LC Ancient Greek cheat sheet

Start with the main verb: Greek finite verbs carry person, number, tense, voice and mood, so locating them fixes the clause skeleton before any noun is assigned a case role.

Article as identifier: ὁ, ἡ, τό often marks a known or previously mentioned referent; its absence with an abstract noun (e.g. σοφία) usually signals a general or predicative sense.

Case roles: nominative subject or predicate; genitive of possession, partitive, separation, comparison; dative of interest, instrument, means, agent with passive; accusative direct object, extent, respect, motion toward.

Middle versus passive in the present and imperfect: -ομαι forms are ambiguous; test for a passive genitive of agent (ὑπό + genitive) or a middle sense like 'for oneself' or 'cause to be done for oneself'.

Particle check before translating: μέν… δέ signals contrast, γάρ explanation, οὖν inference, ἄρα inference or surprise, δή emphasis, γε limitation; they are unemphatic and need not be translated word for word.

Verse: iambic trimeter resolves into six metrical feet of the pattern x – u – | x – u – | x – u –; the final foot is usually u –, and resolutions (two shorts for one long) are common in tragedy's later style.

Verse: hexameter is six dactyls ( – u u ) with spondee ( – – ) substitution; the fifth foot is almost always dactylic, so a word-end before the fifth-foot caesura is a strong structural cue.

Elision and crasis: final short vowels drop before a following vowel (ἀλλ' ἐγώ), and crasis fuses article and word (κἀγώ = καὶ ἐγώ, τοὔνομα = τὸ ὄνομα); restore the full forms before parsing.

Identify the passage's addressee and dramatic or rhetorical situation first: who speaks, to whom, in what context, and what has just happened; meaning is often decided by these facts, not by lexical glosses.

Note repeated key words and their cognates across a passage (e.g. θάνατος, θνῄσκω); repetition usually marks the thematic centre and is a legitimate point for an interpretation answer.

Distinguish what a character says from what the text endorses: statements by a chorus or a narrator may be qualified by irony, dramatic context, or later reversal.

Quote the Greek and translate it before commenting; examiners reward a short precise citation plus a literal rendering over a general paraphrase.

Track tense and aspect in narrative: aorist for punctual events that advance the plot, imperfect for background and repeated action, present for vivid or general statements.

Recognise rhetorical devices by their Greek names and forms: anaphora (repetition of the opening word), asyndeton (omitted connectives), apostrophe (address to absent or dead person), rhetorical question, priamel, and ring composition.

For 'how does the language create effect', link a specific feature (harsh consonant clusters, long periodic sentence, staccato asyndeton) to a specific emotional or persuasive effect on the audience.

Where a text is set for a prescribed theme (e.g. justice, fate, heroism), prepare two or three passages per theme with a short quotation and a one-sentence analytical point each.

Contract verbs: -αω contracts to -ω (τιμάω → τιμῶ), -εω to -ω (φιλέω → φιλῶ), -οω to -ω (δηλόω → δηλῶ); the uncontracted form is the key to the dictionary entry.

Athematic (mi) verbs: δίδωμι, τίθημι, ἵστημι, ἵημι, εἶμι, φημί, δύναμαι; endings attach directly to the stem, and reduplication marks the present (δίδωμι, τίθημι).

ἵστημι is transitive-causal in the present and imperfect (I make stand), intransitive in the aorist and perfect (I stood, I stand); this voice shift is a frequent translation trap.

Conditional sentences: εἰ + indicative = open or factual condition; ἐάν + subjunctive = future more vivid; εἰ + optative = future less vivid; εἰ + past indicative in protasis with ἄν in apodosis = past contrafactual.

Indirect statement after verbs of saying or thinking uses ὅτι or ὡς with the indicative, or the accusative-and-infinitive construction; the negative is οὐ in both.

Purpose: ἵνα, ὡς, ὅπως + subjunctive (or optative after a secondary tense); fear clauses use μή (or μὴ οὐ after verbs of fearing) with subjunctive or optative.

