Uncovering Writing

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This reader was just a joy to work through. A nice selection of classic Greek and Latin texts, with the original language opposite an English translation. It was fun to try to remember some of my Greek and also to try to work through some Latin that I could figure out from experience, English vocabulary and knowing a little Spanish. I’d read some of the pieces, but most of the Latin selections were new to me.

I really enjoyed Terence’s play “The Brothers” (p. 126) with regard to how to raise children: the authoritarian vs the loving way. Cicero’s “On Duties” (p. 132) was excellent. One thing he wrote was that one should not enrich themselves by stealing from their neighbors. I thought of the idea of the “social contract” and was pleased to see that this work has had such an impact up through today.

It was very exciting to read Pliny the Younger’s letter about the eruption of Vesuvius that killed his uncle, Pliny the Elder (p. 207). To read a first hand account, even though it was written many years after the eruption, was thrilling. It rooted a historical experience into a personal frame.

And finally, I loved the Latin phrase that Virgil coined in his Aeneid (p. 152): “Timeo Danous et dona ferentis” … ‘I fear the Greeks, even when bringing gifts.’