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FALL 2009 CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT
XENOPHON'S OECONOMICUS, book 8. Six two-hour classes, Sept.-Dec. 2009. $35 per class. Prerequisite: you must have completed a basic Greek course or have comparable knowledge. For those interested in continuing, this class will continue in 2010. Application has been made to the MA Education Dept. to give PDPs for this course.

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Beginning Greek Courses
--Homeric Greek: An Introduction. Sign on for an epic experience.
--Introduction to Classical Greek. Many seminal writers in the Western tradition--the historian Herodotus, Plato, the Greek dramatists--to mention but a few--come to us in classical Greek. Know your Greek!
--Introduction to Philosophical Greek. Acquaints the beginner with technical philosophical terms and gives practice in reading Greek that deals with philosophical ideas.
--Introduction to New Testament Greek. An easy access to Koine, the language of common Greeks after the 4th c. B.C.

Intermediate Greek Courses
--Aristophanes. Adapted texts from Wasps, Lysistrata, Acharnians. Plays of the late 5th c. B.C. from a master of Old Comedy.
--Against Neaera. Adapted selections. This speech, dated around 340 B.C. and sometimes attributed to Demosthenes, deals with accusations of a false claim to Athenian citizenship by a former slave and prostitute.

Courses in Specific Greek Authors (If you would like to read authors who are not on this list, please let us know.)
--Iliad and Odyssey.
--Plato. Apology.
--Kore Kosmou (a Hermetic text, from between A.D. 100-300, describing creation, etc.).
--Greek Lyric Poetry. Selections from the 7th and 6th c. B.C.: Archilochus, Tyrtaeus, Semonides, Alcman, Mimnermus, Solon, Alcaeus, Sappho, Ibycus, Anacreon, Theognis, Simonides, and Bacchylides.
--Herodotus. Histories.
--Sophocles. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles' masterpiece according to Aristotle.
--Euripides. Medea, the classic story of rejection and revenge.
--Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Born around 460 B.C., the author greatly advanced historical writing.
--Xenophon. Anabasis (Journey Up-Country). Xenophon (born around 430 B.C.) recounts his retreat through Asia Minor with Greek mercenaries.
--Xenophon. Gynaikologia: The Training of a Greek Housewife. Xenophon's views on women and a look at daily life.
--Plato's Dialogs: Protagoras, Phaedo, Gorgias, Republic, etc.
--Lysias. On the Murder of Eratosthenes. Euphiletos is accused of murdering a man having an affair with his wife.
--Demosthenes. Third Philippic. Oration (341 B.C.) to arouse Greece against the conqueror Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.
--Asclepiades of Samos and Leonidas of Tarentum. Epigrams from the 3rd c. B.C. Asclepiades wrote mainly on love; Leonidas often on the lot of the poor and destitute.
--The Tablet of Cebes. A Hellenistic allegory of life and morality.
--New Testament, e.g., John's Gospel, a mystical text with some of the easiest ancient Greek.
--Apollodorus. The Argonauts; Heracles. Stories possibly written around A.D. 200.

In the preface to his James Joyce's Ulysses, Stuart Gilbert wrote "I had begun by reading the Odyssey and though at first I found my knowledge of the Early Ionic sadly rusty after many years' obsolescence, facility came with progress, and, with it, a renewed, and enhanced, pleasure in the greatest of all epics. Indeed the Odyssey is quite easy reading; a smattering of Greek (seconded by a good dictionary and W. W. Merry's notes) suffices. No other work of literary art in any language is equally refreshing and rewarding, and if I can persuade any of the readers of Ulysses to follow up with a reading of the Odyssey in the original--translations are but reflections in a tarnished mirror--I shall have done them a good turn."

Ancient Studies Institute, 154 Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 02139, USA 617-868-6850 paul@ancientstudiesinstitute.org