I have quite a bit of experience in the study of Classical civilization, and I have yet to find a better source for information on Greek and Roman mythology. I think this book is a necessity for anyone wishing to learn more about ancient religion or to anyone who needs a reliable reference for this subject.

Everyone should own a copy of this book. It is the best sophisitcated introduction to classical mythology that is out there, and is filled with useful illustrations.

Morford and Lenardon set out to write a pretty comprehensive mythology text for those just starting a study of the subject and I think they've done a fantastic job. The most recent edition features tons of artwork and brings recent research in classical mythology and archaeology into the discussion. Also, the book is written in a highly engaging style that draws the reader in. You tend to forget you're reading a textbook. My only complaint was that I didn't feel some gods and goddesses were really covered. However, they were usually minor characters in Greek myth, so don't let that deter you from this book. It's worth the price!

The Latin grammar by James Morwood is a smoothly flowing, accessible guide to the Latin language, providing many short sentence examples and explaining nouns and noun inflection, adjectives, adverbs, verb conjugation, and sentence construction in depth. The readability is excellent, and the information presented is easily utilized.

This book is directed mostly at more advanced students of language whom have a grasp of basic language vocabulary
(e.g. verbs, declensions, cases, tenses, etc.). It is none the less very helpful to the begginer student as well because of its lexicon of language words at the beggining of the book with in-depth descriptions of each case, tense, declension, and so on.

Intelligently organized and formatted, this Latin grammar is an excellent resource for beginning and intermediate Latin students. In his preface, the author states that he intends the book to supersede the classic Latin grammar written by Benjamin Hall Kennedy. I'm not familiar with that work, apparently a mainstay of British Latin students for generations. My own acquaintance is with the grammars of American Latinists such as Bennett, Gildersleeve, Hadley, and Allen & Greenough.

The author has wisely chosen to leave out cumbersome, needless detail. Instead, clarity and simplicity are everywhere in abundance. Each section describing a specific grammatical point begins with examples of the construction -- if an analogue exists -- in English. In an age where students' knowledge of basic English grammar can no longer be taken for granted, this is a useful feature indeed.

Arguably the best feature of the book is the way in which grammar points are illustrated by short, easily comprehensible Latin sentences in bold type, with accompanying translations. To his credit, Morwood has studiously avoided the approach found in grammars of yesteryear, viz., using much longer sentences pulled out of classical Latin authors such as Caesar or Cicero to illustrate even the most simple grammatical rule.

The value of the book for teachers is enhanced by the inclusion in each chapter of practice sentences in both Latin (some of which are from classical authors) and English. Separate English-Latin and Latin-English vocabularies at the back of the book are designed to accompany the practice exercises. There is also a "reference grammar" overview of the verb system, bordered with a grey margin for ease of reference. The book also contains a very handy Glossary of Grammatical Terms.

In all, a splendid little book of enormous utility; highly recommended for those seeking a clearly written and easy to understand treatment of basic Latin grammar.

Included in this volume are two plays whose heroine are Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. One takes place before the Trojan War, and the other after her siblings Orestes and Electra had killed their mother. In the first, "Iphigenia at Aulis", she was to be sacrificed in order to appease Artemis and allow the Greek army to sail to Troy. The plot is the hard decisions the sons of Atreus, Clytemnestra, and Iphigenia herself had to make, to see if the sacrifice would be worth it. It is interesting that this also sheds a new perspective on the return of Agamemnon after the war, beause Ighigenia told her mother not to be angry about it. Obviously, because the "Iphigenia among the Taurians" took place some eighteen years later, she didn't die, but I'll leave the conclusion a surprise. The second play takes place in a barbarian land, where Iphigenia is a pristess. Orestes, her brother, has come here in exile, and is to be sacrificed because he is Greek. AFter they recognize each other, they plan their escape, but will they make it? Read these plays to find out.

Although it is probably best to read some of Euripides' other plays before this collection, this volume contains the best of his extant work (in my opinion). Besides the Bacchae there are two truly great plays centering around the tragic figure of Iphigenia (a daughter sacrificed to Artemis by Agamemnon so his fleet could set sail for Troy in Homer's Iliad).
Euripides has had his detractors over the centuries, but the oratory, emotion, and sensitivity of his tragedies sets him apart from Aeschylus and Sophocles (each of whom was also excellent for other reasons).

