What's your favourite ancient writer?

[nuda pedem]

Hi again, I'm still studying about Ovid and I realized I haven't asked that question. In my case, I love poets, so my favourites are Ovid, Virgil and Horace (I call them my "triada capitolina" :P). I like Greek poetry, comedy and tragedy too: Sapho, Aristophanes and Eurypides (Bacchaí is my favourite ever, but also like Medea). I even enjoy reading Plato, specially Phaedrus, Symposium and Gorgias... Philosophy is a little boring, but I think he's a good writer.

What do you like?

[Keith Saare]

Hi Nuda. I don't know if folks actually participate in these groups or not, but since I'm new, I'll just participate in this discussion and see if anybody gets active replying to me. To answer your question about my favorite writer, it seems to be the one I'm currently studying. I do not have a classics background in formal education; I studied theology through undergrad and grad work, but then I became very interested in Greece & Rome. I'm in catch-up mode working my way through all the Greek & Latin writers. I've really enjoyed Homer, Euripides, Aeschylus and Virgil. I'm painfully working my way through Tacitus and don't believe he'll be one of my favorites. I enjoyed Suetonius getting the inside gossip about the emperors' wacky behaviors and odd fetishes. I found Herdotus to be more fun than Thucydides. It took me a gruesome seven months to finish Plato's complete works, but I did enjoy the Apology. In two months I'll start Aristotle's complete works.

[nuda pedem]

Hi, I don't see people participanting in these groups, but I created this one because couldn't find anything about literature (that's what I study). I think History is a hard subject to read in Latin or Greek, but I'm thinking about reading Tacitus' Germania when I have some time... Aristotle is really hard to read, but I enjoyed the Nocomachean Ethics. Now I'm learning about Middle Ages literature, it's very interesting.

So you studied theology, tell me about it, for example what do you read?

[Keith Saare]

Greetings! In seminary I read many works by John MacArthur, Millard Erickson, Charles Ryrie, John Frame, Wayne Grudem, A.T. Robertson, Robert Thomas, Gleason Archer, Thiessen, Paul Enns...and many others that I've forgotten. Now I much prefer to read original sources, so I've gotten away from the textbooks and haven't cracked open any theology in a long time. If I read anything nowadays, it's to help me prepare the sermons I preach every Sunday as a Baptist minister.

 

Currently I'm brushing up on logic with Isaac Watt's Logic. The rest of this year I'm planning to read Aristotle's complete works, Plutach's complete Lives, Juvenal, Sappho, and Lucan. That should keep me busy enough. Next year my plan is to study German and Sanskrit, and then back to Homeric Greek, which I haven't done in about 3 years.  

 

So what is your profession or background in the classics? Interests?

[nuda pedem]

I prefer reading original sources too :) Your list makes me think you' re ambitious, hahaha. I study Classical (and some Modern) Literature at Buenos Aires University, and I'm close to finish (I'm studying for the last exam). University in Argentina is like college and school (like "law school") in US, you might say... I've studied Sanskrit for a year and it's difficult but amazing, we read a piece of the Mahabharata, the Buddhacharita (a poem about Buddha's life) and some texts else that I can't remember well because it was some years ago.

I think theology is something very interesting to learn (for example, I would like to read the New Testament in Greek -Saint John's gospel is beautiful-, something of Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas of Aquinas and texts like these). The more I read the more I want to learn, I'll never finish, hahaha!

Good luck with Aristotle ;)

[Arran Evans]

Not sure, recently studied Martial at times rather amusing and cutting, the comments on first century Roman society are pricelss. I have also enjoyed reading Virgil, but I think Homer wins for me.