🐯 Princeton Hellenic Studies unofficial reading list 2026

Freshman level

Elementary / Intermediate Modern Greek I HLS/MOG 101/105 (fa26)

Ellinika A / Greek 1: Method for Learning Greek as a Foreign Language by Giorgos Simopoulos

The Byzantine Empire HLS 209 (fa26)

✔️ Byzantium: A Very Short Intro. by Peter Sarris
The Social History of Byzantium by John Haldon
A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities: Strange Tales & Surprising Facts from History’s Most Orthodox Empire by Anthony Kaldellis
Secret History by Procopius
Alexiad by Anna Komnene
Three Byzantine Military Treatises by George T. Dennis
Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria by Albrecht Berger
Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions by Elizabeth Jeffreys

Classical Mythology HLS 212 (fa26)

The Greek Tragedies: 17 Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, & Euripides
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation by Trzaskoma et al.
The Odyssey by Homer
The Poems of Hesiod by R.M. Frazer
Sophocles II: Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes, The Trackers
Apollodorus’ Library & Hyginus’ Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology by Smith & Trzaskoma
The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes

Democracy in Ancient Greece HLS 220 (fa26)

Democracy & Classical Greece by J K Davies
History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
Aristophanes 1: Clouds, Wasps, Birds by Peter Meineck
Aristotle: The Politics and the Constitution of Athens by Stephen Everson
Legal Speeches of Democratic Athens: Sources for Athenian History by Wolpert & Kapparis

Hellenism: The 1st 3000 Years HLS 222 (fa26)

The New Testament & Christian Origins HLS 251 (fa26)

The Jewish Annotated New Testament by Levine & Brettler
Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers by Louth & Staniforth
The New Testament: A Historical Intro. to the Early Christian Writings by Ehrman & Méndez

Aristotle & His Successors HLS 302 (fa26)