I want to study Greek and Roman civilizations on my own. Where should I start?

Question

I took a university course a few years ago on Classical Mythology, and I became completely fascinated with the civilizations of Greece and Rome. If I wouldn't have been so close to finishing my Anthropology degree, I would have changed my major to Classical Studies. Ever since that time, I have wanted to study more about Greek and Roman civilizations, but the amount of available information is overwhelming and I don't know where to start. I am not really in a position at this point to return to school so I would like to do a self-study of Greek and Roman civilizations. Are there any Classics professors or classicists out there who can offer me some guidance. Also, I would like to teach myself to read Latin and Classic Greek. How difficult will this be and what are the best textbooks to use?

Answer 1

I understand your fascination - I had that same experience when I was about 10, when I first read Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I took Latin in high school and then went on to get a Bachelor of Arts Classical. As a previous person has stated, I would start with the Greek civilization and then move on to the Roman. There are many excellent ancient authors that you can read in English translation; Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon were all Greek historians that we had to translate in class. Then you have Plato, Aristotle, other philosophers and the playwrights - there is a wealth of information out there, and that is just for Greek history. The Romans had an equally illustrative past and it is hard to know where to start.

There are many books out there to teach yourself Latin and Greek, but I have not used them so I do not know what to recommend. You must have excellent grammar skills, as Latin and Greek are both inflected languages. There is a website where you can download free readers and grammars, and they have an online forum where you can post things. I do not believe that is is a very active site, but you should be able to get some help there.

Answer 2

If I were you I would start off studying the Greek Civilization first, looking at it from a historical time line then working my way into the Roman Civilizations, like the previous guy said a library would do, but i would go to a university or college library, most likely because it would have more older and recent collections on the topic, why not try your old university library, since your an alumni, you can probably take out the books for free without having to pay for a library card.

Answer 3

There are 2 books called Reading Latin (one grammar and one text) that are good for learning Latin, and they go hand in hand. From there, you could read Livy or some of the other great Roman writers.

Answer 4

some correspondence courses are a "work at your own pace" course. have you tried that?

Answer 5

your local library and the internet