/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3993285]

Not a single section on the nonfiction page devoted to history.

What are the best books on ancient Rome and Greece?

[Anonymous No.3993290]

uhhh
gibbon
and
herodotus
and
thucydides
shit dawg i dunno what are you looking for, modern stuff? be more specific

[Anonymous No.3993296]

>>3993290
something 4 a newb

[Anonymous No.3993307]

>>3993296
herodotus is funny in part because he describes shit he didn't see and it's weird chinese telephone stuff like huge ants if i remember correctly
but thucydides is for feels. seriously teared up at the sicilian campaign.
anyway, these two are the greek basics
get the landmark editions (from the library if poorfag or student) so you have the maps to help you figure out why everything makes sense
have fun!

[Anonymous No.3993313]

>>3993307
i'm assuming you don't read greek here and english is your native ofc

[Anonymous No.3993324]

Rubicon by Tom Holland if you want a very readable book on Rome centering around the the events leading up to Caesar's death.

[Anonymous No.3993774]

Bump for mah /b/ro

[Anonymous No.3993784]

>Greece
Annotated Selincourt Herodotus or maybe Landmark Herodotus, Landmark Thucydides, Kagan's The Peloponnesian War, a generic textbook (Pomeroy et al., Ancient Greece works well)

>Rome
Theodor Mommsen's History of Rome, Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and select primary sources like Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, etc. A generic textbook will help, but Mommsen is really comprehensive and still amazing.

For supplementary materials, TTC has a great course by Garrett Fagan on the History of Rome, a GREAT companion course to Kagan and Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War by Kenneth Harl, a lot of other great courses by Harl besides. Yale OCW has a course on Ancient Greek History by Kagan which uses Pomeroy and primary source readings (all available online if you know where to look) as its syllabus.

[Anonymous No.3993792]

the bible

[Anonymous No.3993808]

>>3993792
The Bible is always recommended, regardless of the question.

[Anonymous No.3993928]

>>3993808
coincidence? i think not

[Anonymous No.3994907]

My Latin teacher gave me a few books by Michael Grant and they're good so far.

[Anonymous No.3994916]

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

[Anonymous No.3996273]

Res Gestae's Ammianus Marcellinus is a must.

This author deserves more popularity beyond the academic classroom.

[Anonymous No.3996345]

>>3993290
This is a good list.

[Anonymous No.3996403]

Oh boy. I'm not going to list primary sources as I feel they are actually what you should be plunging into once you have some background knowledge (e.g. reading Ammianus Marcellinus before you have any idea about the later Roman Empire would be a poor idea). I'm also not going to recommend Gibbon like every other hipster faggot here - his work today is to be appreciated for its literary qualities more than its scholarship.

>Rome
Edinburgh History of Ancient Rome - an excellent, readable and highly academic series.
Cambridge Ancient History - the appropriate volumes are quite easy to pick out.
Rome: An Empire's Story by Greg Woolf - readable with interesting comparisons made between Rome's empire and contemporary China/Meso-American empires.
From the Gracchi to Nero - Scullard - probably the clearest book on later Republican politics/early Imperial Rome that you will ever read.
Rome: From Village to Empire - Boatwright, Gargola et al - excellent general account (newest editions will carry you past the fall of the Western Empire).
>Late Rome
The Later Roman Empire 284-602 AD - highly scholarly and dense but still THE book (in 2 or 4 volumes depending on edition) on the period covered.
The Decline of the Ancient World - AHM Jones - a highly condensed version of the work above - much cheaper/aimed more at the uninitiated reader
The Cambridge Medieval History volumes 1,2,4 part 1, 4 part 2. - An older series now, but still excellent (and FAR cheaper than the NCMH) - the volumes listed will take you from Constantine right through to the end of the Roman Empire in 1453 AD. Before anybody objects to this, I am personally (opinions!) inclined towards J.B. Bury's view that Byzantine history IS Roman history.
New Cambridge Medieval History - if you're feeling flush. Again, covers Roman history after the fall of the Western Empire.

[Anonymous No.3996441]

>>3996403
Continuing

>Greece
Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History - a little dry, but an excellent introduction, covering Archaic Greece to the Hellenistic period.
The Greek City States - Rhodes - a great book on the political organisation of the Greek city states.
Polis: An Introduction to the Greek City State - can't remember author's name (it's something Scandinavian) - probably actually better than Rhodes.
The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest - an excellent work on the era of the Hellenistic kingdoms that were born from the disintegration of Alexander's empire, kingdoms stretching from the Aegean to northern India.
The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome - Robin Lane Fox - very recent and very up to date - has a slightly irritating 'down with the kidz lets make history xtreme' tone, but it certainly is a good introduction to the Greco Roman world.
Cambridge Ancient History - as for Rome, volumes of this have you covered on Ancient Greece.

