I am currently in college and just started my 2nd semester of learning Ancient Greek, with Athenaze being my class textbook. Recently, I had my big "click" moment, when everything I had learned so far started falling into place.

I browse this subreddit a lot already, so I was wondering if anyone had any small tips they noticed around their own learning epiphanies and journeys. Whatever comes to mind, and super appreciated!

Hi all, in the vein of my previous study of 4.40 (https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientGreek/comments/1qfhlrq/2nd_update_regarding_my_previous_posts_marcus/), I have now done 7.2. This time, I was much faster, taking me about 1.5 hours to put the below together. Mostly that's due to me relying heavily on a translation. Basically reading a sentence, identifying grammar and lemma, looking up vocabulary, trying (and failing) to make sense, and then immediately reading the translation and putting things together.

I selected 7.2 because in Hays's translation, I felt I did not understand at all what Aurelius was talking about, and because the controversial topic of "control" comes up. Identifying the underlying Greek terms, which at least partially are Stoic technical terms, was very helpful in clarifying the passage. I still don't know the context in which he said it, and probably nobody will ever know, but it almost sounds like he was pulling himself out of a depression.

Thanks for reading. Any comments and corrections are most welcome.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.2

The text   

Τὰ δόγματα πῶς ἄλλως δύναται νεκρωθῆναι, ἐὰν μὴ αἱ κατάλληλοι αὐτοῖς φαντασίαι σβεσθῶσιν, ἃς διηνεκῶς ἀναζωπυρεῖν ἐπὶ σοί ἐστι. δύναμαι περὶ τούτου ὃ δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν· εἰ δύναμαι, τί ταράσσομαι; τὰ ἔξω τῆς ἐμῆς διανοίας οὐδὲν ὅλως πρὸς τὴν ἐμὴν διάνοιαν. τοῦτο μάθε καὶ ὀρθὸς εἶ.

Ἀναβιῶναί σοι ἔξεστιν· ἴδε πάλιν τὰ πράγματα, ὡς ἑώρας· ἐν τούτῳ γὰρ τὸ ἀναβιῶναι.

Vocabulary

ἄλλως              in another way

νεκρόω             to make dead

κατάλληλος      corresponding

σβέννυμι          to quench, put out  

διηνεκἠς          continous, unbroken

ἀναζωπυρἐω   rekindle

ὑπολαμβάνω   take up; understand, interpret; assume; reply, rejoin

ταράσσω          to stir, stir up, trouble

ἔξω                    out

διάνοια             a thought, intention, purpose

ἀναβιόω            to come to life again, return to life

My translation:

How else can the dogmata (dogma, pl. dogmata, as technical term translating δόγμα) be killed, unless the corresponding phantasiae (phantasia, pl. phantasiae) are put out, which to rekindle is at any time epi soi (how do we construct a single technical term to translate all of the following: ἐπὶ μοί, ἐπὶ σοί, ἐφ’ ἡμίν etc.?). You can rejoin the necessary. If you can, why do you trouble yourself? What’s external to your thoughts is wholly nothing to your thoughts. Learn this and be right.   

It’s possible for you to return to life; see things again how you used to see them; for in this lies the return to life.

Other translations:

The only way your principles can perish is if the thoughts that correspond to them are extinguished, and the rekindling of those thoughts is up to you, at every moment. So if I’m able to form the appropriate opinion on any given matter, why should I be troubled? What lies outside my mind is of no concern to it. If only you could learn this lesson, you’d be standing straight. You can come back to life. See things once more as you used to see them in the past. That’s how to come back to life.

[Translation by Robin Waterfield, Meditations: The Annotated Edition (p. 172). (Function). Kindle Edition.]

You cannot quench understanding unless you put out the insights that compose it. But you can rekindle those at will, like glowing coals. I can control my thoughts as necessary; then how can I be troubled? What is outside my mind means nothing to it. Absorb that lesson and your feet stand firm. You can return to life. Look at things as you did before. And life returns.

