I am planning on start studying ancient greek history/culture, it is a good option/path to do so by reading the primary sources in the likes of Herodotus, Thucydides, etc?

by Necessary_Fennel_461

I always was fascinated by history in general( watched youtube channels on the topic, liked pop culture media that took place in the past, really liked the subject in school, etc) but recently i perceived that i never studied profoundly or took time to actually read on the subject in more reliable/professional way. So i decided to start doing so now, starting with the Ancient Greek time perioud (bronze age, classical, etc), but i took notice not only there isnt a lot of books about Ancient Greece in my country(Brazil) at least from what i looked for, but the ones that i did found were or very specific(talking about specific points like the politics of Athens at the time), very superficial(talking about the time period in a more general way, or talking about it alongside many others time periods) or relatively old(things from the 90s/early 2000s, i know that they aren't really that old but since history is an always changing subject i got afraid that they might be already dated). As so i started searching for ways to start studying Ancient Greece and got through a recomendation of primary source books written by greek authors, they being: Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, Xenophon, Strabo, Polybius and Craterus. I founded it interesting, and decided to follow such recomendation, but i am afraid if it may be imprecise or ineficient way of studying history, so decided to ask about opinions on this. What you think?

P.S: Yes, i do know that if i read this primary sources i shoudn't take them at face vallue, since bias and some imprecisions do exist, and some of those aren't actual historical reports(like Iliad and Odyssey by Homer), but they can give a good notion on the culture and views of theese people on that time frame. I also don't take problem on more complicated writing, and i do have a general knowledge on the time period. Also, if you have some recomendation of books etc, that is no problem if they're in english, i surely prefer to have ones in potuguese(since it is my mother language), but i take no problem reading stuff in english aswell.

Caslon

I took a course in school that used this approach, and it was interesting. I think as long as you have a solid knowledge of the time period, then you should be ok. You might look for an annotated version of the primary sources that has some modern commentary, and that might help even more. The AskHistorians booklist, which is in linked in the right panel, would probably have some helpful resources for you.