Charicles: Or, Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks ; with Notes and Excursuses ; from the German of Professor Becker

by Wilhelm Adolf Becker

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

546 pages, Paperback

Published March 29, 2010

About the author

Wilhelm Adolf Becker was a classical scholar and translator.

Reviews

[Laëtitia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel provides a fun, loosely followed narrative that follows around our hero, Charicles. He runs into all sorts of trouble and predicaments which are supposed to showcase the lives of the Ancient Greeks, but really just provide one perspective-- the one which 19th century aristocrats would be interested in reading about: that of the wealthy man.

This said, the novel remains a very well-researched work. The footnotes are extensive are directly cite the Greek. They aren't very helpful if you can't read Ancient Greek, but I found them interesting/helpful since I can. I find that Becker wanted to build the narrative around these details, which is why the plot is so weak.

I definitely recommend this book, but it's really not worth it unless you can read Ancient Greek-- since you can't understand the footnotes (arguably the most interesting part).

[David Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's truly one of the greatest pieces of literature I've ever laid my hands on. It really made me feel like I was there in ancient Greece. Charicles, the protagonist, is incredibly likable and charismatic; you're really rooting for him the whole time. The footnotes add an incredible amount of depth and information to the book that you couldn't find anywhere else. And don't get me started on the excursī! They paint beautiful tapestries of aspects of ancient Greek life directly relating to the chapter.

My only qualm with this book is that it's a translation of the original German. In fact, I personally learned German with no prior experience just to read this book in its original form, and it was completely worth the effort!