A well set out book of ancient greek grammar. Contains most necessary paradigms, and also a lot about various grammatical constructions. Because of its limited size, it does not go into much detail with the grammar points but for someone starting or continuing on with Ancient Greek (inc NT Greek) this is a very handy reference to have. Also contains some useful appendices and an extremely limited Greek-English, English-Greek dictionary. This book is a lot easier to understand than a lot of the old books, eg. Goodwin, Smyth. Also a lot cheaper here than what I paid for it (although shipping to Oz would have cost a bit).

I'm very impressed with this grammar. Morwood makes no claims that he is replacing Smyth's grammar for breadth. Instead, the Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek sets out in a very consise and clear manner various paradigms and rules. I particularly appreciate the VERY good verb section - not only providing paradigms for the regular conjugations and types of verbs, but also giving the principle parts of the 100 most common irregular verbs. For someone (like myself) who can never seem to remember all of the irregular verbs that seem to pop up in translations FAR too often, this grammar will become a favorite resource. My only complaint -- I'm sure that my grammar skills have declined as a result of relying upon this book rather than my memory during translations.

It is at this point in the Balme and Morwood series that we finally can break away from the children's books. Up until this point the users have been forced to deal with cartoons, which are disgustingly badly drawn, and end chapter questions fit for a monkey. Now, however, real literature is set forth and we may all rejoice.

Ceasar, Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, Livy, and Ovid now replace the story of Quintus, which surely had become dear to our hearts.

One problem with this freedom, though, is that it is quite the leap of knowledge. As I had said, we jump from children's tales to literature and it is not without great effort that we may do so successfully. Be aware that this book is like the prior book squared. Buy a dictionary and make sure it is a good one. Also, in this book you will realize that though you thought you could read Latin by sight, you are now proven wrong. But, it is worth the hard work and this realization to get through this book.

(P.S. the teachers' book is no help!)

In their preface, the authors say, "The transition from adapted Latin to unadapted Latin texts is always traumatic and many courses fail at this point." They surely succeed in this difficult task. The accompanying Teacher's Book is indispensable in self study.

This volume brings together three of the extant plays of Euripides that focus on the characters made famous in Homer's epic poem the "Iliad," which tells of the wrath of Achilles and the Trojan War. All three plays take place after the fall of Troy and tell of the fate of the city's noble women:

In "Hecuba" Troy's queen has become the slave of Odysseus, who takes away her daughter Polyxena to be slain on the grave of Achilles. However, in this drama it is the earlier death of another child, Polydorus that provides the motivation for what comes to pass. This was a child who had been sent (according to Homer, there are various versions of this tale) for safety to the Thracian Chersonese. But now, after Hecuba hears of the death of Polyxena, the body of Polydorus washes up on shore. Apparently Hecuba's son-in-law Polymnester murdered the boy for the gold that King Priam had sent to pay for his education. Agamemnon hears Hecuba's pleas, and Polymnester is allowed to visit the queen before she is taken away into captivity.

The most fascinating aspect of "Hecuba" is that it gives us an opportunity to contrast the character of the queen of fallen Troy with that in his more famous work, "The Trojan Women." This play was performed ten years earlier and its events take place right before the other play as well, although there is some overlap when Talthybius informs Hecuba of the death of Polyxena. In both dramas Hecuba is a woman driven by a brutal and remorseless desire for vengeance; however she proves much more successful in this drama than she does in "The Trojan Women." This play also makes reference to the myth that Hecuba would meet her own hideous death, which reinforces the idea that there is much more of a moral degradation of her character in this play (set up by much more humiliation and degradation in the first half).

"The Trojan War" was written as a plea for peace after the Athenians had slaughtered the men and enslaved the women and children of the island of Melos for refusing to aid Athens in the war against Sparta, and as preparations were being made for the ruinous expedition against Syracuse. Consequently there is a strong rhetorical dimension to the play, which prophesies that a Greek force would sail across the sea after violating victims and meet with disaster. However, there the play also has a strong literary consideration in that the four Trojan Women--Hecuba, Queen of Troy; Cassandra, daughter of Hecuba and Priestess of Apollo; Andromache, widow of Hector; and Helen--all appear in the final chapter of the "Iliad," mourning over the corpse of Hector, retrieved by his father Priam from the camp of the Acheans.

