Great Works of Ancient Greece: From the Heroic to the Classical Age

Against a backdrop of economic strife, political unrest and relentless war with neighboring regions, the ancient Greeks give the world philosophy - a preoccupation, as Socrates says, not with simply living, but with living well. As the readings in this text will demonstrate - from the ancient epics of the Warrior Age of heroes to the teachings of the great thinkers in the Golden Age of Athens - living well for the ancient Greeks will mean answering the same question again and again: "What should we call a good life?" For introductory-level students in the Humanities, as for the most accomplished scholars, this is a question for all of us. This collection of ancient writings is intended to expose students to the original voices of the past in "primary source" form. Unlike the historian who summarizes Aristotle's "Ethics of Happiness", the primary sources herein give us Aristotle himself - his exact words as they appeared when he etched them into papyrus in the 4th century BC. Because a reading proficiency in the ancient languages is not expected of undergraduate students in the Humanities, the ancient texts translated into English here have been carefully chosen by the author based on their affinity to the original text and their adherence to the true spirit of primary source translation.