Thrasymachus (Greek Language)

Thrasymachus: Greek Through Reading is the best beginning Greek reader I have found. The readings are graded, meaning they start easy and then require more sophisticated grammar as you proceed through the book.Thrasymachus does have some drawbacks, which I explain below. However, for what it is - a Greek reader - the book is excellent. The readings are interesting and apparently introduce a lot of Greek culture and mythology. I like the learn-by-reading approach, and this book gives you a lot of reading practice.This book includes no translations of the readings. This is a good thing - you are forced to work through them "without a safety net," so to speak.This book was first published in 1965; the text in this book is a 1970 revision of that.The book's introduction says: "This book is intended primarily for pupils who have done enough Latin to have a working knowledge of the simpler uses of the cases of nouns and adjectives, and of the persons and tenses of the verb in the indicative."I am a self-learner who knows no Latin, but I have studied the basics of Greek using other books. I was able to make it through the first 15 pages of Thrasymachus. After getting this far, you run into the middle voice, which has finally slowed me down enough that I'm going to back to my main grammar book ( Greek to GCSE: Part 1 ) for a while. (Middle voice is not covered in the GCSE series until book 2.)The first 15 pages tell the story of a Greek youth who is given a guided tour through Hades and meets lots of interesting Greek characters. I don't know what the rest of the book is about, but I assume it's also interesting and just as good.I call this a supplementary text for the following reasons: The grammar explanations are minimal. For self-learners, this book is not sufficient to learn the grammar necessary to do the readings. Even for classroom use, I think this book would require a lot of additional preparation by the teacher. There are no grammar exercises in the book. There is no table of contents or index.The typeface on some pages is unfortunately a bit blurred. The font in the readings is different from the font in the dictionary and vocab lists, which adds a bit of confusion. If I don't pay attention, I also sometimes have trouble distinguishing the kappa and chi characters in the vocabulary and dictionary fonts, because they look similar. (The kappa looks like a shortened chi to me.)I said the book is mostly readings; actually, the entire second half is 1) English to Greek translation exercises, 2) "appendix" type material on grammar, and 3) dictionaries, both Greek to English and English to Greek.Each reading has its own handy vocabulary list. These are at the back of the book, so you will keep your thumb there as you read. There is also a comprehensive dictionary at the end of the book.I say comprehensive dictionary, but unfortunately, the book apparently does not give definitions anywhere for some vocabulary. For example, kago and kagathos. Only after internet searching did I find that kago is a contraction of kai and ego, meaning "I also." And that kagathos is a contraction of kai and agathos, used in the common Greek phrase kalos kagathos, "beautiful and brave." How would a novice know this? Some of the vocabulary is also given only in the short grammar explanation for a section, but not anywhere else. I searched a long time, including the internet, for the word chrusous ("golden") before I realized this.For self learners like me, I would suggest you start with the book  Greek to GCSE: Part 1 . This is the easiest and best beginning grammar I have found for ancient Greek. (There is a newer edition coming out fall 2016,  Greek to GCSE: Part 1, Revised Edition .) After completing this GCSE book, pick up Thrasymachus for some enjoyable reading practice.If you like learning by reading, I can also recommend the following: Ancient Greek Alive . Lots of easy, entertaining readings in ancient Greek.The Reading Greek series, which consists of two books,  Reading Greek: Text  and  Reading Greek: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises.  There are other supplementary books in this series, including one for independent learners. (Note: There is a newer edition; I have given here the older edition that I own.)Another reading approach is  Athenaze, Book 1 . However, I personally find the readings in this book to be boring, at least the first several chapters of the 1990 edition that I own.Some very old readers, which I have seen recommended on the internet but have not read myself, include: - Rouse's Greek Boy: A Reader, by William Henry Denham Rouse - A first Greek reader, by Charles M. Moss - Greek reader, by William Watson Goodwin - The first Greek book, by John WhiteNote: You can't absorb grammar just from reading alone. If you try to just charge through the readings, eventually you will hit a wall, and have to return to more grammar study before you can proceed.