As with his last play "Iphigenia at Aulis," which tells of the events right before the Achean army left for Troy, "The Trojan Women" reflects the cynicism of Euripides. Of all the Achean leaders we hear about in Homer, only Menelaus, husband of Helen, appears. He appears, ready to slay Helen for having abandoned him to run off to Troy with Paris, but we see his anger melt before her beauty and soothing tones. In this play the Greeks do more than enslave women: they have already slain a young girl as a sacrifice to the ghost of Achilles and they take Astyanax, the son of Hector, out of the arms of his mother so that he can be thrown from the walls of Troy. Even the herald of the Greeks, Talthybius, cannot stomach the policies of his people. The play also reminds us that Helen was a most unpopular figure amongst the ancient Greeks, and there is no satisfaction in her saving her life.

"Andromache," the story of the fate of Hector's widow, is one of the weakest of the extant plays of Euripides. In truth, the work is better considered as anti-Spartan propaganda, written near the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, although it presents a tragedy. However, the scenes are much more episodic than we usually find in Euripides; the first part of the tragedy is essentially a supplicant play, but then it changes dramatically. The play has one of Euripides' strongest beginnings, with its strong attacks on Sparta, represented by Menelaus. But even as propaganda Euripides elevates his subject for what he sees is not merely a war between two cities, but rather a clash between two completely different ways of life.

Andromache, the widow of Hector, is the slave of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, who is married to Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen. The setting is the Temple of Thetis, the mother of Achilles, somewhere between Pithia and Pharasalia in Thessaly. Andromache has born Neoptolemus a son, and the barren Hermione accuses the Trojan woman of having used witchcraft and seeks her death. Andromache has taken refuge as this temple where Hermione and Menelaus try to get her to come out by threatening to kill her son. However, the title character disappears from the play and everybody from Peleus, the father of Achilles, to Orestes, the cousin of Hermione, shows up, mainly to talk about Neoptolemus, who is at Delphi. Thetis shows up as the deus-ex-machina and the play ends rather abruptly. As a tragedy there is little her beyond a progression of characters who all talk about doing something they end up not doing. If there is supposed to be a series of object lessons here they are pretty much lost on the audience.

Obviously this collection would work as a companion volume to Homer's "Iliad" in the classroom. "The Trojan War" is the most significant play here, but the comparisons to "Hecuba" and "Andormache" are quite interesting since we are dealing with the same tragic dramatist writing about the same characters in essentially the same situations. We know that these ancient Greek dramas returned to the same subjects tiime and time again, but this is one of the few opportunities we have from the relatively few plays that remain to make such direct comparisons.

"Helen" is the last play in this volume, and unlike the others is not a tragedy, but a satyr play. This means that everyone doesn't die at the end, but the play is taken from a relatively happy mythological theme. "Helen" departs from the Homeric tradition, because Euripides claims that Helen was never actually taken to Troy, but was left in Egypt by Paris when he came their, and a simulacrum of Helen went to Ilium. Euripides has Menelaus and the fake Helen reach Egypt, where Helen is in danger of being taken as a wife by the new pharaoh. After they have recognized each other, they try to use trickery to escape the land of the Nile and return to Sparta. Read this volume to find out how it happened.

This book is rather bipolar in its usefullness. It is nice (though often annoying) that it does make things easy on the user by using easy stories. "Quintus goes to the pub" will allow you to concentrate on the language and not the complex meaning of the story. Furthermore, it allows for a sort of "catch up" phase in that every four chapters or so there is a chapter in which nothing new is introduced. A time to really concentrate on what you are suppose to have learned. These are its good points.

