French anthology of Greek texts (over 13 centuries)

Greek Learning Greek
1

Hi all, some here may already know about this work, but in case others don’t (I’ve just discovered it), passing on the info:

French scholars have had for quite some time a nice anthology of Latin works (Les lettres latines). You can see e.g. the first volume here:

https://archive.org/details/morisset-thevenot-lettres-latines-i/page/n3/mode/2up

The basic principles: a nice spread of texts over time and genres, decent chunks of each work (rather than short extracts), introductory remarks and light footnotes to aid reading, no translations.

There are nice bound copies containing all volumes in one book; I managed to pick one up at a second-hand bookstore in Avignon for less than 10 euros, and there will be others around: I’ve been working my way through this.

The news I wanted to pass along is that over 70 Hellenists have worked together to make a Greek version: Les lettres grecques, which came out in mid-2020. I stumbled upon it in a bookstore in Paris (I hadn’t heard about it before). It covers 13 centuries of ancient Greek and follows the same basic principles as the Latin version which I summarise above. You can flip through a short sample of the anthology here:

https://en.calameo.com/read/0052959622050e5ea0d80

This has just jumped up to the top of my reading list: I’ll see whether I can get through it over the next few months…

Cheers, Chad

2

Thanks for the tip. Since I don’t seem to get myself back even to Thucydides, perhaps this will help me get a idea of all those authors I never find the time to read.

3

É., has Thucydides been translated into Finnish?

4

Yes, there’s one translation from the 1960’s, though I’ve found some English translations and especially de Romilly’s French one to be of more help when tackling with the Greek original.