These are the things I can think of off the top of my head - my special areas of interest are the Later Roman Empire/the medieval Roman Empire, so I'm not quite as hot on Ancient Greece.

[Anonymous No.3996797]

>>3996441
See, it's because of niggas like you that I still visit /lit/

[Anonymous No.3996799]

>>3996403
>>3996441
I'll add these up on the wiki for future folks.

If you have recs for other time periods you should post those also

[Anonymous No.3998006]

>>3996403
don't be a cunt, who reads things about rome for scholarship?
is it a good book? among the best? yes.

[Anonymous No.3998039]

>>3996403
>>3996441
This spanks of "undergraduate who read these textbooks so these are now the textbooks he is an Authority on". How the fuck do you not recommend Mommsen? How the hell do you call other people hipsters and then cite Bury non sequitur? I dunno. I'd be careful of this advice if I were someone uninitiated - it stinks of someone using this as an opportunity to jerk themselves off in public. If only because you simply don't need eight trillion tons of modern secondary sources to understand Roman history, and the primary sources are ridiculously accessible - Greek historiography is dominated by two dudes with a book each, no one would recommend Ammianus Marcellinus before Tacitus for instance. Tacitus is often assigned at the undergraduate level in lieu of a textbook, even. The primary sources don't need to be treated like inaccessible Medieval chronicles.

[Anonymous No.3998186]

>>3998006
>who reads things about rome for scholarship?
Historians and people interested in history? I dunno, though, when people ask /lit/ for history recommendations I'm never sure whether they want actual up-to-date academic history or just a right riveting read.

E.g. >>3998039
>Tacitus is often assigned at the undergraduate level
I could see that, but surely they'd spend time in class discussing it as a source, and how it compares to more modern work? It's not like you can read it and say 'yup, now I know what went down in Rome'.

[Anonymous No.3998996]

>>3998039
Why would I not recommend Mommsen? Because his theories have been badly outdated by archaeological evidence - his work to translate and publish hundreds of minor works and numerous pieces of epigraphic evidence was herculean and we are still using his translations etc. today - but he is cited today because he was ONCE an influential doyen of the classics - but his theories themselves are more useful if studied in the context of historiography than they are for actually understanding the ancient world. The same can be said of Gibbon.

Moreover, you clearly are somebody who has studied Ancient History/Classics - for those that are entirely uninitiated, even the highly accessible translations with commentaries available today still present alien worlds and highly unfamiliar circumstances. If one were to simply read the Annals of Tacitus, without any prior knowledge of the historical period of 14 - 68 AD, you'd be damned fucking confused - who are these people being tried thick and fast? Who the shit is Germanicus? Why is a Roman Emperor pussyfooting around the senatorial classes when he's the bloody emperor?

The primary sources are absolutely essential, but without context they are just as indecipherable as many Medieval Chronicles.

[Anonymous No.3999000]

>>3998996

Just how outdated IS Mommsen anyway? I'm reading him and would love to know where he goes wrong.

Obviously his theories about Ramnes/Tities and archaic Rome in general are extremely speculative I guess.

[Anonymous No.3999003]

>>3998996
And just as an addition, sources like Tacitus assigned in lieu of secondary scholarship? That would never happen - it is imperative that primary works are read in conjunction with secondary scholarship. Everybody had to start somewhere, and until one has qualified out the eyeballs, found an area to specialize in and can read the primary sources in their original languages, one can hardly restrict oneself to the primary sources in order to form an opinion. For a start, it's only in secondary literature that you're going to find that cornerstone of ancient history - archaeological analysis.

[Anonymous No.3999008]

here's what i read for my roman history class

the civil war - gaius caesar
the 12 caesars - suetonius
the annals - tacitus
the histories - tacitus
the later roman empire - ammianus marcellinus

[Anonymous No.3999018]

>>3999000
For two examples take a look at his theories about the origins of the legionary system of the military, or perhaps the biggie, his theories concerning the decline of the empire (barbarians at the gates etc. etc. - although admittedly his stuff on the later empire comes from work reconstituted long after his death, but from original lecture notes).

His work is an excellent piece of positivist history, but it would be hard to rely on it solely and still retain a balanced view of Republican/Imperial politics/military action/statecraft etc.

[Anonymous No.3999033]

i find secondary historical sources to be exceedingly boring. Primary or bust Imo.

[Anonymous No.3999040]

>>3999033
Fair enough. I personally find that the salaciousness and excitement of many primary sources (e.g. Suetonius, Psellus, Procopius) , whilst making for great reading, is pretty damn bad for obscuring things without cross-referencing with other primary literary texts, archaeological evidence and modern scholarly synthesis to help make sense of it all.

[Anonymous No.3999144]

Read-But-Don't-Cite-Tier: Herodotus's "Histories" and "The Persian Wars"

[Anonymous No.4000191]

>>3999033
Well, this is the question again: when people ask for history books, do they want to learn about a specific era? Or do they just want a story?

