Reading

We do a lot of reading in Classics 220. In fact, there's a reading for every day of class (except test days) and they're not short. There are six required books (listed below, in case you're interested) and we'll read ALL of them (not excerpts) before the semester ends. They're paperbacks and average around 235 pages each. There are also 18 online readings which are pdf scans of books and book parts which we (thankfully!) were not required to purchase. I'm sure some are out of print anyway.

I started the semester printing the pdf's but that turned out to be a big waste of printer ink - and you know how much ink costs these days! Now I just read them off the screen... although this aging brain still struggles with comprehension when I can't highlight key phrases or scribble in the margins! Fortunately the professor supplies a 12-question reading guide for each - to help us focus on the things he wants to emphasize.

A lot of the readings are direct translations from Greek or Latin or whatever ancient language they were written in, and, for the most part, are very readable and quite modern translations. I read Homer's "Iliad" in high school but I don't remember it being quite this easy to follow. Some of the prose and poetry is difficult, but worth the effort to fight through.

I've always been an avid reader, but this has really stretched me. It sure doesn't pay to leave reading until the last minute because then I really risk not comprehending while I'm rushing to finish. And, of course, every class period has a potential pop quiz. Even without that extra incentive, it's wise to keep up - otherwise I'd probably have to spend 3 solid days reading before tests! It's better just to review the reading guides.

The test grades were finally posted last week... I did fine, but apparently not everyone was up to speed on the readings. That section of the test accounted for probably 20% of the grade so they decided to "curve" it this time with a threat to not go so easy next time. Students not making the effort are not only hurting their grades, but they're missing out on some really fascinating learning. What a shame.

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The books...
~ The Golden Ass: The Transformations of Lucius, by Apuleius, Robert Graves
~ The Essential Iliad by Homer, Stanley Lombardo, and Sheila Murnaghan
~ Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds, Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West
~ The Life of Alexander the Great by Plutarch, Arthur Hugh Clough, Victor Hanson, and John Dryden
~ The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles, Bernard Knox, and Robert Fagles
~ The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, Michael Grant, and Robert Graves
~ The Essential Aeneid, Publio Maron Virgilio and Stanley Lombardo

And the readings...
(The links here are NOT our pdf versions and might be different translations)
i. Pomeroy, Early Greece
ii. Osborne, Greece in the Making, Chapter 2
iii. Hesiod, Works and Days
iv. West, Greek Lyric Poetry
v. Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians
vi. Xenophon, Politeia of the Spartans
vii. Herodotus, On the War...
viii. Thucydides, On Justice...
ix. Livy, History of Rome
x. Historia Augusta, Hadrian
xi. Pliny, Letters
xii. Vitruvius, On Architecture
xiii. Martial, On the Spectacles
xiv. Tertullian, On the Spectacles
xv. Ovid, Art of Love
xvi. Pausanias, Description of Greece
xvii. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
xviii. Galen, On the Sects...