Lesson 1

As you read in the syllabus, the goal of this course is to develop your ability to read, understand, and respond to texts written in Greek during the classical period of ancient Greece, which began in the six century BCE and came to a close with the rise of Macedonian power in the Mediterranean during the last half of the fourth century. To achieve this goal, you will engage with a series of readings based on a variety of ancient Greek texts, and though this engagement you will gradually acquire the language. In the first semester the readings will concern a household in a village not far from Ecbatana in Media. As you will learn in the second semester, this is where Cyrus, who would go on to establish the Achaemenid Empire, spent his childhood as recorded in the Histories of Herodotus and Xenophon's Cyropaideia. You will eventually meet Cyrus through Kydraios, one of his contemporaries in the village.

In this first reading Kydraios speaks with a boy, approximately his own age, who has recently come into the village where Kydraios and his family live seeking a household where he could work in return for the necessities of life. Kydraios' father, Astibaros, has determined that the boy is of Hebrew descent and surmises that his family was among those whom the Babylonians brought as captives from Jerusalem when their king, Nebuchadnezzar, finally captured the city about ten years earlier. How he wandered away from Babylon and journeyed all the way to Media almost three hundred miles northeast of Babylon remains unclear. Astibaros has decided to keep this boy, whose name is Ζαφών, Zaphōn, because "νόμος ἐγένετο ἐν Μήδοις, ὅστις πένης τροφῆς ἕνεκα προσίῃ ἀνδρὶ εὐπόρῳ ἑαυτὸν διδούς, ὅπως τρέφοιτό τε καὶ ἀμπέχοιτο, ἴσα καὶ δοῦλον νομίζεσθαι ἐκείνου" ("Among the Medes was a custom that whoever was poor and in need of food and approached a man of means, giving himself over to him so that he would be fed and clothed, would be thought of as his slave.") Thinking that Zaphōn could not only contribute to the livelihood of the household but be a companion for his younger son, Astibaros has entrusted the boy to Kydraios, who will, first of all, have to teach Zaphōn how to communicate with the family. (Of course, Kydraios and his family spoke Median, but that language only survives in a limited number of words that made their way into Old Persian. This course asks you to think of the readings as Greek translations of what would have been in Median and, as you will see, Hebrew.)

Follow along and begin learning ancient Greek along with Zaphōn by reading through this selection a number of times improving your pronunciation of the Greek each time and working to achieve full comprehension.

Reading (τὸ ἀνάγνωσμα)

χαῖρε, ὦ φίλε. ἐμοὶ τὸ ὄνομά ἐστι Κυδραῖος, ἐγώ καὶ σύ ἐσμεν παῖδες. ἐγώ εἰμι Μῆδος τὸ γένος καὶ σὺ εἶ Ἑβραῖος. οἰκοῦμεν ἐν τῇ Μηδικῇ χώρᾳ

τὸ ὄνομά σοί ἐστι Ζαφών.

ὁ πατὴρ ἐμοὶ καὶ ὁ δεσπότης σοὶ Ἀστιβάρος ἐστὶ καὶ ἡ μήτηρ ἐμοί ἐστι καὶ ἡ δέσποινα σοὶ Ζαριναία. ἐμοί εἰσι ἀδελφὸς καὶ ἀδελφή. τὸ ὄνομα ἀδελφῷ ἐστὶ Θρασύστομος καὶ ἀδελφῇ Ἑλένη. ἐσμὲν οὖν τέκνα τοῦ τε Ἀστιβάρου καὶ τῆς Ζαριναίας.

ἐγὼ υἱός εἰμι τοῦ Ἀστιβάρου καὶ τῆς Ζαριναίας. ἐγὼ καὶ ἀδελφὸς, Θρασύστομος ὀνομαστί, υἱοί ἐσμεν τοῦ Ἀστιβάρου καὶ τῆς Ζαριναίας.

ἡ ἀδελφὴ ἐμοῦ, Ἑλένη ὀνομαστί, θυγάτηρ ἐστὶ τοῦ Ἀστιβάρου καὶ τῆς Ζαριναίας.

Vocabulary

※ Green background color indicates core vocabulary.