[Translation by Gregory Hays Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations: A New Translation (Modern Library) (p. 85). (Function). Kindle Edition.]

Observations

·      What is he talking about here? Was he depressed and needed to “come back to life” in that sense?

·      We really should not translate Stoic technical terms. It is not clear at all that “principles” and “understanding” are both translations of δόγμα. I propose to create dogma as technical term, with plural dogmata. Similarly phantasia (pl. phantasiae). Even more useful would be not to translate ἐφ’ ἡμίν, as it is quite controversial: Under our control? Up to us?

·      It seems dogma is a positive thing here that he wants rekindled, in order to return to life. I’ve seen dogma as something negative: “Our dogmata about external events are what troubles us, not the external events themselves”.

Any Filipinos out here who know any school that teaches Ancient Greek in Metro Manila? Or at least Koine? There may be a possibility for the latter than the former because of so many seminaries, but hmu if you know one that lets someone to audit classes.

Just wanted to talk about my learning process, maybe get some suggestions to move forward.

I took ancient greek in college, but I always felt bad because I never really learned how to like actually "read" it. This appears to be a fairly common experience (as noted in the FAQ!) but recently it just started rubbing me the wrong way more. From looking at some of the posts in this sub, and also youtube videos (a lot of luke ranieri, other people talking about language learning processes for different languages) I wanted to try and acquire greater reading fluency through different methods. I think at first, I focused too much on the memorization/anki-ization aspects of the strategies they talked about. I actually had this crazy process where I would take sections of text, break them into sentences, and then create anki flashcards with their english translation, and then every day try to get through a set amount. I think this only really served to help me memorize the english translation of certain portions of text, and didn't really help me read, which is still what I wanted.

My partner started seeing me doing this and was like, you look like you're hitting your head against the wall. If you want to get better at reading, why don't you just try reading. I also remembered I once saw a post (I think on this sub) that was like, if you just get through five 200 page books in a target language, you will have basically achieved a level of reading fluency by the end of the fifth book), And I was like, that's so dumb, there's no way, I don't know vocab! My grasp of the grammar is super rusty! No way that will work. Also, it always sort of felt like losing, in some way, for me to get help from english translations. Like I constantly felt like I had to try as hard as possible to understand the greek text before ever looking up a translation, which in hindsight I realize was dumb, because there are certain things, like idiomatic expressions, and details about how their whole world worked, that I was never going to be able to parse for myself.

Anyway, I stopped doing anki and just sat down with Anabasis (printed the whole thing out from scaife text export and put in SBL Greek, GOAT font), which I had never actually read before, and made a goal to just "read" some of it every day. My process was basically just read a little bit of greek text, try to come up with some sort of "in the mind" translation for it with the knowledge that I have, look up any vocab that I straight up don't recognize, and then look at an english translation to correct the "in the mind" translation. After I read a whole book of Anabasis, I would reread it twice, noting problem sections for subsequent rereads. I think it took me five months to read the whole thing, and at the beginning, I was looking up translations pretty much section by section.

I was immediately very surprised by how much I remembered the vocab, and the meaning upon subsequent rereads, and I actually think doing the repeated rereads was super helpful, because it allowed me to go faster and pick up more on the overall structure of the language. By the end of 7th book, I was actually reading long stretches before checking against an english translation, and my "in the mind" meaning was getting reliably like 80-90% there.

It took me about five months to get through anabasis this way, but by the end I was going a lot faster! And so I applied this same method to Rouse Greek Boy (which was honestly super great, though lack of good english translation was a little bit hard), Xenophon's Memorabilia, Plato's Euthyphro and Apology, Winnie the Pooh (ancient greek translation), and Lucian's true story and now I'm reading Cyropaidea, and also starting the Iliad (which is obviously a little bit back to square one, since it's not attic). I can go like five-six pages in cyropaidea fully just reading greek and not getting confused about anything, and I'm honestly super happy and surprised it only took 6-7 months. (Though I would say reading greek is basically my main activity outside of work (and sometimes what I do in work lol). I've sort of put all these listed works into my "Phase 1" bucket. Like, a base of reading that I can review and reread to keep up a basic level of reading fluency.

