Customer Reviews

Theocritus: A Selection: Idylls 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 13 (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

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No serious scholar of Hellenistic poetry will ignore Hunter's solid commentary..but as usual the academic presses tell a mistruth in claiming this new volume is the "first full-scale" whatever on the author under consideration since whenever..Dover's 1971 London commentary is just as solid as this one, and the saddest thing about Hunter's book is how he covers much of the same ground as Dover idyll-wise..better, it would seem, to have covered a different selection and allowed students to have both reasonably priced volumes on Theocritus than to repeat coverage of the same poems (a valuable thing for the seasoned Hellenist but less valuable for the beginner-if any young Hellenists are reading Theocritus anyway). Of course both books can be safely ignored if one is lucky enough to find the monumental 1952 Gow commentary..sadly, and scandalously, allowed to remain out-of-print. Those two volumes contain every poem with full commentary and translation. Without Gow, the best one can do book-wise is amass the Oxford Text (also by Gow) to at least have all of the poems and get this commentary and Dover's. The Loeb by Edmonds is way out of date text- and translation-wise. These poems are far too difficult for the unseasoned Hellenist to read without commentary, so every little aid helps.

After using this commentary, one wishes that Hunter had felt compelled to include more Idylls in his edition, but he makes a lucid justification of his selection. This is a great edition for first-time Theocritus readers (like me!). The commentary is much fuller than Dover's and is more up-to-date. Definitely a must have for anyone interested in Hellenistic poetry or ancient pastoral.