Optative uses: wish (with εἴθε or εἰ γάρ), potential (with ἄν), and oblique after a past main verb in subordinate clauses; recognise the -οι- or -ιη- stem vowel.

Vocabulary building: learn principal parts in sets (present, future, aorist, perfect active, perfect middle/passive, aorist passive) because aorist and future stems are often unrecognisable from the present.

Athenian democracy: the ekklesia (assembly) of all adult male citizens, the boule of 500 chosen by lot, and the jury courts (dikasteria) paid from the mid-fifth century; metics, women, slaves and freedmen were excluded from citizenship.

The Persian Wars: Marathon 490, Thermopylae and Artemisium 480, Salamis 480, Plataea and Mycale 479; these dates anchor most historical allusions in fifth-century literature.

The Peloponnesian War 431–404: Archidamian phase, Sicilian expedition 415–413, Ionian war and Athenian defeat at Aegospotami 405; Thucydides and Aristophanes are read against this chronology.

Greek religion: sacrifice and libation structure civic life; the Twelve Olympians coexist with local cults, hero cult, mystery cults (Eleusis) and oracles (Delphi, Dodona); miasma and purification explain much plot in tragedy.

Theatre: City Dionysia in spring, choregos funding, three actors with masks, skene and orchestra; the conventions of messenger speeches, stichomythia and the chorus's role shape how a scene is read.

Slavery and economy: chattel slaves worked households, farms, mines (Laurion silver) and workshops; manumission was possible, and slave status was inherited from the mother in Athenian law.

Education and rhetoric: sophists taught argument for a fee; Isocrates and the rhetorical schools shaped later prose; Athenian litigants had to speak for themselves in court.

Know the difference between what a text says and what historical sources attest: tragedy uses myth, not documentary record, and comedy uses caricature, so neither is straightforward evidence for daily life.

Genre signals: epic uses hexameter and formulae, didactic epic uses direct address, tragedy mixes iambic dialogue with choral lyric metres, historiography uses programmatic prefaces and speeches.

Homeric formulae are metrically useful repeated phrases (e.g. epithet plus noun); they are a compositional technique, not automatic evidence of poor style, and their variation can be significant.

Tragic structure: prologue, parodos, episodes separated by stasima, exodos; the chorus often frames the action and its odes comment obliquely rather than narrate.

Characterisation in Greek literature is often built through speech and reported action rather than authorial description; compare what a character says with what they do.

Style markers in prose: period and colon structure, antithesis, paronomasia (wordplay on similar sounds), parenthesis, and the use of abstract nouns versus concrete participles.

Themes to test any passage against: fate versus human agency, justice and revenge, hospitality (xenia) and its violation, the polis versus the individual, knowledge and ignorance, mortality and the limits of human power.

Irony in tragedy arises from the gap between what the audience knows and what the character knows; note double meanings and prophetic or loaded words at the moment they are spoken.

When evaluating a critical claim, cite the text in support and also cite a counter-passage; a balanced judgement that acknowledges complication scores higher than a one-sided assertion.

A defensible essay thesis names a position and a reason (X is presented as Y because Z); a statement of topic without a claim cannot be argued and caps the mark.

Structure: introduction with thesis and roadmap, three or four body paragraphs each built on one point with quotation and analysis, then a conclusion that answers the question rather than restating it.

Use primary evidence in every body paragraph: a short Greek quotation, a literal translation, then the analytical point; never let a paragraph consist only of plot summary.

Engage counter-argument explicitly: state the strongest opposing reading, give the textual support for it, then show why your reading still holds or must be qualified.

Personal response means reasoned judgement, not opinion polling: first person is acceptable when tied to evidence ('the repetition suggests to me…'), but assertions need textual support.

Keep terminology precise: use 'narrator' for the telling voice, 'author' for the real person, 'character' for the agent in the story; conflating them weakens analysis.

Timing discipline: allocate roughly one-fifth of the total time to planning, then write; for a 45-minute essay, plan for 8 minutes and write four paragraphs of about 200 words each.

For passage-based questions, answer both parts: locate and explain the passage's content, then discuss its significance for the wider work or theme with at least one cross-reference.