Category Archives: Greek

Greek Ruins

Greek Ruins Columns

The following is an essay featured in Tracy Lee Simmons’ On Being Civilized from Memoria College Press. Once a common possession of the well educated,classical knowledge now bobs like flotsam amid the wreckage wrought by a century of educational scuttling. And with the passing of Greek and Latin we have lost part of the soul […]

Through A Glass Wine-Darkly

Through a Glass Wine-Darkly

Have you heard the one about the color blue? The story goes that the Greeks had no word for the color. In Homer, things traditionally thought of as blue—the sea, the sky—go by gloomy words like “brazen” or “wine-dark.” Trivial as it may seem, this is the fact that launched a thousand speculative ships towards […]

The Lasting Courage of Alexander the Great

The Lasting Courage of Alexander the Great

In the autumn of 324 BC, Alexander stood up and looked at the faces of his Macadonian army. He had seen these faces many times before. Seven years earlier before the battle of Gaugamela, Alexander saw in the faces of these same men a fierce love and a resolute spirit that led to a decisive […]

The Lasting Legacy of Goodwill

Pericles: The Lasting Legacy of Goodwill

One night, around 500 BC, a Greek woman in Athens, named Agariste, jolted out of sleep, shocked by what she had just seen in a dream. The historians Herodotus and Plutarch tell us that this dream portended great things to come. In the dream, Agariste screamed in pain as she labored in childbirth. But after […]

How Pride Ruined a Hero

How Pride Ruined a Hero

 He was a somewhat ignoble, half-bred Greek. He grew to be a prescient general, whose stratagem checkmated one of the ancient world’s most powerful villains. He was a hero of heroes, the opulent fortifier of a burgeoning empire. He grew to be a groveling outcast, whose final gulp was not the finest wine of […]

Greek Pronunciation: The Pedagogical Pertinence

Greek Pronunciation

Greek teachers find themselves in a difficult predicament in regard to the pronunciation of Greek. On one hand they have the option of teaching modern pronunciation (Demotic), and on the other, Erasmian. The primary difference between the two is in the pronunciation of vowels, but a few consonants differ as well. With Demotic pronunciation, used […]

Elysian Fields: Why Students Should Learn Greek

Why should the student learn Greek? No shortage of pragmatic reasons comes to mind, and parents and teachers will delight to know that Greek has utilitarian value, although it seems uncouth to speak of it as such. While usually a hybrid of Greek and Latin influence, most existing English words come from the Greco-Roman vocabulary. […]

Is Hebrew Better Than Greek?

It is, according to one common objection to classical education. But is it really? One of the most common criticisms of classical education is that it imports into Christian education ideas that conflict with the Biblical world view. According to this criticism, classical education tries to incorporate both Biblical/Hebraic thought and Greek thought, and in […]

Why Study Latin and Greek?

By Andrew Campbell The ancients did not press practical arguments too far. As Aristotle said, “To seek utility everywhere is most unsuitable to lofty and free natures.” Yet the pragmatic benefits of classical education are the ones our modern society is likely to look for first. Fortunately, they are abundantly available to answer some of […]