| title | Hocbigg - Ancient Greek |
|---|---|
| description | Path to a free self-taught education in Ancient Greek! |
Studying Ancient Greek gives you direct access to the foundational texts of Western literature, philosophy, drama, and historiography. Translations tend to smooth over ideological tensions, rhetorical nuance, and poetic meter. Reading the language lets you meet Homer, Plato, and Euripides on their own terms.
This curriculum is for absolute beginners and assumes no background in classical philology, Latin, or linguistics. It takes you from the Greek alphabet and basic noun-verb morphology to unadapted classical prose and verse. It covers two literary dialects of the classical period: Attic Greek, the literary standard of fifth- and fourth-century BCE Athens, and Homeric Greek, the archaic artificial dialect of epic poetry. Post-classical Greek (Hellenistic Koine, the Second Sophistic, and Byzantine Greek) and auxiliary disciplines are left for later study.
Classical language acquisition is cumulative, so work through the subjects in this order:
- Grammar: Start with Foundations of Attic Greek. Learn the noun declensions, the principal parts of the verb system, and basic syntax before you attempt continuous ancient texts.
- Prose: Move on to Intermediate Attic Prose and Greek Syntax and Prose Composition. Reading unadapted historical narrative and courtroom oratory (Xenophon, Lysias) builds reading stamina, and writing prose yourself reinforces complex clause structures such as conditional sentences and indirect discourse.
- Philosophy: Continue with Classical Philosophy: Plato to get comfortable with philosophical dialogue, conversational idiom, and sustained dialectical argument.
- Poetry: Take on verse only once you read prose fluently. Homeric Epic Poetry introduces archaic epic morphology and dactylic hexameter. Attic Drama and Tragedy covers fifth-century tragic diction, iambic trimeter, and choral lyric.
- History: Study Greek Historical and Cultural Context alongside your intermediate coursework or right after it. It supplies the civic and historical background you need to interpret these texts.
Once you have finished this core sequence and can read Attic and epic texts fluently, you can branch into specialized subfields in Advanced Topics, including historical linguistics, epigraphy, papyrology, and post-classical Greek. For landmark secondary scholarship on Greek religion, oral-formulaic theory, and textual criticism, see Readings. For complementary university lecture series and open audio deep-dives, see Courses.
Resources are on the ancient-greek/resources page.
- Forums: Textkit Greek and Latin Forums
- Subreddits: r/AncientGreek
- Discord servers: Latin & Ancient Greek
- You can also use GitHub issues to report a problem with a course or propose a change to the curriculum. Read more here.
Covers the noun declensions, verb conjugations, core vocabulary, and basic syntax of classical Attic Greek.
Introduction to Attic Greek by Donald J. Mastronarde (University of California Press). The main textbook, with systematic explanations of Attic morphology, accentuation, and basic sentence structure.
Ancient Greek Tutorials (Donald J. Mastronarde / UC Berkeley). An open-access interactive companion to Mastronarde's textbook, with audio pronunciation guides, accent tutorials, and morphological drills.
Learn Ancient Greek (Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies / Prof. Leonard Muellner). A 114-lecture open video course covering two semesters of university grammar instruction, closely coordinated with Hansen and Quinn.
Greek: An Intensive Course by Hardy Hansen and Gerald M. Quinn (Fordham University Press). A fast-paced, drill-heavy alternative to Mastronarde that pairs directly with Professor Muellner's video lectures.
Covers continuous, unadapted Attic narrative and courtroom oratory, moving students from isolated textbook sentences to real ancient literature.
Xenophon's Anabasis I: Text with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary by Geoffrey Steadman. An open-access guided reader with running vocabulary and syntax notes on facing pages, and the standard first step into continuous prose.
Lysias I: On the Murder of Eratosthenes: Text with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary by Geoffrey Steadman. Read this after Xenophon. It introduces Attic courtroom rhetoric and idiomatic conversational syntax.
Covers advanced Attic sentence structure, mood usage (subjunctive and optative), and composing from English into Greek to consolidate your grammar.
An Introduction to the Composition and Analysis of Greek Prose by Eleanor Dickey (Cambridge University Press). The standard modern textbook for complex Attic syntax, with linguistic explanations, clause analysis, and composition exercises.
Greek Prose Composition by Henry Carr Pearson (American Book Company / Internet Archive). A public-domain alternative and supplementary drill book of sentence-level translation exercises keyed to Xenophon's vocabulary.
Covers Socratic dialogue, dialectical argument, and the literary style of middle-period Platonic prose.
Plato's Apology: Text with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary by Geoffrey Steadman. The main entry text for Platonic Greek, with facing vocabulary and grammatical notes to ease the move into philosophical dialogue.
Plato's Crito: Text with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary by Geoffrey Steadman. A direct sequel to the Apology that reinforces Platonic ethical argument and conversational syntax at the intermediate level.
Plato: Symposium, edited by Kenneth Dover (Cambridge University Press). A scholarly commentary to tackle after Steadman's readers, with advanced philological and literary analysis of unadapted Platonic prose.
PLSC 114: Introduction to Political Philosophy (Open Yale Courses). A free lecture series. Its opening lectures give background on the historical trial of Socrates and Plato's political philosophy.
Covers the Homeric dialect, archaic epic morphology, and dactylic hexameter through Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
Homeric Greek: A Book for Beginners by Clyde Pharr, revised by John Wright and Paula Debnar (University of Oklahoma Press). The standard transitional textbook, which introduces the grammar, dialect forms, and meter of epic poetry using Iliad Book 1.
Homer's Iliad 6 & 22: Text with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary by Geoffrey Steadman. An open-access guided reader designed to follow Pharr's textbook, with running vocabulary and metrical aids for two major books of the Iliad.
Homer's Odyssey 6–8: Text with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary by Geoffrey Steadman. A guided reader to study alongside or after the Iliad selections, focused on epic narrative style in the Odyssey.
Covers the poetic syntax, tragic vocabulary, and dramatic meters (iambic trimeter and choral lyric) of classical Athenian tragedy.
Euripides' Medea: Text with Facing Vocabulary and Commentary by Geoffrey Steadman. An open-access guided reader with facing vocabulary and parsing aids, and the gentlest way into reading dramatic verse.
Euripides: Medea, edited by Donald J. Mastronarde (Cambridge University Press). An advanced commentary to use alongside or after Steadman, with a dedicated introductory treatise on tragic language, style, and meters.
Covers the historical, political, and literary development of archaic and classical Greece, the background you need to read ancient literature.
CLCV 205: Introduction to Ancient Greek History by Donald Kagan (Open Yale Courses). A 24-lecture university course on the development of the Greek polis, the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, and Athenian democracy.
Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times by Thomas R. Martin (Yale University Press). A concise narrative history that serves as the main companion reading for Kagan's lectures.
The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Volume 1, Greek Literature, edited by P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox (Cambridge University Press). The standard historical survey of Greek literature, covering cultural context, genres, and authors from Homer to the classical period.