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Ancient Greek, Greek Texts / 12.11.2010

Introduction. Sophocles (c.496-406 B.C.) was the second of the great Athenian tragedians of the Fifth Century B.C. He wrote some 130 plays, of which only seven tragedies and one satyr play survive. "Antigone", written in 441 B.C. is the first of these surviving plays. The play concerns the decision of Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, king of Thebes, to bury her brother Polynices, against the instructions of her uncle Creon. After the death of Oedipus Polynices had quarelled with his brother Eteocles over the succession to the kingship, and...

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Ancient Greek, Greek Texts / 14.10.2010

Introduction. Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) was the the first of the three great Athenian tragic dramatists or tragedians. He was the author of around 80 plays, of which only seven survive. He is reputed to gave fought at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. and probably also at Salamis in 480 B.C. "The Persians" which was originally produced in 472 B.C. was the only tragic play, for which the subject matter was taken from recent history rather than the normal legendary background. Aeschylus seems to imply that the...

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Ancient Greek, Greek Texts / 29.09.2010

Introduction. Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c.490-c.425 B.C.) has been called the 'Father of History'. His "Histories", which provide an account in nine books of the conflict between the Greece and Asia from the middle of the sixth century (B.C.) down to the failure of the Persian invasion in 478 B.C. was the first major prose work in Greek literature. While the New Ionic dialect, in which he wrote, employs word forms which differ in a number of respects from the Attic dialect of Thucydides, Plato and the tragedians, Herodotus' Greek...

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Ancient Greek, Greek Texts / 17.09.2010

Introduction. In this piece of translation, Sabidius turns to Homer's second great epic poem, the "Odyssey", which is believed to have been committed to writing in the eighth century B.C. This is the story of the long and tortuous homeward journey of Odysseus after the ten year siege of Troy has been successfully completed. In fact, it takes Odysseus an equal period of time, ten years, to make his way home, and on the way he loses all his companions, who are drowned in a ship-wreck. At the beginning of these two short extracts from Book V, we find Odysseus in a particularly woe-begone state, weeping and wailing on the shore as he looks out over the sea. On the face of it, it seems strange that this hero of the Trojan war should have been reduced to such a maudlin state; however, according to the legend Odysseus was effectively Calypso's prisoner on her small island home of Ogygia for as many as seven out of the ten years of his 'Odyssey'. This makes his miserable condition a little more understandable perhaps!
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Ancient Greek, Greek Texts / 30.08.2010

Introduction. Readers are invited to look first at Sabidius' introduction to his translation of Book I of the 'Iliad' (see items from March 2010) for initial comments about Homer's great work. These short extracts, telling of the encounter between Achilles' bosom companion Patroclus and Zeus' mortal son, Sarpedon, demonstrate how entertwined are the considerations of the gods with the affairs of the protagonists on both sides. They also provide good examples of Homer's practice of repeating phrases, and sometimes even whole lines, which is a chacteristic of poetry which was initially orally composed. Here lines 455-457 are identical or almost identical to lines 673-675, and the same is the case in relation to lines 668-673 and lines 678-683. In this translation these lines have been italicised to highlight these similarities.
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Ancient Greek, Greek Texts / 05.08.2010

Introduction. Procopius of Caesarea, is the last great Greek historian to write in the classical tradition of Herodotus, Thucydides and Polybius, and, although he wrote in the Sixth Century A.D., right at the end of the classical era, and on the cusp of the Dark Ages, he was one of the greatest of these historians. His reputation is mainly founded upon his "Histories of the Wars" of the reign of Justinian (527-565 A.D.) in eight books. Books I-VII, covering the years 527-550, were published in 550-1, and Book VIII,...

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Ancient Greek, Ancient History / 05.06.2010

In last year's magazine I wrote a light hearted article suggesting an argument, from which one might adduce Britain to have contributed to the legend of Atlantis. In doing this I had no intention of committing myself to any belief in the historical existence of Atlantis, but, perhaps because I did not express myself clearly enough, I have been misinterpreted. In writing this article I wish to clear myself from the charge of being an Atlantologist, and then to outline, as I see it, the way in which...

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Ancient Greek, Greek Grammar / 11.02.2010

Types of accent and the relation to the position of syllables. In Ancient Greek, there are two basic accents: i) the acute; and ii) the circumflex. However, where an acute accent falls on the final syllable, known as the 'ultima', it becomes a grave accent, unless it is immediately followed by a punctuation stop or an enclitic word. An acute can fall on any of the last three syllables of a word, i.e. the antepenultimate, penultimate or final syllable. The circumflex can fall on either the penultimate or final syllable. No accent can fall further back than the last three syllables of a word.
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