Lucian's A True Story: An Intermediate Greek Reader: Greek Text with Running Vocabulary and Commentary

by Evan Hayes, Stephen Nimis

The aim of this book is to make Lucian's A True Story accessible to intermediate students of Ancient Greek. The running vocabulary and commentary are meant to provide everything necessary to read each page. Lucian's A True Story is a great text for intermediate readers. Its breathless narrative does not involve many complex sentences or constructions; there is some unusual vocabulary and a few departures from Attic Greek, but for the most part it is a straightforward narrative that is fun and interesting by one of antiquity's cleverest authors. In A True Story, Lucian parodies accounts of fanciful adventures and travel to incredible places by authors such as Ctesias and Iambulus. The story's combination of mockery and learning makes it an excellent example of the Greek literature of the imperial period.

Genres: Classics, Nonfiction

204 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2011

Reviews

[Simon Goldenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Source: don't trust me bro

[Jonas Roose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucianus had duidelijk heel veel fantasie, maar de aaneenrijging van opzienbarende verhalen wordt soms vervelend.

[Ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this more enjoyable in Greek than in English—the absurdity really sits with you more as you parse the participles and realize what Lucian is saying. There were some errors in the commentary which have been edited out in the online Dickinson College commentary, but the issues are nothing major.

[William Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is funny and provocative (as Lucian often is). The commentary is helpful. Likewise the vocabulary being on the same page. I did wish the commentary had been more erudite in the mad way commentaries can be, but this is not that sort of edition.

[Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vocab bad, commentary little to none, too many mistakes…

[Madeleine · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Just Book 1) - a very good Ancient Greek refresher. 2,000 years ago men were still just making shit up and I think that's beautiful. One star off for all the battle scenes because they have weird verbs.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five stars for Nimis and Hayes, four for Lucian. I'm sure Lucian would have something to say about that, but the commentary is fabulous. Everything an intermediate level Greek reader needs is right there on the page. My only complaint is that the vocabulary is pulled straight from Liddell & Scott's Lexicon, most often without concern for the context of the word in the text. This is usually remedied by the commentary, however, so it's not really an issue. Only once or twice did I have to run to the lexicon to make sense of a sentence.

The story itself is totally bizarre, which sometimes made me doubt my understanding of the Greek until I became accustomed to its strangeness. "True Stories" is basically a send-up of the outlandish "histories" in Herodotus, with lots of allusions to Homer and other ancient writers. It includes a voyage into space, followed by an adventure inside a whale, followed by a trip to the underworld, and so on and so forth. It's a parody, and not a very nuanced one, but a lot of fun nevertheless.

[Drianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! It's quite funny, and while I personally do not think it counts as "science fiction," it is still a fun narrative.

This edition is good for intermediate Greek students, although there are words missing from the glossary/word lists, which I was displeased about. I also would have preferred the facing word lists to have definitions that were more relevant in context (or at least clearly understandable, which these, mechanically taken from LSJ?, were not). The commentary is very helpful with verb forms, less so with nouns or anything else much. Nothing on the particles, really, which seems a strange omission. The interspersed grammar reviews/explanations are helpful.