Reader

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to provide practice in reading scholarly Greek. In order to derive maximum benefit from it, readers are advised to work systematically through one or more of the four sections, writing out a translation of each selection and checking it against the key in 5.2 before proceeding to the next selection. Extracts are arranged here by the type of skills required to read them, not by the criteria governing the arrangement of Chapters 2 and 3, and the sections have been arranged in ascending order of difficulty: lexica are on the whole the easiest ancient scholarship to read, while grammatical treatises are the most difficult. Further selections from each group, without key, are provided in 5.3 for use as class assignments or for extra practice. Not all texts discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 are represented here. Owing to space limitations, all that has been attempted is inclusion of some selections from each major type of scholarly material. Some classes of material, however, have been systematically excluded: in addition to fragmentary, lacunose, or corrupt texts, commentary that is primarily philosophical, mathematical, or scientific in nature has been omitted, on the grounds that reading such material requires different skills from the ones it is the purpose of this book to provide. Metrical commentary is likewise omitted, because Hephaestion’s treatise and Van Ophuijsen’s translation of it (1987) already offer a good introduction to reading Greek metrical work. The selections presented here aim to provide a representative view of the type of material found in each category, and therefore some of them contain ancient scholars’ errors. No attempt has been made to select the most important or profound passages from each text; these are rarely self-explanatory enough to be appropriate here and have in any case usually been discussed and translated elsewhere. Examples are presented in exactly the form in which they appear in the editions cited, and there is consequently no consistency in the use of symbols, abbreviations, types of sigma, etc. Any symbols or notations the editors added to the text itself have been included, although those in the margins and apparatus.