I've only read the Odyssey,the Iliad,the Republic and the Peloponnesian wars.
I read the Iliad as a kid and I didn't care for it yet when I reread it later as a young adult I liked it. I was old enough to appreciate it as a good war story and set aside the great literature aspect.
An old lady I knew( she was 98 in 1985) gave me a book by Nathaniel Hawthorne about the Greek myths and it was interesting. I also read Edith Heads book on the same topic.
I eventually arrived at the conclusion the Greek myths were essentially a teaching tool as to how mankind should conduct itself,we don't want to make the same mistakes the gods do.
So anyway, you guys ever get into ancient literature?
As a book only the Oddysey.
The Iliad just a summary of the story, and the rest of Greek history by documentaries and/or reading about the important events.
I have read pretty much everything that still remains. My parents are both from Cyprus so I grew up having to learn all that stuff. Some of it is quite different in the Greek vs the translations - I had to learn ancient Greek to read it in the original but that also meant that I could read NT Greek and hence the New Testament which is excellent to read in the Greek.
One of the things with Greek literature is that there are many different styles. Read for example some of the plays of Aristophanes and they feel very different to Homer or to Plato.
Sadly much Greek literature is lost to the sands of time now. I do agree with you to an extent that the myths are a sort of teaching tool although it seems as though many people genuinely believed the myths also. But even there they are often quite different from each other in terms of style of writing and general story.
The most fascinating that I read of the pre Christian period would be the history of the Peloponnesian war by Thucydides he of the "trap" fame. This is a timeless piece as it basically describes the US / China dynamic right now and any number of similar geopolitical situations in the past.
Me too. I fell in love with Socrates (or rather Plato's version of Socrates from the Apology) and studied Greek philosophy in uni. My interest grew to include Hesiod, Sophocles and Thucydides. Never put enough effort into it to get more than a superficial knowledge of the Hellenic language though.
I read the Iliad in 3rd grade (which was pretty normal for me—I read the Odyssey in 2nd and the Aeneid and Le Morte D’Arthur in 4th). I was banned from bringing my copy of the Iliad to school after one recess where all the third graders were reenacting the Trojan War.
Xenophon and Herodotus were also fun. Didn’t like the Odyssey so well.
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Read Illiad and Odysee as an adult.
Xenophon's Anabasis is a great read. Also Herodot's Histories. They read like fantasy fiction.
Anabasis really should be made into a movie. The book is about a Greek army marching thousands of kilometers to get home to Greece after a botched war, encountering all sorts of crazyness on the way.
You mean the textbook of Physics that tells us about Physics came from a word Fusis which means nature
And blah blah blah
@Waiting4BirnamWood said in #6:
> I like Aristophanes. His work contains a subversive, timeless humor. I could not stop laughing when I read „Women at the Thesmophoria“.
You probably mean the "Thesmophoriazousai" (Women celebrating the Thesmophoria, "θεσμός" means "law", in the sense of "tradition", "habit", "φoρειον" is "the carrier", so the festival is the bringer of the [old] law). Yes, it is subversive humor at its best, IMHO only comparable to the writings of Voltaire.
I had to read it in highscool (I had classes in ancient greek), but really understood it only when I re-read it as an adult. I even more liked "Lysistrata" (the "Dissolver of armies").
I learned latin and greek at school, so read quite a bit of what was alaready meantioned here.
Most boring was Xenophons Anabasis, and as I remember it now - more than 20 years later - Sokrates wasn't as brillianat as I had expected, parts seemed rather ironic or even sarcastic. For example in a discussion, someone suggested that best for society was what was best for the indivdual. Sokrates replied about was follows: We have a wrestler or maybe weight lifter here, and beef is best for him. So is beef best for society?
Ilias and Odyssey were brilliant, just a bit special regarding vocabulary that needed to fit into the hexameter metric. But the desciriptions truely inspired my phantasy.
Thanks for reminding me, I think I'll read a bit tonight instead of playing chess...