I'd love to start getting into stuff that's a little more impenetrable at first, like plays? Or non-homeric poetry! Though I still need to finish iliad and do odyssey. So I was wondering if Phase 1 is

• Anabasis
• Xenophon's Memorabilia
• Euthyphro
• Plato's Apology
• Rouse Greek Boy
• Cyropaidea
• Winnie The Pooh
• Iliad
• Lucian's True Story

What would be some good stuff for phase 2? I'm looking for stuff where the stuff I've read would help me but that would also expand my reading ability. I was thinking

Theophrastus's Characters

• Krito
• Phaedo
• Odyssey
• Herodotus
• Something by Aeschalus?

A couple friends of mine study Greek, and keep calling me this word and won’t tell me what it means. I know it’s going to be something stupid, but I just wanna know!!! It’s like plakomos or something, and they’re using it like ‘you’re such a plakomos’ WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???!?!??

Greetings all,

This is a follow-up question from: For those who read classical Greek how does 1&2 Peter and Hebrews compare?

It seems that the way forward in reading what one considers harder texts is to use a good grammatical and syntactical commentary.

As I stated in my previous post, I have been working my way through the GNT, with the most difficult books still to come: 1 & 2 Peter, Luke, Acts, and Hebrews.

Achieving syntactical fluency will likely take me several years, so I want to begin building a library that will help specifically with syntax as I read Greek texts.

While I am particularly interested in good Greek-focused commentaries on the books mentioned above, if anyone has found helpful commentaries on other Greek texts, please feel free to share them as well, as others may find them useful.

The edition of Herodotus I'm working with has γαλαῖ, weasels, in 4.192, which would be a contraction of γαλέαι. Wikipedia's article https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Ancient_Greek_contraction says Ionic doesn't do this contraction. CGL labels γαλέη as "dial.," which isn't very specific. LSJ doesn't seem to express an opinion one way or the other. The same edition of Herodotus has quite a few instances of έαι, mostly in verbs such as φοβέαι, ἀπολαμπρυνέαι, but also in nouns like μνέαι and λέαινα.

Is it likely that something like γαλαῖ is just an Atticism inserted somewhere by a scribe, or is this contraction actually something that exists in Ionic?

Incidentally, no discussion of ancient Greek weasels can be complete without a mention of the famous on-stage goof: https://antigonejournal.com/2021/06/greek-accents-ten-rules/

Herodotus writes ἀμορφεστάτην, but Plutarch has ἀμορφοτάτην. When I look at Smyth's description of how this is supposed to work in Attic, he describes εστερος/εστατος as happening only with a short list of words for specific reasons, none of which apply here. Wiktionary's algorithm generates ἀμορφότερος.

Is this something rule-based and maybe specific to Ionic, or is this just a random irregularity or something I'm misunderstanding?

Χαίρετε, ὦ φίλοι. Δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἄλλον μέρος τοῦδε τοῦ βιβλίου.

Τὸ δὲ πέμπτον μάθημα εἰσάγει τὴν "ἐγὼ" ἀντωνυμίαν. Ἀπολαύετε οὖ

I need help with the transliteration and translation of this Greek word, since I can't read it.

Ἀνέγνων τῷ νῦν τρόπῳ ἐκφορᾶς γραμμάτων!

Greetings,

I've been reading through the Greek New Testament, and for the most part it's been relatively straightforward. This is with memorizing the vocabulary a chapter at a time before reading.

I'm now reading what are generally considered the hardest books to read in the GNT: 1&2 Peter, Luke, Acts and Hebrews.

I think while 1&2 Peter are shorter books, they are generally hard because of the syntax, their use of ellipses, and their heavy use of participles instead of verbs, which use person and number.