This will sound trivial but still bothers me a year after having finished this book...the art is wretched. Who drew these pictures? People often are drawn without arms or legs and switch shades of colors between images that are directly beside on another. And never (NEVER) look into the background. Whoever did draw these books not only had little skill in art, but had no knowledge of Roman life. Secondly, the book has this "tell you later" aspect. They allow little things to pop up here and ther and then explain them in the next chapter. Sure, some will say that this is a good way to slowly move into the grammer, but it does you no good to see a word and have no idea whatsoever to do with it. Beyond this, often when they do explain things they do so in a small context. "A" is used for 1. And you shall go on like that for some time before they tell you "A" is used also for 2 & 4, which up until this point we have been using "B." Later, we learn that "B" is the exact same but they cared not to let us in on that little fact. Of course, maybe they don't want to push too much on us, which is a fair argument. But, then, they should put annotations to further chapters so that if we want to we may look further ahead to gain, no understanding, but context. The book also, has its fair share of mistakes, which you will may not realize and which then may really hinder your learning.

So, the book has its good and bad points. Overall I think it is a good book to learn with, but it definately could be revised and some of these problems fixed.

I just completed primus annus Latin at a local university. We used the first 2 books of this Oxford 4-book series by Balme and Morwood. They were a good start. I was quite impressed at the way the authors moved from one concept to the next, generally speaking. I have a few nits, however. The exercises are at the end of the book, whereas each chapter contains vocabulary and readings. I was compelled to be flipping back and forth perpetually. If there needed to be any separation at all, the ideal would be to have the vocab and exercises (learning development) in the chapter, and the readings at the end. The way to tackle each chapter, therefore, is to do the vocab, read the lessons, write the exercises, and then do the readings; the book design should reflect this. Secondly, without an answer key of some sort, students often plunged ahead on the homework without knowing if they were on the right track until their next class. Thirdly, the authors had a tendency to sneak in bits and pieces of new material every now and then which have not been covered, and wouldn't be for another chapter or two. So you get occasionally confused. Unlike others, I don't mind the art-work! On a grand scale, I think these books overall were good because they moved logically through the tenses and forms, building upon each concept. Book 1 dealt primarily with nouns and declensions; Book 2 with verb conjugations and tenses. Next fall I tackle Books 3-4. VALE.

As a high school student in a Latin course using this text, I can say that it is of excellent quality. It starts out simply, with the very basics, then gradually moves into the more complex areas of the language. The book provides plenty of passages to apply the knowledge gained in each chapter, which are a great help in mastering the material. A possible drawback for some may lie in the fact that the concepts of tense and voice are not touched upon until well into the second volume.

I just want to make sure if this is a good boo

This dictionary is not the most useful dictionary I've seen around. Indeed, it is very limited in scope and contains very few entries. The entries that are in fact included in the dictionary are not particularly helpful. In particular, the definitions are not always accurate, although they are concise.

The format of the entries can be quite confusing; the presentation of verbs being quite the worse I've seen. For instance, the principal parts of the verb retraho is given as 'retraho, xi, ctum, [3]'. It takes considerable guesswork to realise that the 'xi' and 'ctum' stand for 'retraxi' and 'retractum' respectively. In this aspect, it is not particularly helpful to beginners, who cannot be expected to guess the correct form.

Otherwise, the layout of the dictionary is refreshingly well done, partly due to the sparseness of each page. The print is clear and of a good size.

All in all, it is suitable only for the beginner in Latin because of the paucity of entries, and, even so, the presentation of verbs might be confusing. It is certainly nowhere near the level of excellence attained by the big Oxford Latin Dictionary. One point in its favour is it's small size, being quite the smallest I've seen (along with the Collins Gem one) and certainly lives up to it's 'pocket' description, fitting quite easily in one.

This is a fairly useful Latin Dictionary... I got it, because I thought it would be useful as a student of law and the classics. Though, perhaps its overarching merit is simply its portability. Usefulness and comprehensiveness are sacrificed to the utilitarian value of small size. Jurists (e.g. legal scholars) and Medical professionals might find it lacks to many key Latin terms relevant to their discipline.

I used this to look up the meanings of anatomy terms as I prepare to start medical school this Fall. While studying an anatomy atlas with the dictionary sitting on the atlas the blue ink from this dictionary's cover smeared all over my anatomy book's pages. Otherwise it was useful. I spent three years learning ancient Greek and Latin a few years ago, and if you plan to go beyond the elementary level in Latin I suggest you get the Chambers Murray or the Cassell dictionary. Chambers Murray is actually quite portable, but heavy for its size.