A paperback anthology of essential Greek and Latin texts with facing English translations. "It is ideal reading for bar, bus, bed or beach. Everyone, teacher and taught alike, should have one. It is this year's must-have present."--The Journal of Classics Teaching This selection of lapidary nuggets drawn from thirty-three of antiquity's major authors includes poetry, dialogue, philosophical writing, history, descriptive reports, satire, and fiction--giving a glimpse at the wide range of arts and sciences, thought and styles, of Greco-Roman culture. The selections span twelve centuries, from Homer to Saint Jerome. The texts and translations are reproduced as they appear in Loeb volumes. The Loeb Classical Library is the only existing series that, through original text and English translation, gives access to all that is important in Greek and Latin literature. A Loeb Classical Library Reader offers a unique sampling of this treasure trove. In these pages you will find, for example: Odysseus tricking the Cyclops in order to escape from the giant's cave; Zeus creating the first woman, Pandora, cause of mortals' hardships ever after; the Athenian general Nicias dissuading his countrymen from invading Sicily; Socrates, condemned to die, saying farewell; a description of Herod's fortified palace at Masada; Cicero's thoughts on what we owe our fellow men; Livy's description of the rape of the Sabine women; Manilius on the signs of the zodiac; and Pliny's observation of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Here you can enjoy looking in on people, real and imaginary, who figure prominently in ancient history, and on notable events. Here, too, you can relish classical poetry and comedy, and get a taste of the ideas characteristic of the splendid culture to which we are heir.

Thoroughly revised and expanded, Introduction to Attic Greek, 2nd Edition gives student and instructors the most comprehensive and accessible presentation of ancient Greek available. The text features: • Full exposure to the grammar and morphology that students will encounter in actual texts • Self-contained instructional chapters, with challenging, carefully tailored exercises • Progressively more complex chapters to build the student's knowledge of declensions, tenses, and constructions by alternating emphasis on morphology and syntax • Readings based on actual texts and include unadapted passages from Xenophon, Lysias, Plato, Aristophanes, and Thucydides. • Concise introduction to the history of the Greek language • Composite list of verbs with principal parts, and an appendix of all paradigms • Greek-English and English-Greek glossaries Additional Resources: •Robust online supplements for teaching and learning available at atticgreek.org •Answer Key to exercises also available from UC Press (978-0-520-27574-4)

In the writings of Philostratus (ca. 170-ca. 250 CE), the renaissance of Greek literature in the second century CE reached its height. His Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Lives of the Sophists, and Imagines reconceive in different ways Greek religion, philosophy, and art in and for the world of the Roman Empire. In this volume, Heroicus and Gymnasticus, two works of equal creativity and sophistication, together with two brief Discourses (Dialexeis), complete the Loeb edition of his writings. Heroicus is a conversation in a vineyard amid ruins of the Protesilaus shrine (opposite Troy on the Hellespont), between a wise and devout vinedresser and an initially skeptical Phoenician sailor, about the beauty, continuing powers, and worship of the Homeric heroes. With information from his local hero, the vinedresser reveals unknown stories of the Trojan campaign especially featuring Protesilaus and Palamedes, and describes complex, miraculous, and violent rituals in the cults of Achilles. Gymnasticus is the sole surviving ancient treatise on sports. It reshapes conventional ideas about the athletic body and expertise of the athletic trainer and also explores the history of the Olympic Games and other major Greek athletic festivals, portraying them as distinctive venues for the display of knowledge.