[Anonymous No.4000215]

>>3999018
That shit is so far above the head of the average person reading it that it's useful to gain a perspective like Mommsen's anyway, and see alternatives later. You know what's going to happen in any undergraduate classroom? You're going to get a hastily assembled overview of the two or three leading theories - there certainly is no dominant one - and then you'll forget them. I remember Mommsen's etiological theories on early Roman institutions point for fucking point (and I don't agree with any of them) because they are so goddamn elegant, and because of this I can actually pay attention to competing theories and form my own opinion.

I can understand recommending a litany of textbooks with shoddy, mutually conflicting, or even non-existent etiological coverage of early Roman institutions, because that stuff is usually done in stuffy academic journals no one reads anymore. But it's done by people who have read all these competing theories and who have the general melange of ideas available to them. Why not just do the same for yourself? If you're a lay reader (and plan to stay that way), one is as good as another, and frankly the classical history (e.g. Gibbon) is satisfactory when padded out by a few pop documentaries. If you're looking for real comprehension, it's pretty much mandatory to read Mommsen anyway, and if you're so serious about Roman history you'll ENJOY Mommsen anyway.

I just hate this mentality that everyone has to recommend the cutting edge selection of Oxford Cambridge Fifth Edition Histories. I see people recommending individual fucking journal articles on the role of the petite bourgeoisie in interwar fascism to people who want a general coverage of the radical right. There is nothing wrong with reading the "outdated" but seminal/doorstopper volumes, and no one in their right mind is going to read syllabi like the one provided above. Classical history is EASY and FUN, it doesn't merit or deserve this "academization" for a lay reader.

[Anonymous No.4000233]

3998996
>who are these people being tried thick and fast? Who the shit is Germanicus? Why is a Roman Emperor pussyfooting around the senatorial classes when he's the bloody emperor?

There is no perfect way to avoid this kind of thing. I think you'd be sorely disappointed with a lot of undergraduate education if you think survey courses answer these kinds of questions in a satisfying way. Look at this dude: >>3999008 . Do you think Suetonius was chosen for any reason other than that it's salacious and episodic? Is Caesar's coverage of the Civil Wars really useful for its explanatory power, given an average undergraduate's comprehension?

I'm not recommending Tacitus as a way of getting an overview, or as a sole source, hell I'm not even recommending Tacitus. But there is something to be said for learning the drama and the classical narrative (again e.g. Gibbon) alongside a secondary source, or even first, and filling in the details / understanding the vicissitudes later. No one really cares about social history. The worst part of every survey course, for anyone really interested in history, is the bogging down of the dramatic narrative of the Peloponnesian War with learning what proportion of artisanry was dominated by relatively free slaves according to this recovered manifest!!! Wow! That's the shit you'll get dragged down with if you sample from too many survey textbooks. Dry, modern historiography needs to be carefully balanced with flavour, and the classical narrative dominated for so long because it had flavour, in a time when advanced historiography didn't exist. It's not a bad starting place at all.

I don't remember anything of the 3-4 very good (and some already mentioned) textbooks I used. Nothing. They were invaluable, but they didn't aid memory, they were a supplement. Meanwhile I remember Mommsen's theory of the origins of the city of Rome because it's so pretty. That's why I do history, to read that shit, even if it turns out to be wrong/doubtful.

[Anonymous No.4001482]

>>4000233
>No one really cares about social history
>But there is something to be said for learning the drama and the classical narrative (again e.g. >Gibbon) alongside a secondary source
>Dry, modern historiography needs to be carefully balanced with flavour

So you have essentially agreed with me. Moreover you assume that every work of modern scholarship is dry and tedious, assume that 'nobody is interested in social history'. These things are not true in any way, shape or form. Nor is it true that the theories posited by any of the above works are somehow impossible to remember or to learn.

I provided a selection of works that should interest the reader and stimulate further study and reading.

As >>4000191 says, some people seem to just want a story, and you seem to be one of them. That's absolutely fine. If you really want to grasp a period of history, the social/political/economic context of contemporary narratives is utterly essential.

Moreover, none of the recommended works are 'textbooks'.

[Anonymous No.4001487]

>That's why I do history, to read that shit, even if it turns out to be wrong/doubtful.

This is true for everybody that studies history - for example, there is a great deal of work written by excellent academics that is composed of little but highly stretched evidence and supposition - e.g. John Morris' utterly readable but suspect Age of Arthur, covering the period of Sub-Roman Britain. But it's worth the lay reader being aware going in when things are outdated/controversial.

[Anonymous No.4001506]

Don't know how good this one is (I'm struggling with it a bit) but it covers the basics of both Greece and Rome.

[Anonymous No.4001814]

>>4001506
This is a great book