Book excerpt: Combining the best features of traditional and modern methods, Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek 3/e, provides a unique, bestselling course of instruction that allows students to read connected Greek narrative right from the begining and guides them to the point where they can begin reading complete classical texts. Carefully designed to hold students' interest, the course begins in Book I with a fictional narrative about an Attic farmer's family placed in a precise historical context (423-431 B.C.). This narrative, interwoven with tales from mythology and the Persian Wars, gradually gives way in Book II to adapted passages from Thucydides, Plato, and Herodotuc and ultimately to excerpts of the original Greek of Bacchylides, Thucudides, and Aristophanes' Acharnians. Essays on relevant aspects of ancient Greek culture and history are also woven throughout.