Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks


Friedrich Nietzsche - 1873
    He saw in it the rise and climax of values so dear to him that their subsequent drop into catastrophe (in the person of Socrates - Plato) was clearly foreshadowed as though these were events taking place in the theater.And so in this work, unpublished in his own day but written at the same time that his The Birth of Tragedy had so outraged the German professorate as to imperil his own academic career, his most deeply felt task was one of education. He wanted to present the culture of the Greeks as a paradigm to his young German contemporaries who might thus be persuaded to work toward a state of culture of their own; a state where Nietzsche found sorely missing.

The Odyssey


Homer
    Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation.This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.--Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation.

Agamemnon


Aeschylus
    Classical Greek drama is brought vividly to life in this series of new translations. Students are encouraged to engage with the text through detailed commentaries, including0 suggestions for discussion and analysis. In addition, numerous practical questions stimulate ideas on staging and encourage students to explore the play's dramatic qualities. Agamemnon is suitable for students of both Classical Civilisation and Drama. Useful features include full synopsis of the play, commentary alongside translation for easy reference and a comprehensive introduction to the Greek Theatre. Agamemnon is aimed primarily at A-level and undergraduate students in the UK, and college students in North America.

The Campaigns of Alexander


Arrian
    Although written over four hundred years after Alexander’s death, Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander is the most reliable account of the man and his achievements we have. Arrian’s own experience as a military commander gave him unique insights into the life of the world’s greatest conqueror. He tells of Alexander’s violent suppression of the Theban rebellion, his total defeat of Persia, and his campaigns through Egypt, India and Babylon – establishing new cities and destroying others in his path. While Alexander emerges from this record as an unparalleled and charismatic leader, Arrian succeeds brilliantly in creating an objective and fully rounded portrait of a man of boundless ambition, who was exposed to the temptations of power and worshipped as a god in his own lifetime.Aubrey de Sélincourt’s vivid translation is accompanied by J. R. Hamilton’s introduction, which discusses Arrian’s life and times, his synthesis of other classical sources and the composition of Alexander’s army. The edition also includes maps, a list for further reading and a detailed index.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Epic of Gilgamesh


Anonymous - 1800
    The story tells of Gilgamesh’s adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality. Alongside its themes of family, friendship and the duties of kings, the Epic of Gilgamesh is, above all, about mankind’s eternal struggle with the fear of death.The Babylonian version has been known for over a century, but linguists are still deciphering new fragments in Akkadian and Sumerian.

The Essential Epicurus


Epicurus
    As a philosophy, however, it also denoted the striving after an independent state of mind and body, imperturbability, and reliance on sensory data as the true basis of knowledge.Epicurus (ca. 341-271 B.C.) founded one of the most famous and influential philosophical schools of antiquity. In these remains of his vast output of scientific and ethical writings, we can trace Epicurus' views on atomism, physical sensation, duty, morality, the soul, and the nature of the gods.

Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary


Richard D. McKirahan - 1994
    It provides a wide survey of Greek science, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy, from their roots in myth to the philosophers and Sophists of the fifth century. A comprehensive selection of fragments and testimonia, translated by the author, is presented in the context of a thorough and accessible discussion. An introductory chapter deals with the sources of Presocratic and Sophistic texts and the special problems of interpretation they present.In its second edition, this work has been updated and expanded to reflect important new discoveries and the most recent scholarship. Changes and additions have been made throughout, the most significant of which are found in the chapters on the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles, and the new chapter on Philolaus. The translations of some passages have been revised, as have some interpretations and discussions. A new Appendix provides translations of three Hippocratic writings and the Derveni papyrus.

The Civil Wars


Appian
    For the events between 133 and 70 BC he is the only surviving continuous narrative source. The subsequent books vividly describe Catiline's conspiracy, the rise and fall of the First Triumvirate, and Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, defeat of Pompey and untimely death. The climax comes with the birth of the Second Triumvirate out of anarchy, the terrible purges of Proscriptions which followed, and the titanic struggle for world mastery which was only to end with Augustus's defeat of Antony and Cleopatra. If Appian's Roman History as a whole reveals how an empire was born of the struggle against a series of external enemies, these five books concentrate on an even greater ordeal. Despite the rhetorical flourishes, John Carter suggests in his Introduction, the impressive 'overall conception of the decline of the Roman state into violence, with its sombre highlights and the leitmotif of fate, is neither trivial nor inaccurate'.

The Art and Thought of Heraclitus


Charles H. Kahn - 1979
    500 B.C.), are translated, and the pattern of his thought is reconstructed by the author.

The Odes


Pindar
    Pindar's Epinician Odes - choral songs extolling victories in the Games at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea and Korinth - cover the whole spectrum of the Greek moral order, from earthly competition to fate and mythology. But in C. M. Bowra's clear translation his one central image stands out - the successful athlete transformed and transfigured by the power of the gods.

Encomium of Helen


Gorgias of Leontini
    In this edition Malcolm MacDowell provides a useful introduction, the Greek text, his own English translation, and commentary.

Idylls


Theocritus
    These vignettes of country life, which center on competitions of song and love are the foundational poems of the western pastoral tradition. They were the principal model for Virgil in the Eclogues and their influence can be seen in the work of Petrarch and Milton. Although it is the pastoral poems for which he is chiefly famous, Theocritus also wrote hymns to the gods, brilliant mime depictions of everyday life, short narrative epics, epigrams, and encomia of the powerful. The great variety of his poems illustrates the rich and flourishing poetic culture of what was a golden age of Greek poetry. Based on the original Greek text, this accurate and fluent translation is the only edition of the complete Idylls currently in print. It includes an accessible introduction by Richard Hunter that describes what is known of Theocritus, the poetic tradition and Theocritus' innovations and what exactly is meant by bucolic poetry.

7 Greeks


Guy Davenport
    Salvaged from shattered pottery vases and tattered scrolls of papyrus, everything decipherable from the remains of these ancient authors is assembled here. From early to later, the collection contains: Archilochos; Sappho; Alkman; Anakreon; the philosophers Herakleitos and Diogenes; and Herondas. This composite of fragments translated by Guy Davenport is the most complete collection of its kind ever to appear in one volume.

Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, Volume I: Archaic Greece: The Mind of Athens


Werner Wilhelm Jaeger - 1934
    Paideia, the shaping of Greek character through a union of civilization, tradition, literature, and philosophy is the basis for Jaeger's evaluation of Hellenic culture.Volume I describes the foundation, growth, and crisis of Greek culture during the archaic and classical epochs, ending with the collapse of the Athenian empire. The second and third volumes of the work deal with the intellectual history of ancient Greece in the Age of Plato, the 4th centuryB.C.--the age in which Greece lost everything that is valued in this world--state, power, liberty--but still clung to the concept of paideia. As its last great poet, Menander summarized the primary role of this ideal in Greek culture when he said: The possession which no one can take away from manis paideia.

The Way Things Are


Lucretius
    [captures] the relentless urgency of Lucretius' didacticism, his passionate conviction and proselytizing fervour.' --The Classical Review