Reading Greek

First published in 1978, Reading Greek has become a best-selling one-year introductory course in ancient Greek for students and adults. It combines the best of modern and traditional language-learning techniques and is used widely in schools, summer schools and universities across the world. It has also been translated into several foreign languages. This volume contains a narrative adapted entirely from ancient authors, including Herodotus, Euripides, Aristophanes and Demosthenes, in order to encourage students rapidly to develop their reading skills. Generous support is provided with vocabulary. At the same time, through the texts and numerous illustrations, students will receive a good introduction to Greek culture, and especially that of Classical Athens. The accompanying Grammar and Exercises volume provides full grammatical support together with numerous exercises at different levels, Greek-English and English-Greek vocabularies, a substantial reference grammar and language surveys.

• Helps students learn ancient Greek at the same time as beginning to explore Greek literature, with the texts used in the first edition retained throughout • Offers heavily revised grammatical sections and exercises designed to meet the needs of today’s students and successfully trialled • Offers a fresh, modern, spacious design making it easier to navigate, with extensive use of illustration in the Text volume and colour in the Grammar volume to highlight different kinds of material

Part I. Athens at Sea: Section One A-J. The insurance scam; Section Two A-D. The glorious past; Section Three A-E. Athens and Sparta; Part II. Moral Decay?: Section Four A-D. Lawlessness in Athenian life; Section Five A-D, Section Six A-D. ‘Socrates corrupts the young’; Section Seven A-H. Socrates and intellectual inquiry; Part III. Athens through the Comic Poet’s Eyes: Section Eight A-C. Aristophanes’ Birds and visions of Utopia; Section Nine A-J. Aristophanes’ Wasps; Section Ten A-E. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata; Section Eleven A-C. Aristophanes’ Akharnians; Part IV. Women in Athenian Society: Sections Twelve to Fourteen. The Prosecution of Neaira: Section Twelve A-I. Neaira as slave; Section Thirteen A-I. Neaira as married woman; Section Fourteen A-F. Guarding a woman’s purity; Section Fifteen A-C. Alkestis in Euripides’ play; Part V. Athenian Views of Justice: Sections Sixteen to Seventeen. Official and Private Justice: Section Sixteen A-H. Official justice, ships, state and individuals; Section Seventeen A-E. Private justice: trouble down at the farm; Section Eighteen A-E. How Zeus gave justice to men; Part VI. Gods, Fate and Man: Section Nineteen A-F. The story of Adrastos; Part VII. Homeric Hero and Heroine: Section Twenty A-G. Odysseus and Nausikaa; A total Greek-English vocabulary of all words to be learnt.