John seem the most straightforward to me. Not NT, but in a similar vein, the non-canonical Didache and Shepherd of Hermas are also very straightforward to read, as is something like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
Leaving aside Koine and exploring Attic authors, Xenophon is, indeed, fairly straightforward, although I think his Hellenica is a bit easier than the more often selected Anabasis. It’s quite a stylistic change to jump from Thucydides to Xenophon, as the latter’s Hellenica is designed as a continuation of the former.
One source of good beginning material for the classic Greek reader comes from the Hellenistic period, folks living in Koine times trying to write (a bit) like they did in Periclean Athens. Lucian is fairly easy as he’s mostly writing in dialogue, and I find Aelian (especially his Varia Historia) to be both pretty straightforward and contained in easily digestible bites. Lucian, Xenophon, and the Koine examples are all well known as good starting points. Aelian was often adapted by folks assembling graded readers, such as Morice.
Hence this polite request.