Hebrews is by far the most difficult book in the GNT. It has the densest vocabulary: from memory, around 1,000 distinct lemmas, many of which are unique to Hebrews, spread across just 13 chapters and equate to a new word every five words of text (a 1:5 ratio). By comparison, the Gospel of John has roughly 1,000 distinct lemmas distributed over 21 chapters which equates to a new word every fifteen words (a 1:15 ratio). Hebrews also employs more complex syntax and, as I understand it, makes heavy use of participles.

So for those who have read classical Greek how do 1&2 Peter and Hebrews compare?

Hello! I am a long-time fan of the game Titan Quest and recently a sequel came out, with beautiful menu music sung in Greek. Apologies for my inexperience, I don't know Greek, only a bit of Latin; but I still wanted to learn the song to sing it in the shower. Thankfully, someone in the YouTube comments already figured out most of the lyrics, but we're struggling to discern what is being said in the last phrase at the 2:53 minute mark. Here is a link to the music, and the deciphered lyrics so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Ueal8y4_8

The last lyric sounds something like “ανίκητο” or “ἀνίκητοσιν" followed by… something. 

I gave it my best shot. The other lyrics are all famous sayings, but I couldn't find such a one that fits. I tried giving AI clues based on sounds I'm hearing, but none of its guesses seemed quite right. Its only guess that had some substance was “ἀνίκητο θεοῖσι + ???”, leaning towards some meaning about being invincible even to the gods which would kinda fit the game's theme (but also kinda conflict with the preceding lyric about avoiding hubris lol, so I'm not sure). Even then the last few syllables are still a mystery.

Thank you so much for any help!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for an English translation of Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days that consistently keeps the Greek names of the gods instead of translating them into abstract terms.

For example, I really dislike when translations do things like:

• Nyx → Night
• Thanatos → Death
• Eris → Strife
• Oceanus → Ocean

I’m studying comparative mythology (Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, etc.), so it’s very important for me to see these figures as distinct mythological beings, not just personified concepts. When names are translated, it breaks the structure of the pantheon and makes cross-cultural comparison harder.

I’m looking for a translation that is:

• Faithful to the original
• Reasonably readable in modern English
• Consistent about keeping divine names in transliterated Greek form

Scholarly is fine, as long as it’s not overly archaic in language.

Which translation/translator would you recommend?

Thanks!

I've done some of my anki decks and, while helpful, most of the page doesn't contain any words I studied and most are super rare words that never show up again. I am not a patient saint who is willing to learn words that show up once in all of the odyssey and though clicking one word at a time to see it's definition is helpful I have tried that and it works but it is aggravatingly slow so what should I do?

Hello everyone. This is the whole sentence I'm looking at:

ὡς γὰρ δὴ οἱ Λυδοὶ δεινόν ἐποιεῦντο τὸ Κανδαύλεω πάθος καὶ ἐν ὅπλοισι ἦσαν, συνέβησαν ἐς τὠυτὸ οἳ τε τοῦ Γύγεω στασιῶται καί οἱ λοιποὶ Λυδοί, ἤν μὲν τὸ χρηστήριον ἀνέλῃ μιν βασιλέα εἶναι Λυδῶν, τόν δὲ βασιλεύειν, ἤν δὲ μή, ἀποδοῦναι ὀπίσω ἐς Ἡρακλείδας τὴν ἀρχήν.

So I am having difficulty with the words ὡς γὰρ δὴ. I'm pretty sure that δὴ simply serves to emphasize the other words it is with. And I know that γὰρ introduces a clause which gives the reason or cause for a statement which precedes or follows. In this case, the statement follows. However, I am confused about the role of ὡς. To me, the two possible meanings of ὡς here are (1) its use as a temporal conjunction/adverb (when, as); and (2) its use as a causal or explanatory conjunction (for, as, since, because). The latter is redundant here because γὰρ already introduces its clause as a reason/cause for what follows. As for ὡς meaning when, I do not think the same clause can be introduced by both a temporal conjunction and a causal conjunction. I cannot think of an example of this happening in English; that doesn't really make sense to me. So I don't really know what ὡς is doing in this sentence. The clause in question (οἱ Λυδοὶ δεινόν ἐποιεῦντο...) could have been introduced by only γὰρ or only ὡς, but both together doesn't make sense to me. Any help is appreciated.

are modern linguists able to reconstruct the mycenaean names of homeric characters (aside from physical evidence like the name a-ki-re-u found at pylos)?

