books of the Ancient World - search/destroy

Homer - all, including the Hymns
I Ching
Tao Teh Ching
Bagavad Gita
Catullus
Propertius
Ovid - Metamorphoses, Amores, Tristia

Herodotus is proving generally awesome. I am in the mood to reread Gilgamesh. I didn't care for Popul Vuh too much when I read it, but I might like it more now -- is that Ancient enough?

Thucydides has a very dry and dense writing style, both in translation and in Greek (apparently people in the ancient world had great trouble understanding him). However, the stuff he writes about is incredibly interesting, and there are so many amazing episodes in his book which are echoes in other events throughout the ages.

I was however astonished to discover that Thucydides is seen as the founder of the "Realist" school of International Relations Theory, which seems like a-historicality gone mad.

Perhaps you were at some sort of toga party.

Working my way through the Parallel Lives, currently up to "Coriolanus." I can't stay interested in the histories (Herodotus, Livy) long enough to get through them, but Plutarch at least gives you breaks along the way. And flipping back and forth between Greece and Rome helps me to stay focused. Finding a lot of stories I've heard versions or references to (esp. in Gene Wolfe), but nice to have in the original context. I'm hoping to find more appreciation for Shakespeare (e.g. Coriolanus) by reading the Lives. Also really digging Plutarch's views on politicians given the current season.

I'm about half way through Euclid's Elements (Book vii) which has been enlightening (especially the commentary by Heath, Proculus, & the rest). The Golden Ass is sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read once I finish one or both of these collections. Then on to Aristotle! I didn't have requirements to read the Classics in college (engineering major), so have since had an urge to take them on. Finally have had the time and clear headedness to start knocking them off. Recently finished the Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses, both of which were great.

Proclus is my hero.

Really?

Care to explain?

I enjoyed the bit in "Pericles" about Anaxagoras and the 1-horned ram, explaining how the "natural philosopher" and "seer" could both be correct. Plutarch is a Neoplatonist, correct?

Proclus wrote a magisterial commentary on Euclid's Elements, as mentioned above, that set the agenda for thinking about mathematics for at least 1500 years, in the Hellenistic world, the Arab world, and then the European world, in part because his commentary was included in standard translations of the Elements into Arabic and then Latin. So people would pick up the Elements and think they were reading Euclid's preface, when it was really Proclus. And his readings of Euclid inject a Neoplatonist agenda into all of these cultures. Stealth philosophy!

yes, Plutarch was a Neoplatonist.

I love Neoplatonism (I may be a Neoplatonist?)

Droit, can I come to you with questions when I get to Book 10 of the Elements?

Please tread lightly, such a request may be of the nature of a professional favor.

you can try! I'm not exactly an expert on the Elements but I know a few things. Book X is pretty hardcore!

I have a soft spot for Xenophon's Anabasis. Also for Arrian's account of Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia and beyond. Diogenes Laertius's Lives of Philosophers is very uneven, but contains hundreds of fascinating little anecdotes in among the tedium. Apuleius's Golden Ass is quite the best ancient approximation of a novel.

Steely Dan serendipity from Euclid's Elements, Book XI, prop. 31:

Let DR, WU be drawn through and meet one another at Y, let aTb be drawn through T parallel to DY, let PD be produced to a, and let the solids YX, RI be completed.

I have the T.E. Lawrence translation of The Odyssey lying around waiting to be read. I thought 7 Pillars was good but it was years since I read it.

Also really want to read Lucian's proto scifi.

Read the Pancachantra last year which was interesting.

Lucian is fun. Follow it with cyrano di bergerac's similar flght of fancy.

I have a copy of the Cyrano de Bergerac around somewhere.

Thanks for the discussion, guys---you led me to this good article: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/proto_sf, incl. link to entry re Cyrano.

My Bergerac is a second-hand Folio ed of the Aldington translation which has nice Quentin Blake illustrations, too
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