Reading with 10 Eyes and 17 Bookmarks

My first forays into classical history were with some relatively obvious choices, Herodotus and Livy. When I reached the adventures of Alexander the Great, I found that I had four different sources with nearly equally compelling value: Plutarch, Arrian, Quintus Curtius Rufus, and Diodorus Siculus. In order to maximize my ability to find the differences in their narratives, I attempted to read about each event discretely in all four authors before moving on to the next passage in each. The sources extent for the early third century before the common era are quite poor, forcing me to find more of them. Even when the great Polybius starts and then Livy resumes for the Second Punic War, I had built up a cycle of eight to twelve different books I was reading at once. While those observing me might find it strange, especially when the passage I read is only a sentence or a paragraph from any given book, the repetition helps me learn, and the differences reveal both what is better to believe is true and also the perspective of the authors.

My last rotation, covering the years 378-383 CE, included the following books: the History of Zosimus, the Histories of Al-Tabari, the Gothic History by Jordanes, Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People and Greater Chronicle, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Ecclesiastical Histories of Sozomen and Socrates, Libanius' Autobiography, Letters, and Orations, Letters of Saint Jerome, and the Confessions of Augustine. Because of both curiosity and the belief that they are in themselves classics, I also include Montesquieu's Considerations of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline and Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

If anyone has any questions about these or other books, such as what I editions I use, go to my profile in the sidebar and send me an email.