Happy New Year everybody and welcome to year 2 of our Greek/Roman mythology readings. 2024 is going to be an action packed year for us. By the end of it I think it will be fair to say that we've read most of the Greek/Roman classics. To check out our full schedule for 2024, please click here. For those that are new here welcome. For those that joined us last year and are continuing with us, thank you for coming back!

This is our second year reading classical texts from Greek/Roman mythology. Last year we read through most of the larger texts and the three main epics - the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid. We also covered Jason and the Argonauts and some smaller stories. If you would like to see any of last years discussion posts or the translation/context guides, please check out last year's schedule.

How Our Readings Operate:

I'll just explain how this subreddit works for those that are new here. We read a set amount of a text per week (as outlined in our schedule and on our sidebar). Every weekend one of the mods will post a discussion post where we discuss what we read that week, with spoilers allowed up to the point in the text we finished on. Please note that the date given for the discussion posts is flexible - we post every weekend but it can be either Saturdays or Sundays.

You can choose to follow our full schedule or take part in individual readings as you prefer.

Additionally, most of the texts we read are translations of older texts in either ancient Greek or Latin. We usually post a translation guide a few weeks before each reading begins, giving a quick run down of what translations are available in English. I usually also post a context post at the start of each reading, to help us to get a feeling for the background behind each text and/or help us to navigate texts (e.g. providing a list of prominent characters).

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Edith Hamilton and 'The Greek Way'

This is our first text of 2024 and we are beginning it on January 1. We will be reading a few (short) chapters per week until we finish on February 3. I'll provide a more detailed breakdown of our schedule at the bottom of this post.

Edith Hamilton was one the most celebrated classists in America during the twentieth centaury. She was born in 1867 and died in 1963. She taught Classical Studies for many years and retired from it in her sixties - only to begin her second career as a writer! 'The Greek Way' was her first book and was received very well from when it was published in 1930. It is still seen as a good book on the subject to this day. Hamilton is perhaps best known from her other non-fiction book, 'Mythology' which gives a breakdown of the Greek mythos.

In 'The Greek Way' Hamilton provides a detailed look into how the ancient Greeks lived and thought during the Greek 'golden age'. The book consists of a series of essays that highlight different figures from classical literature and history. We have read some of the writers mentioned in this book already but there are some, like Aeschylus and Sophocles, that we will be reading this year. 'The Greek Way' also talks about figures outside of myths, like Herodotus (one of the worlds first known historians).

Why we chose it:

'The Greek Way' may seem like an unusual choice for our subreddit but we are hoping that it will supplement our readings of the classical texts we will be reading throughout 2024. We will also be reading another non-fiction book in the summer, Natalie Haynes 'Pandora's Jar'. I'll explain more about that text in the future but in short 'Pandora's Jar' is a series of essays that analyze some key female characters from the Greek myths.

Reading/Discussion Schedule:

Start Date: 01/01/24

Week 1 - Preface. Chapters I - III - 06/01/24

Week 2 - Chapters IV - VI - 13/01/24

Week 3 - Chapters VII - IX - 20/01/24

Week 4 - Chapters X - XIV - 27/01/24

Week 5 - Chapters XV - XVII - 03/02/24