Ancient Greek ScholarshipMy rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a delicious and fantastic read for those of us who love classical works and books in general. Dickey’s introduction makes picking up this book worth it all by itself. She follows with more specific material, giving us two chapters on extant scholia, commentaries, lexica, and other scholarly works. A chapter on how to read and engage with classical scholarship precedes another chapter full of exercises to hone the ability to read these works. The glossary at the end is very useful. Her annotated bibliography is a treasure trove of works to explore for more detailed information. From start to finish, this is a great book to have.

I was moved many times by how much we have lost from antiquity. Some works are gone forever, some epitomized, and some have only fragments which are cited in other works we still have. Whenever I read about the great Library at Alexandria, I come across mention of Callimachus’s Pinakes. Oh, if only this work were extant, to scroll through his catalog of authors and their works that were contained in that library in the third century BCE. Or to have access to the documents Photius had when he pulled together his “encyclopedic” Bibliotheca in the 9th century CE or the anonymous authors of the Suda had at their fingertips in the 10th century CE.