Ancient Greek Resources
Textbooks
Readers
Dictionaries and Tools
(In order to pace myself with this list, rather than trying to make it as complete as possible from the get go, I
will add a few entries to this page each weekly update for as long as I have entries to add.)
Textbooks
Λόγος - Ἑλληνικὴ γλῶσσα αὐτοεικονογραφημένη. (Logos - Lingua Graeca per se illustrata)
Logos follows the direct method of language learning, refraining from using languages other than Ancient Greek in
its lessons. A big differential of this book is how simple it starts, introducing new vocabulary and grammatical
concepts very slowly in its first chapters. In the first few chapters, most of the vocabulary can be somewhat
easily understood by the glosses on the margins of the pages or by context. However, as you proceed through the
chapters, the book does pick up the pace and more frequent visits to a dictionary will be necessary. That said, the
book also does a very good job of not leaving vocabulary behind, it consistently works spaced repetition within its
texts. Every once in a while you will also find chapters composed entirely with vocabulary you have already
learned, making for a very satisfying reading experience.
Supplementary material
Readers
Faenum Publishing Readers http://www.faenumpublishing.com/
"Faenum Publishing is an independent, open-access publisher, focusing on Classical texts and commentaries."
In their website you will find several texts with running vocabulary and commentary in both Ancient Greek and Latin
for free. The option to buy paperback editions also exists. Their commentary is very rich and full of grammatical
explanations. The collection of texts is quite large and includes several of Lucian's writings.
Geoffrey Steadman's Readers https://geoffreysteadman.com/
In the website you will find several texts with running vocabulary and commentary in both Ancient Greek and Latin
for free. The option to buy paperback editions also exists. The vocabulary in Geoffrey's texts is organized in such
a way that the core vocabulary, which is repeated more often through the text, is presented to be memorized before
reading the text itself and the less common vocabulary is found on the facing pages of each section, alongside the
rich commentary. The collection of texts includes, among others, select books from the Odyssey and Illiad as well
as several of Plato's Dialogues.
ALEXANDROS. Τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν παιδίον (Cultura Clássica)
Based on W.H.D. Rouse's 1909
A Greek Boy at Home,
Alexandros adapts Rouse's story and adds to it
exercises and glosses inspired by the
Lingua Latina method.
Supplementary material
MYTHOLOGICA. Οἱ μῦθοι τῆς Χαρᾶς (Cultura Clássica)
A companion to Alexandros divided in two parts. The first one presents stories on the Olympian gods, the
second one retells famous Greek myths. Stories include Jason and the Golden Fleece, Theseus and the Minotaur,
Arachne and Athena, Perseus and Medusa, Orpheus and Eurydice, Apollo and Daphne, and Odysseus with the Trojan
Horse.
Ἑρμῆς πάντα κλέπτει (Hermes Panta Kleptei)
The book tells the story of newborn Hermes who wishes to steal all sorts of things. The events in the story are
based on Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods as well as the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. The glossary provided is very robust
and contains both entries on individual words and on full sentences for harders constructions. The author makes
very good use of a relatively small vocabulary of 87 unique words to make the story easy to follow even for
beginners, making for very good practice of naturally understanding declensions and conjugations.
Αστερικιος
Not didactic readers, per se, but a few of Asterix’s adventures have been translated into Attic Greek. Sadly, such
editions are not readily available nowadays as they are published as limited collector's items rather than
preserved for posterity.
ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ (Logeion) https://logeion.uchicago.edu/
A very powerful dictionary search tool which aggregates entries of several dictionaries, such as LSJ,
Brill-Montanary, Bailly, etc as well as providing corpus data from Perseus Project. Very easy to use and contains
useful study tools such as reverse lookup and morphological analysis tools.