About This Blog

KALLISTI was created several years ago. Since then, the blogopshere has gotten richer, but this devotee to Apollon (and now the Erinyes) is still here providing anecdotes of personal practice, communicating about various theological/moral/philosophical beliefs of myself and others, linking to valuable and/or interesting media sources, and sharing resources about Hellenic polytheisms with the general community.

14 August 2009

Open Your Ears: The Ancients in Stereo

While all of us would like to lounge on our couches with Plato and Homer for hours on end, today's mobile lifestyle makes this somewhat unrealistic. Not only do you need to walk Fido every evening, but workouts and daily commutes take up your precious reading time.

Don't consider this an insurmountable barrier—you can download free audio versions of many popular religious and philosophical texts written by Real Ancient Greeks™. What follows is by no means comprehensive, but it should get you started.

Aeschylus
LibriVox — The Oresteia is currently in production. You can ask to be notified of its completion via e-mail.

Aesop
LibriVox — 284 of his Fables are here, broken into twelve volumes.
Project Gutenberg — On the Aesop portal, everything with a little audio sign is also available as an audiobook. How awesome is that?

Aristotle
LibriVox — Both Aristotle's "Poetics" and "Politics" are available.
Project Gutenberg"Poetics" is also available in audiobook format here. Just scroll down and select the file format you want.

Herodotus
LibriVox — Yup, LibriVox is recording the Histories! You can find Volumes I and II, with Volume III still in production.

Homer
Epic Poetry (Podcast) — Podcast reads sections of many epic poems, including the Iliad and Odyssey. Their main page is here.
LibriVox— You can find the Iliad and Odyssey, both translated by Samuel Butler. From what I have heard of the Iliad, the English-language texts use Roman names for the Gods, but that's how they did things during the nineteenth century.
Project Gutenberg — You can also get the Samuel Butler version of the Odyssey here. Scroll down for file format options. They also have something called The Iliad for Boys and Girls. Again, you have an amazing choice of formats.

Plato
LibriVox— The dialogue I have listened to uses multiple readers, so keeping track of speakers is quite easy. LibriVox has completed The Apology of Socrates, Euthyphro, Ion, and The Republic. His Phaedrus and Timaeus are in production.
Project GutenbergEuthyphro.

Sappho
LibriVox — While they don't have her complete poems online, Sappho's "I Loved Thee, Athis" is in a short poetry collection.
Listen to Genius!Fourteen-minute collection of Sappho's poems.

Sophocles
LibriVoxOedipus Rex is currently in production. You can ask to be notified of its completion via e-mail.

Thucydides
LibriVox"Funeral Oration of Pericles," which is in a nonfiction collection, and "The History of the Peloponnesian War."
Project GutenbergThe history of the Peloponnesian War.

Xenophon
LibriVoxAnabasis.

If you want more audio texts to become available—especially hymn translations that are in the public domain—consider joining a volunteer organization like LibriVox or creating your own podcast.

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