/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20768340]

How do I start with the Romans? What are the big names? I only know of Vergil.

[Anonymous No.20768372]

>>20768340
>tranime

[Anonymous No.20768376]

>How do I start with the Greeks but gone through 100 years of Chinese whispers
You don't. Read Stirner.

[Anonymous No.20768387]

>>20768372
>>20768376
thanks

[Anonymous No.20768433]

>>20768340
Start with Virgil. Then Livy, Cicero, Caesar, Ovid. The rest you'll figure out as you go.

[Anonymous No.20768439]

>>20768387

[Anonymous No.20768446]

>>20768340
Lingua Latina per Se Illustrata

[Anonymous No.20768604]

>>20768372
do /pol/zoomers really?

[Anonymous No.20768637]

>>20768340
Petronius' Satyricon obv

[Anonymous No.20770024]

>>20768387
You're welcome

[Anonymous No.20770298]

"De Rerum Natura" by Lucretius
Simple as

[Anonymous No.20770301]

>>20768340
Start with the greeks

[Anonymouṡ No.20770543]

>>20768340
I assume you're reading in translation.
Poetry: Horace and Ovid
Drama: Terence (Roman drama isn't up to much)
History: Suetonius

[Anonymous No.20771190]

>>20768340
What's so funny about SUSSUS AMOGUS?

[Anonymous No.20771208]

>>20768433
Let's assume we've all started with Caesar and Tacitus by age 9,

>>20768340
I'd say for a real deep cleansing of your brain of error on what a Book even is, to start with
1) Catos handbook on farm management.
It's orientated toward practical real-world things and differs quite a lot.

Whilst you're busy with this book, developing your education in household management, agriculture, viticulture, business and the like, you'll want to dip into
2) Epigrams (of) Marcus Valerius Martialis
as these twelve to fourteen books make for excellent light reading and comparisons of the foolish habits of persons unconcerned with real-world things; foibles and vanities of people, etc., which you will be able to compare to the people around you.

After this you should be in a fairly superior position by contrast to the others around you; having becoming reasonably wealthy and respected for your work, where you go after this depends largely upon your own mood. Sadly many of the most infulential authors to the Roman have been lost to time or otherwise burned by later heathens,

Petronius Arbiter, for example, would have been a great resource on how to take your wine and manage your leisure hours.

Perhaps, however, your mind turns to the practicalities of these things;of the differences that are now noticable between you and others who read but don't seem to gain anything from reading; I would suggest,
3) Institutes of Oratory, Marcus Fabius Quintilian
to approach from a contemporary of Martial and Livius the 'mindset' of the subsequent Imperial School of the subsequent Emperors; Hadrian and Trajan and so on, learning about speech and reason as rhetoric and logic, to discern things at a commonsensical and not a 'effete false-scholarly' level. Whether you ought have begun with this book before Catos handbook is a matter of choice, of course.

There are, then, really only three,
1) Cato
2) Martialis
3) M.F.

in addition to the lesser known Hellenes of Kos and Sicily, and so on, and the good Romans who wrote of other things; Cassius Dio, Appian, Lucien, Galen, for instance.

[Anonymous No.20771210]

>>20768340
Read the first 10 chapters of The City of God. Augustine shows the fanciful nature of Rome.

[Anonymous No.20771213]

>>20771210
pay no heed to men on crosses, reader, they are there because they are very bad people.

[Anonymous No.20772158]

>>20768340
start with the Greeks

[Anonymous No.20772188]

>>20770543
Seneca wrote the best Roman drama
For poetry unironically start with Tibullus, he's the most straightforward (least allusive) of the classical era poets
As an intro to Roman philosophy imo Cicero is the best start, synthesizes multiple schools in structured and clear prose. I'd start with De Officiis

[Anonymous No.20772272]

>>20768340
start with Paul's epistle to them

[Anonymous No.20772389]

>>20772188
>As an intro to Roman philosophy imo Cicero is the best start,
Why on Gaias Arse would you even take Cicero seriously? He was an evil man whose hands were cut off for good reason by Marcus Antonius and his tongue was speared with a hair pin by his wife for good reason also.

you fucking fops and your pretentiousness.

[Anonymous No.20772445]

>>20772389
seething

[Anonymous No.20772465]

>>20772445
no i.. dont care i suppose, it's nice people read Cicero i suppose. So long as it takes you to Rufus perhaps, who is much better.

There's just a vile aura about Cicero for his actions, and he's remembered far too favorably when he was demonstrably very bad.

[Anonymous No.20773763]

>>20772465
Why is Cicero evil?

[Anonymous No.20773828]

>>20768340
Man most of this advice is terrible. Other than Virgil's Aeneid, which is essential:

Suetonius The Twelve Caesars is a very fun, gossipy history on the early Roman emperors.
Ovid's Metamorphoses is great for mythology and is one of the best (and in places funniest) epic poems ever written.
The Golden Ass by Apuleius is an entertaining adventure novel.
And if you're interested in philosophy then Seneca's letters are Stoic moralistic advice that's pretty cool.

[Anonymous No.20773905]

>>20772465
I would like you to elaborate further. My opinion of Cicero is lower than the esteem I feel a lot of people hold him in, but I still just see him as a well-intentioned fool trying to hold up a dying system because he made it in said system.

Why do you hate him so bad?

[Anonymous No.20774010]

>>20773905
>>20773763
There are lots of reasons really,

He was eloquent and just in his speech and advocacy; gushing over Catos ghost, but when he got to be Consul he acted with no decorum whatsoever, having a citizen executed with no trial to prove the mans guilt or innocence. Disgusting; first black mark - and perhaps the most important one of all as to his character reversal.

He arguably set Pompey against Caesar and prevented the two men from making amends, essentially ending up getting lots of Romans killed by other Romans. second black mark.

He then did the same thing to Octavian and Antonius, or tried to, but Antonius saw through him and had him killed at last, although the damage was done. These two points were mentioned in a speech from the day, but it escapes me who brought it up. third black mark, anyway.

I think really his death itself was drawn up with symbolism in mind on Antonius and Fulvias part; they cut off his hands which had caused great aberrations, and speared his tongue, to drive home the point of silencing an evil tongue. ha (speared to 'drive home the point') no pun intended.

>but I still just see him as a well-intentioned fool trying to hold up a dying system because he made it in said system.
that's the impression people have of him, sure. But his deeds portray him as remarkably one of the worst men of the day; add to this his famous "network of spies" and his penchant for fucking a child, and these things compound the black marks against him, making him seem even worse, if possible.

[Anonymous No.20774597]

>>20768340
Read Stirner