Need help choosing Greek/Roman authors

[Minimalist]

He had this passage about an uprising against the senate where everyone just went home after they realized that not enough people had showed up.

Sounds like the typical right-wing rally in Washington.

Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico is more political propaganda than history. However, beggars can't be choosers and we are definitely beggars when it comes to ancient history.

[Kulthenius]

1 pre-Socratic philosopher and 1 historian.
1 book by Plato, not including the Republic (which I plan on buying already).
2 books by Aristotle
1 or 2 other Greek philosophers and/or historians
2 or 3 Roman philosophers and/or historians
1 book by Cicero.

I think that should be a good entry collection. Thanks for your help.

I recommend Thucydides, he was a general and wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War. He greatly influenced Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
From Plato I recommend Apology and Crito.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations - a great book

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

He had this passage about an uprising against the senate where everyone just went home after they realized that not enough people had showed up.

Sounds like the typical right-wing rally in Washington.

Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico is more political propaganda than history. However, beggars can't be choosers and we are definitely beggars when it comes to ancient history.

I disagree, somewhat. While certainly politically motivated (the senate was going to metaphorically emasculate Caesar when he got back from Gaul, the books were a sort of pre-emptive defense), I think it's a stretch to call it political propaganda. It's actually a very good history, being written as a journal by the key player in the events it describes.

His three volumes on the Civil War, on the other hand, are almost pure propaganda, written for the dual purposes of making himself the savior of Rome and his enemies look weak and foolish, or even evil.

Boru

[abaris]

Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico is more political propaganda than history. However, beggars can't be choosers and we are definitely beggars when it comes to ancient history.

It was supposed to be a report to the senate of Rome about the ongoing operations and to get more funding and support. Looking at it from this perspective it's kind of timeless.

[Minimalist]

Caesar claims that 250,000 Gauls came to relieve Vercingetorix at Alesia. The number is patently absurd. Serves much the same purpose as Herodotus 2.1 "million" Persians invading Greece or the bible's ridiculous 185,000 attacking Jerusalem. Simply designed to say "Look How Great I Am."

[Mudhammam]

Well, I recently finished The Iliad and The Odyssey. I must say, I loved both of them. It was like reading an ancient Tolkien or something. I can't say I've read any other war epics, but if Iliad truly is one of the best, I can see why. And to follow that with the Odyssey, in my view, is almost a perfect sequel, although I guess one Greek writer (I can't recall which one) supposedly thought it showed Homer's decline in old age. Right now I'm reading The Presocratic Philosophers by Kirk and Raven, and then I'm going on to Plato: Complete Works, though I'll probably read it in spurts of say, 400 pages, and go on to read some more recent writers that I have on my shelf in the mean time since 1,800 pages of ancient Greek thought sounds a bit daunting. I'm about to order Grene's translation of Herodotus, and I want to check out Ovid too. (I'll probably check out some of the other suggestions once I get through a few other books--also currently on my list of authors to order are Aristotle, Pliny, Plutarch, Cicero, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine). What of Ovid should I order? Metamorphoses? And what translation?

[Neo-Scholastic]

1 pre-Socratic philosopher and 1 historian.: Not much material here, just scraps and fragments for the Pre-Socratics.

1 book by Plato, not including the Republic (which I plan on buying already).: I would go for either Gorgias or the Symposium


2 books by Aristotle: Nichomacean Ethics for sure. From their I would say his metaphysics

1 or 2 other Greek philosophers and/or historians: Plotinus - The Eneads (kinda long)


2 or 3 Roman philosophers and/or historians 1 book by Cicero.: Marcus Auraleus - Meditations

I think that should be a good entry collection. Thanks for your help.
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[Pyrrho]

So, for a while now I have wanted to go through some of the monumental voices of ancient Western civilization. I just ordered Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (translated by Robert Fagles) and I own Virgil's Aeneid (trans. by W.F. Jackson), which I haven't yet read, and Lucretius' The Nature of Things (trans. by Alicia Stallings), which I have read. I'm looking for the following (please recommend translation if you have preference):

1 pre-Socratic philosopher and 1 historian.
1 book by Plato, not including the Republic (which I plan on buying already).
2 books by Aristotle
1 or 2 other Greek philosophers and/or historians
2 or 3 Roman philosophers and/or historians
1 book by Cicero.

I think that should be a good entry collection. Thanks for your help.

I recommend getting an old copy of The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers: The Complete Extant Writings of Epicurus, Epicetus, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius edited by Whitney J. Oates. You can buy this from web sites that sell used books, and it can be currently had from Amazon for about $22 including shipping, though you may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere. It contains a very good translation of Epicurus' works, which I highly recommend to everyone.

For one of your books on Aristotle, I recommend The Nicomachean Ethics translated by W.D. Ross, put out by Oxford. You can currently buy a paperback of that from Amazon for about $7.

For Plato, I would go with the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, which you can get all together in a Dover Thrift Edition for about $3. They call this The Trial and Death of Socrates, and it is the Benjamin Jowett translation. Jowett is one of the most poetic translators of Plato, and is well-suited for a work like the Apology.

You can also find most of these works online, for free.

I have not filled your list, but it should get you started.

[bennyboy]

Well, I recently finished The Iliad and The Odyssey. I must say, I loved both of them. It was like reading an ancient Tolkien or something. I can't say I've read any other war epics, but if Iliad truly is one of the best, I can see why. And to follow that with the Odyssey, in my view, is almost a perfect sequel, although I guess one Greek writer (I can't recall which one) supposedly thought it showed Homer's decline in old age.

Can I assume you've read Virgil's Aeneid as well?

[Mudhammam]

Can I assume you've read Virgil's Aeneid as well?

I own it but haven't read it yet. I'm about 1/3 of the way through Plato's complete writings at the moment. I'm trying to go through them in something of chronological order.

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I recommend getting an old copy of The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers: The Complete Extant Writings of Epicurus, Epicetus, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius edited by Whitney J. Oates. You can buy this from web sites that sell used books, and it can be currently had from Amazon for about $22 including shipping, though you may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere. It contains a very good translation of Epicurus' works, which I highly recommend to everyone.

Thanks. Lucretius was great. This will go well with The Presocratic Philosophers by Kirk and Raven in my collection. That gave a pretty good analysis of the thinkers in that era.

For one of your books on Aristotle, I recommend The Nicomachean Ethics translated by W.D. Ross, put out by Oxford. You can currently buy a paperback of that from Amazon for about $7.

For Plato, I would go with the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo, which you can get all together in a Dover Thrift Edition for about $3. They call this The Trial and Death of Socrates, and it is the Benjamin Jowett translation. Jowett is one of the most poetic translators of Plato, and is well-suited for a work like the Apology.

You can also find most of these works online, for free.

That Aristotle is on my list. I loved all four of those Plato's works, especially Apology. That to me represents the literary craftsmanship of Plato while Parminides reveals his complete mad genius. There's a few others I've enjoyed so far too, including The Sophist. I'm almost to the Republic but I'm taking a break and reading about earlier mythology, such as the Egyptian, Akkadian, Sumerian, etc. works. Then I have Histories by Herodotus to go through, and an early work by Nietzsche on the Presocratics that he never finished and was published posthumously, before I return to Plato... which is all part of my project to go through the main characters in Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy. It's quite the task so I appreciate the suggestions to help me narrow things down. Ill probably be much more selective than I've been with Plato and the ancient Near Eastern texts.

I still might claim that nothing earlier than Plato that I've read touches Homer in his masterpieces. That to me is what divine inspiration ought to look like.