I have taught Attic Greek with all manner of books from Athenaze (reader, do not go there!) to Russell & Keller (great if you want to study with Casaubon from Middlemarch!). Thrasymachus is in my opinion the most comprehensive and delightful Greek text currently available – with a few caveats. First, it is not for everyone. I only use this book with students who have a strong foundation in Latin, generally three or four years with a focus on grammar. Thrasymachus gives minimal grammatical explanations because it assumes a Latin background. Pretty much everything from the uses of the dative (the new ablative!) to indirect statement to memorizing endless noun paradigms is second nature to students of Latin. Next, students must be willing to jump through the hoops memorizing morphology, principal parts and oodles of vocab. Be prepared to make lots of flashcards. And check out Quizlet. And have the time and perseverance to do the very valuable exercises that reinforce the learning. Finally, if you have learned Latin in the US, the case order will be kind of funky. The Brits follow a different case order. But, guess what? Rewriting all those paradigms with the US case order is another opportunity to reinforce the material. I supplement the bare-boned grammatical lessons with corresponding explanations from Hansen & Quinn or Russell & Keller or Mastronarde. This is especially valuable for understanding the verbal concept of time and aspect, the structure of the principal parts and past indicative augment, conditionals (again, the Brits and Americans have different mindsets), the use of particles as well as gaining theoretical insight into the morphology of contractions along with additional practice with accents – btw, there is no reason that anyone who can learn Greek cannot master accents upfront, so be suspicious of any text that assumes differently (e.g. Athenaze and Greek to GCSE et al.). Thrasymachus combines mastering this grammar with a reading method, where the student absorbs form and content from reading and rereading the cleverly constructed passages that review material in subtle ways (e.g. using the same verb with different persons and tenses in a span of two sentences or repeating phrases and idioms). The Greek text is masterfully written in a style that could probably not be duplicated today. It impressively mimics real Greek and even integrates actual Homeric passages into the later chapters. What I especially appreciate is the story line that does not talk down to the reader or assume the necessity of a stultifying plot. Each chapter involves a dialogue between Thrasymachus, an earnest and good-hearted yet woefully naïve lad, and a more sophisticated interlocutor who does not hesitate to poke fun at the innocent boy who is making a journey to the underworld and learning about the gods behind the myths. There is an occasional (VERY occasional) non-PC comment about catty goddesses like Juno and loose women like Helen and the susceptibility of randy gods and dullard men alike to their wiles. It is all in good fun and should not detract from the hilarity of the text even by hard-core feminists (such as myself). Make sure you explore the structure of the textbook, which does not appear to have a table of contents: there is an accompanying vocab section for each chapter along with a chapter reference to the corresponding grammatical explanation in the back of the book – a long and super valuable syntactical review; an accidence section that presents all the paradigms; a section that lists the six principal parts of verbs pp. 244-253 (in the 1992 reprint edition); as well as a Greek-English and English-Greek (the latter for the challenging English to Greek exercises) glossary in the back. And, finally, where would we be without the maxims and proverbs from the Holy Book to Aesop and the songs reproduced from Rouse to regale family and friends: Frere Jacques and Pop Goes the Weasel . . . in Greek (pp. 108-111)!

The authors keep the grammar, morphology, and syntax simple for beginners and yet at the same time the readings are creatively entertaining, putting a humorous spin on well-known myths.-Classical Studies Faculty

Amazing resource for mastering Ancient Greek. Not recommended for absolute beginner but for the student who has at least completed Athenaze or something similar...This book can be read for free online, but I prefer actual books! This is the third time ordering this book online. In the past, it arrived in less than perfect shape (the books must be kept in less than ideal circumstances until they are purchased, I cannot say) but this one looked much better! Only one corner was tweaked. Some of the ink is faded and words are hard to read. But that must be due to the printing process, rather than storage. Very appreciative for Amazons return process. I will keep this book and try to bend back the tweaked corner. Its close enough!

The content of the book is overall speaking good, however there are some pages missing (p161~170) from the book I ordered.

Be warned. This book takes no prisoners, but it's magnificent in its thoroughness. There is so much practice of all the grammar (so lacking in other books) that it's inevitable that most of it will go in. One quibble is in the treatment of indirect speech, where the alternative use of the optative in historic sequence (common enough) is hidden away in a footnote. But if a student has banged all the way through Thras, either being maddened by or enjoying the puerile humour, the vast majority of Greek Grammar will have been absorbed, sufficient for Finals. Supplement this excellent grammar with Taylor's translation passages, and you'll get the best of both worlds.

It does what it says on the tin. Greek.