Ancient Classics User Guide - published on Amazon.com

McKinley introduces his readers to over thirty authors of the ancient classics, illuminating who they were, the times they lived in, and their works that have come down to us through the millennia. In the process, we are introduced to the world-changing historical events of antiquity from the Greco-Persian Wars to the centuries of conquests that built the Roman Empire. Rather than reading second-hand accounts, we share the experience through the words of the men who lived and wrote this history, from Thucydides to Julius Caesar. We read multiple original accounts of decisive events such as the Battle of Pharsalus in the words of Cassius Dio, Appian and Caesar himself.

He provides a comfortable entre to the origins of Western philosophy with coverage of the primary sources of Plato and his Dialogues, Aristotle’s treatises and writings of the Stoics ?Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. We read the stirring rhetoric of the greatest speakers such as Demosthenes and Cicero. We enjoy magnificent overviews such as Plutarch’s “Greek and Roman Lives,” Vitruvius on Roman architecture, Diogenes Laertes on ancient philosophers, and Apollodorus on mythology.

McKinley traces over-arching themes through all the classic authors, such as the constant evolution between forms of government – monarchy, aristocracy, democracy and tyranny. We receive a thorough appreciation of the role of the supernatural in ancient times, from animal sacrifices to Zeus and Jupiter to fearful regard for oracles, dreams and soothsayers. We learn of the supreme honor the ancients reserved for Homer and Socrates.

Each chapter comprises three parts: an informative biography of the author and their times, reviews of recommended sources including books from Penguin Classics, Oxford World Classics, and Landmark Editions, as well as web links for Open Source versions of all the ancient books. The third component of each chapter is a richly narrated series of generous quotations of the original works, providing readers with a deep appreciation of each author, their subjects, and their attitudes and approaches.

In addition to authors mentioned above, McKinley introduces readers to the ancient poets and tragedians, Herodotus, Xenophon, Arrian, Polybius, Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, Virgil, Epictetus, Diodorus Siculus, Longinus, Pausanias, Josephus and Ammianus. Ancient Classics User Guide offers a thorough overview of the works of antiquity, and is designed to provide readers an informed map to choose their path into these timeless riches of knowledge and culture.

The Classics are an absolute joy to experience. When we read the Classic writers, we realize that one of the ancients’ selection criteria for preservation must have been the quality of the writing. As Longinus stated in his unforgettable survey of literary criticism in On the Sublime:

We too, then, when we are working at some passage that demands sublimity of thought and expression, should do well to form in our hearts the question, ‘How might Homer have said this same thing, how would Plato or Demosthenes or (in history) Thucydides have made it sublime?

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