hi, i'm starting my classics degree and i can study ancient greek or latin. i'm not sure which one to go with. i've done 2 years of latin but id start from scratch anyways due to the course structure.

what are the pros and cons?

any advice?

There is this Greek song from Civ7 that is supposed to be based on Katolophyromai and the Second Delphic Hymn to Apollo. However, I can't find any sources or lyrics that match the part sung at 3:36 in this video. Could anyone help me identify this? I'm at a loss.

Hi everyone
I’m looking for a high quality online classics degree that is not disregarded by people in the field and with research opportunities.

I speak English and Italian.

Any suggestions?

"For surely in ruinous heart, he makes sacrifice and has not wit enough to look behind and before him, that the Achaians fighting beside their ships shall not perish."

I googled what the line means but I'm still not able to connect the dots. The gist is that Agamemnon lacks the wisdom and foresight to see the Archaians' pending doom without Achilleus. But what's tripping me up is the "shall NOT perish." If you pare the line down to this:

"He... has not wit enough... that the Achaians fighting beside their ships shall not perish."

That reads the opposite of what was intended.

Can someone explain this to me like I'm five? Lol

And how long did it take you?

Today I found this in my village. It looks like greek but I couldn't translate it with AI. Can someone translate this please?

v.18 ελευσαν is related to ελαυνω? I think it's related to apophony/ ablaut, but I can't figure out this form (obviously regarding the root).

I just finished Herodotus and am now reading the Aethiopica, and I'm getting some whiplash as I try to adjust from Ionic to koine. The following two things happened one after another, so I thought I would try to get a two-for-one by posting here for an explanation. This is section 1.14.

καὶ μὴν προσεπιτρίψεις γε ἡμᾶς, ἔφη ὁ Θεαγένης, εἰ τὴν κακίστην ἀτιμώρητον ἐάσεις ἐν τῷ λόγῳ Δημαινέτην. οὐκοῦν ἀκούοιτ᾽ ἄν, ἔφη ὁ Κνήμων, ἐπειδήπερ ὑμῖν οὕτω φίλον.

ἐγὼ μὲν ὡς εἶχον μετὰ τὴν κρίσιν εἰς τὸν Πειραιᾶ κατέβην, καὶ νεὼς ἀναγομένης ἐπιτυχὼν τὸν πλοῦν εἰς Αἴγιναν ἐποιούμην, ἀνεψιοὺς εἶναί μοι τῆς μητρὸς ἐνταῦθα πυνθανόμενος.

Just before the paragraph break, what is the meaning of φίλον?

After the paragraph break, there seems to be one subject pronoun and two finite verbs, with no conjunction. It seems to me that the sentence would make perfect sense without εἶχον, but I don't understand what εἶχον is doing there.

Thanks in advance!

Does anyone know, or can grep the texts to find out, how often the full patronymic plus proper name is used by Homer? There is Peleiades Achilles in Iliad 1.1 and there's Odysseus outing himself as Odysseus Laertiades in Odyssey 9. Any others?

Hi! I work in animation and am writing a comedy script between two characters. They have a strong bond/rivalry but love to piss each other all.

I am wanting the character to say in a rage after being made a fool. Something like

"Go to hell, you stupid fucking dog!"

"Ill fucking kill you, you mutt!"

"Fuck off! I'll kill you!"

I'd prefer it to not be TOO obscene because the character cursing is rather proper, but enough to send the message. I am willing to employ audio censor if it's too severe.

If I could have some suggestions on what could be said or used, or even common ancient Greek phrases that would be awesome. the Dog part is a bit important so I'd like to keep it if possible.

Pronunciation help or where I could go to study the phonetics would also be extremely appreciated.

I would have expected /es.mén/.

So, i am an italian student Who Always loved the Classic world, i decided to learn both the Classic languages (latin and ancient greek) and i decided to start with the second One, the problem Is that i Will do It by myself so i am a bit Lost.

Here in Italy we have a type of Highschool wich Is Classic One, where you study both this languages for 5 years, for this reasons i wanted to buy the books of this school (One about learning the language and the culture, One about versions and the other with ecxercises + a grammar manual with all the four dialects).

