On an ascending scale of difficulty from 1 to 10, if we take Euripides’ Hecuba as 5, how difficult to read would you estimate Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War to be?
I know it’s hardly an accurate measure, but I would like just as approximate an answer as those in the know could give.
All I can say is that my classics tutor, who read classics at Oxford, told me about one of his professors, an expert on Thucydides, who confided to him that he always needs to review the text before giving a class and always feels a bit of trepidation before the class lol.
I’ve read Book VI, using a combination of Dover and Shelmerdine. I found some parts of it to be relatively straighforward, other parts less so (to say the least).
The difficulties arise because of his economy of expression, or as Dover puts it in his introduction, “he often tries to say too much in too few words.”
JACT offer a graded introduction to him in their “The Intellectual Revolution” volume, if you fancy plunging in.
That says it so well. Most people find Thucydides quite challenging. Some narrative sections do flow fairly easily, and then wham! There are earlier threads on Textkit where this is discussed. What have you read prior to this? It might be better to spend some time first in some (relatively) easier prose authors, especially Xenophon and the never boring Lucian of Samasota.
Thanks for all of that, folks. Bottom line is: it’s not the best choice to go for, for a first try at an original text.
The reason I asked was because someone I know recommended to me Hornblower’s commentary on Thucydides as a “gold standard” of commentaries on classical prose. The problem is, I only read Latin.
I was very surprised to read this. See for example https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1992/1992.06.09/.
It’s crazy to think of reading Thucydides as a first Greek text. When you feel up to it try using Thucydides Book 1 : a students’ grammatical commentary, H.D. Cameron, Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2003.
If you haven’t ever read an unadapted Greek Text try Xenophon or Lysias 1 The Murder of Eratosthenes.
So this thread got me to finally start reading Thucydides in Greek. I’ve now just finished the first set of speeches, between the Corcyreans and Corinthians. This is a special milestone for me because it was in reading Thucydides in translation, particularly the speeches, that I first decided to learn Greek. Of course it wasn’t long after that it was revealed to me that Thuc. is considered to be the hardest Greek writer, so he went on the back burner for quite some time.
I’ve been using Cameron’s commentary as well as Stork’s Index of Verb Forms, both of which have been very helpful. I’ve also been skimming Gomme’s commentary after each couple of chapters. Cameron is better than I expected. There are some points where I’m surprised he provides no commentary at all, but I think he generally strikes a good balance between keeping the reader challenged and providing too much help.
It’s also been a pleasure to read prose after reading poetry exclusively for so long. I find that I don’t have to check the dictionary as often, and when I do check it it’s to see if my understanding of the word is correct, not because I don’t have any idea what the word means.