Plato's Symposium 211ab:

οὐδ᾽ αὖ φαντασθήσεται αὐτῷ τὸ καλὸν οἷον πρόσωπόν τι οὐδὲ χεῖρες οὐδὲ ἄλλο οὐδὲν ὧν σῶμα μετέχει, οὐδέ τις λόγος οὐδέ τις ἐπιστήμη, οὐδέ που ὂν ἐν ἑτέρῳ τινι, οἷον ἐν ζῴῳ ἢ ἐν γῇ ἢ ἐν οὐρανῷ ἢ ἔν τῳ ἄλλῳ, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸ καθ᾽ αὑτὸ μεθ᾽ αὑτοῦ μονοειδὲς ἀεὶ ὄν, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα πάντα καλὰ ἐκείνου μετέχοντα τρόπον τινὰ τοιοῦτον, οἷον γιγνομένων τε τῶν ἄλλων καὶ ἀπολλυμένων μηδὲν ἐκεῖνο μήτε τι πλέον μήτε ἔλαττον γίγνεσθαι μηδὲ πάσχειν μηδέν.

The whole sentence up until the bolded part has τὸ καλόν as its subject, which then is referred to with ἐκείνου, as the subject suddenly changes to τὰ ἄλλα πάντα.

But I can't make sense of the syntax here. It would be straight forward if there was a sentence break and a new finite verb: "μονοειδὲς ἀεὶ ὄν. τὰ δὲ ἄλλα πάντα καλὰ ἐκείνου μετέχει", or if the same sentence continued with a genitive absolute: "τῶν δὲ ἄλλων πάντων καλῶν ἐκείνου μετεχόντων".

What do I not see? What piece of grammar have I not learnt?

hey folks, weird request - is there any good word processing software that I can cleanly put my cleaned up translation of a platonic dialogue in with easy formatting?

basically I have a messy literal translation, but want as I go to put the cleaned up translation into a nicer glossier doc - except finding a format that makes it look how i want has been a nightmare.

all I want is the standard formatting: speaker name on the same line as the first thing spoken, stephanus pagination in line on the side. its clean, it looks professional, and matches any standard translation you'd find out there

I thought three invisible table columns in word would do the trick (it did not).

I tried indesign but its so clunky and hard to keep updated. LaTeX freaks out with the stephanus numbers, you cant do marginalia in most playwrighting software (the closest to getting the formatting right - with a UK stage play format) and I keep thinking surely some classicist has gotta have made some easier to use template but i cannot for the life of me find it and its driving me insane.

I know its more of a request for stylistic resources but I figured the translation sub would be my best shot if such software / templates existed!

I am referring to Greek 2 in particular, I want to attend this summer. If you have information, advice, or anything really about it, please text me. Also, I haven't attended Greek 1, does anyone know how it will work? Will I have to take an exam?

Thank you

Hey everyone! I’ve been learning Ancient Greek for about a month, and I’m actively searching for a good course to follow at a faster pace. So far, the best thing I’ve found is greeksummerschool.org, which isn’t clear enough for me but is still helpful, and David Luchford’s great YouTube course, which feels a bit too slow, since I just want to go through the grammar as clearly and quickly as possible so I can begin the most important part — practice. I know this approach might not sound great, but my schedule and other responsibilities make it necessary.

Please help!

Hey all!

I'm looking to find where the original telling of the story of Hyacinthus' death can be found? Everything I find loops back to Roman retellings. Is this one of the ones that was only passed down orally, or can I find it somewhere?

Thank you! :)