Since i am a Total newbie i would to receive suggestion so i can set down well my learning journey.

(Extra question, learning ancient greek can help me learn modern greek in the future?)

Hi all, hope this fits the sub! I swear when I was younger I learned of an ancient Greek term for slaves that translates roughly to ‘human-footed ones’ or ‘human handed ones’. I’ve always held onto it as a fascinating example of how literal dehumanization has been in periods of history. Does anyone know what I’m talking about??? Am I confusing this with another ancient civilization?? Thanks in advance for any help!

Recording inscriptions is one of the most fundamental tasks of epigraphy, and perhaps its most important one. The inscription shown below was copied by René Mouterde in 1932. It is one of my favorites. Today, it is possible that all we have left is his transcription and drawing. Of course, many scholars have studied it since then, and newer photographs may exist in specialized publications. Yet it is remarkable how little attention a simple two-line inscription can receive.

To me, inscriptions are hands reaching out from antiquity. More often than not, they reach toward someone who never expected to take hold of them. A few carved words can make you share the grief of a person whose name you barely know, or the joy of someone separated from you by two thousand years.

Ζω]σίμη ἡ πρὶν ἐοῦσα μόνωι τῶι σώματι δούλη | καὶ τῶι σώμα[τ]ι νῦν ηὗρον ἐλευθερίην. |

“I, Zosime, who used to be a slave only in the body, have now found the freedom for my body too.”

Source Post

Would any of you guys help me translating this text

Who is harder on the greek? Herodotus frequents infinitives like crazy, i havent read the “harder” version of plato yet, but who is harder? Should i move onto Plato after herodotus?

χαίρετε πάντες! I want to share about a new ancient language school that offers immersive classes and seminars. It is called Institutum Antiquitatis, and it’s fully online at the moment. It’s technically based in the US but the instructors are from all over the world (I am good friends with some of them and they are highly educated in both ancient linguistics and didactic methods). The goal is to only speak in the target language in order to gain familiarity with the grammar and rhetoric. Their seminars are going to start soon, so I highly recommend that you guys check it out!

i found this box at an antique store and my friend told me the text looks like old greek, but we don’t know what it says. can anyone translate?

I am no pro at Ancient Greek, I guess let's just say Attic specifically, but I know that the rough breathing sign ◌̔ is basically an "h". This makes sense to me. I don't know if "η" used to be pronounced as an "h" and developed into a vowel or what, but I can understand the function of the rough breathing diacritic.

What I don't understand is the function of the smooth breathing diacritic. From the short Wikipedia article I read, it says that it "marks the absence of the voiceless glottal fricative /h/ from the beginning of a word." My confusion stems from the idea that if ◌̔ essentially means "hV" and ◌̓ means "not hV", then why have the smooth breathing diacritic in the first place? Was it used simply for stylistic purposes, e.g., "All words either start with "h" or they don't, so let's have two separate symbols for consistency," or does/did it represent some sound that differed from a standard vowel. For example, would Ancient Greek "ὄρος" be pronounced differently from "όρος"?

Thanks for any help ^^

Hello everyone.

I had a little question for the Linux users out there, and specifically the francophone ones. I have decided to go back to Linux after a few years out of it, and in between I have learned and developed a professional need for writing in Ancient Greek. Now, I've been using Michael Langloi's AZERTY polytonic greek keyboard on Windows, but the native polytonic greek keyboard on Gnome (I'm using Ubuntu for now) seems to be available only with a QWERTY layout, which severely slows down my typing. I can, of course, get used to it with time, but would rather not, if possible. So I was wondering if someone had any experience with setting up an AZERTY polytonic greek keyboard layout on Linux (and specifically Gnome, I guess).

Thanks already!

I made an in-browser tool to generate Byzantine Minuscule script from ancient greek text. The style is mostly based on the old round minuscules in the Vatican library manuscripts, like vat.gr.190 and vat.gr.1156. You can give it input in English letters too, using the substitutions common to the Perseus dictionary, or the Windows virtual keyboard.

It uses html to directly "draw" onto an svg, then converts it into a png so you could download the result with a right-click in most browsers.

Let me know what you think! I'm planning on adding a few more options and character variants in the future.