Yeah, one page per day sounds much more reasonable. It will be the first time that I spend time reading a Greek author fully from beginning to end.
For whoever wants it, here is the text on Perseus with links to the lexicons and all:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0199
Just thought that would help!!
I would say the following:
Firstly no vocabulary is unworthy of being learnt, even if you only rarely use it its worth having simply because it widens your impression of Greek.
As for Thucydides, well, I don’t think he’s the easiest author to tackle but it could be worse. At the end of the day your vested interest is worth more than any perceived difficulties 9/10 so if you want to do him then do so. I would say for what it’s worth that I find Herodotus and Polybius much much more entertaining.
Hey Scrib,
Yeah, I have my Polybius VI and I plan on getting to it. If people really wanted to read Polybius I would. But I am not sure there is sufficent interest in Rome here. Also, the missing books make it somewhat less appealing. But I disagree about the vocabulary. I like the visual dictionaries that are available these days, but there are many words that are a waste of time, oh for example, like these:
http://www.ikonet.com/fr/ledictionnairevisuel/bricolage-et-jardinage/bricolage/plomberie-outils.php
Attic legal terms would be much more worthwhile than the names of farm implements. Once upon a time I suffered through a three volume French historical novel about rural life. I believe in learning from one’s mistakes! If I don’t care about or even know the word in English, I’m not going to want to know it in Attic!
Well, since you’re defining useful vocabulary as “vocabulary that interests you” (which is reasonable), I doubt anyone else can say much that will be terribly helpful to you on this matter. I’d suggest that the best way to find this out would be to read a bit of the Histories in English and see whether he’s talking more about political terms or about names of trees and farm implements.
I know for sure I could not read Thucydides at the rate of two pages a day. I have the first vol of Thucydides LCL 1924. I might comment occasionally once the thread gets underway. The reading level is quite different depending on the genre. The narrative history is not as difficult as the orations. Narrative has a higher level of standard vocabulary.
I’d like to read with you. I have the OCT. How is this reading group going to work?
Bob
Good question. I won’t be able to comment much at all. I want to read for my passive skills. I won’t be translating or working through things very deeply. I want more exposure than anything. I don’t know what others are expecting.
Ah to be fair I can see your point. I know how annoying it is when you come across a Greek word, have no idea what it is, look up a dictionary and have no idea what the English is either.
I remember once in a Latin seminar we were studying Juvenal, there were a few references to fish strewn throughout the poetry. The Professor, famous enough that I shan’t name him, went onto a lengthy aside about the nature of various fish, whether or not the Latin matched what might have been swimming around at the time/what we called them - derivations similar to Sanskrit/Armenian etc.
And myself? well to be frank I had no idea what the hell a turbot was.
Well, the tentative plan is to start reading one (Oxford) page per day beginning on Jan 8. We’ll do that until we are done with Book I. Then we will see whether we want to double the pace. Hopefully we can so that we can finish it in about a year. People can post any question they have in the thread. Hopefully there is so much interest that somebody will answer the question promptly. And hopefully the thread will become a repository of useful ideas and links. But I am open to suggestion.
Well, I certainly won’t be translating. But my thinking and experience is that after 700 pages passive becomes pretty active. For example, there might be some strange construction that one doesn’t fully grasp. But after you have seen it 40 times you get used to it. And after 80 times, you actually completely understand it.
Well, that seems ok, since the orations are the highlights and so worth some more work. What % of each would you say?
UPDATE: Answer: orations are about 22% of the whole.
I would like to join this group.
I have read Thucydides more than once in English translation, having only encountered the Greek in small chunks at various times. I studied the book in detail both as an undergraduate and graduate student as well as private readings on my own time. I have studied Greek both inside and outside a classroom in fits and starts for the past 7 years. Alas, my mastery is far from complete.
As far as this thread goes, I have a few questions and comments. First, what do you mean by 1 page a day. Would that be a chapter as at the Perseus website and Oxford edition? Second, I think you will find that Thucydides is as much philosophy as anyone though the style is admittedly different from, say, Aristotle. It is political philosophy at its finest. Following some of the orations and their “logic”, as you call it, can and should be as difficult and rewarding as Plato. Third, I wouldn’t worry too much about the vocabulary. Thucydides shouldn’t have as many unique words as Herodotus simply because the focus is wildly different.
Cheers,
Eliot
Welcome aboard Eliot. Feel free to expatiate here in the thread whenever the mood strikes you. It would be great if we can have folks giving us historical/political insights as well as grammatical ones. One Oxford page per day. I think that is a reasonable pace and it should work out to be a very steady one. Links to the Oxford texts can be found above. Also, I am hoping/expecting/planning that we can up it to 2 pages a day once we finish Book I, because it would be nice to get through it in about a year. We really need people to get deep enough into the text so that there is no turning back!!! Folks might also want to check out Sidgwick because he uses many examples from Thucydides to explain various nuances of Attic syntax. For example, elegant and economical uses of ws come to mind.
If you look at the Oxford, http://www.archive.org/stream/thucydidishistor01thucuoft#page/6/mode/2up, there is some kind of introduction thingie in Greek, transliterated MARKELLINOU. Is that some kind of later bio of Th.?
That is the “Life of Thucydides” by a man named Marcellinus. I don’t know who he was and most “knowledge” of him is conjecture. I think he lived in the 5th or 6th century A.D. and might have been a translator of Thucydides appending his own intro.
When are we going to get started? New Year is tomorrow!!
We will start as soon as 4 people say that they are ready or Jan. 8, whichever comes first! I am curious how people think they are going to do it. I think that using Perseus is fastest.
There are four people in this thread who have said that they want to do it. 
I’ve divided the text into readings day-by-day with color distinctions. This is the text for all of January according to the page divisions in the Oxford version.
I’ve set the start date as Jan 8.
You rock Jason! I’m in for January 8th as the start date.
Cheers,
Eliot