Jeffrey Beneker's Top Book Recommendations

Jeffrey BenekerAgricola is a tribute to his father-in-law and it’s really nice to have this family connection. A lot of ancient literature can oftentimes seem so distant and cold that it’s hard to see the human connection, but it’s strong in this book. In the introduction and especially in the conclusion you can feel the real bond that Tacitus must have felt with this person. (Source)

Jeffrey BenekerAtticus is called Atticus because Attica is the region around Athens and he went to Athens to study. He has that philosophical background that allows him to see what’s really important. (Source)

Jeffrey BenekerAlexander is a huge figure in Greece, mostly because of the Romance and the different forms it took. It’s a romance in the sense of a novel, we might call it ‘the Alexander Fiction.’ (Source)

Jeffrey BenekerPlutarch would argue that what you’re doing in your private life will predict what’s going to happen if we put you in charge of public life. If you can’t run the small economy of your household in a competent way, why would we put you in charge of the city’s economy? It’s that way of thinking. (Source)

James WarrenDiogenes is very keen on making this a personal story. He’s both interested in telling us all sorts of odd and fantastical stories about the individual philosophers, but he’s also very interested in showing how each of these individual philosophers was influenced directly and personally by other predecessors. I think of it as a family tree of philosophies with Epicurus as the final branch of one... (Source)

Jeffrey BenekerWe probably shouldn’t trust anything that we can’t find in another source, but many of the things you read in here pop up everywhere when you read about these philosophers in modern accounts because, in the end, it’s all we have. (Source)