Textbooks, exercise books, and graded readers — free where possible — for building toward Byzantine Greek. A multilingual companion. Compiled 1 July 2026.
Free — open / free PDF / free w. registration Public-domain scan (archive.org / Textkit) Borrow-only or self-archived (verify) Commercial / in printEX has exercises / answer keysGR Greek text w. reading aidsEN language of the work
Focus: things you can learn from. This page collects actual course books, workbooks, and reading texts with built-in help (running vocabulary, notes, answer keys) — not scholarship. There is no dedicated free "Beginner's Byzantine Greek" textbook: the realistic route is to build core morphology and syntax on an Ancient Greek textbook, drill with exercises, then move through graded readers into the Koine/patristic register (the deepest substrate of Byzantine prose) and on to Byzantine texts themselves. Background overviews and articles are gathered in a short final section. Pirated copies (Scribd/pdfcoffee/theswissbay etc.) are excluded even where they ranked highly; self-archived author copies are marked to verify.
1. Foundation — open textbooks & exercises (Ancient Greek core)
Full first-year courses that teach the morphology and syntax you will reuse at every later stage — chosen because they are free and include drills.
Ancient Greek for Everyone (AGE) — W. E. Major & M. Laughy EXEN
Open textbook. A complete, openly-licensed first-year Greek course: essential morphology & syntax, chapter vocabulary, exercises (both directions), and reading passages from ancient sources. Read free online, or download/print.
Textbook library. 180+ public-domain Greek textbooks, grammars, and readers as free PDFs — including J. W. White's First Greek Book and other course books that come with graded exercises and separate answer keys. The classic free self-study spine.
Open University — Getting Started on Ancient GreekEN
Beginner primer. A short, gentle orientation to the alphabet and first steps — a low-commitment on-ramp before a full textbook.
2. Graded readers (reading practice with built-in help)
Real Greek texts printed with running vocabulary and commentary on the facing page, so you can read continuously once you have basic grammar. Free PDFs.
Graded readers. Free PDF editions of Plato, Herodotus, Xenophon, Homer and more — full Greek text with facing running vocabulary, grammar notes, and downloadable flashcards. Ideal for the transition from textbook to real prose.
Graded readers. Hayes & Nimis produced a series of free intermediate readers with running vocabulary and commentary — Lucian's A True Story, Dialogues of the Gods, Dialogues of the Dead, On the Syrian Goddess, and others. Lucian's simple, lively Attic is excellent bridge reading. All titles free from faenumpublishing.com.
Biblical and Church-Father Greek is the deepest substrate of Byzantine prose — quoted and echoed everywhere. These free readers use post-classical texts with heavy reading support.
The Greek New Testament for Beginning Readers — Byzantine Textform (Robinson–Pierpont) GREN
Reader. The full NT in the Byzantine textform, laid out for beginning readers with inline parsing and lexical help for less-common words. The most accessible large body of continuous Byzantine-tradition Greek to read for fluency.
Patristic Readers — Church Fathers with running vocabulary GREN
Graded readers. Free reader's editions of early Christian Greek texts (2nd–7th c.) — e.g. the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Passion of Perpetua, Gregory of Nyssa — each with page-by-page vocabulary and notes on unusual forms. Directly in the late-antique register that feeds Byzantine hagiography and homiletics.
Reader. 47 selections from the Fathers (plus the complete Didache and Ignatius' Letter to the Romans), with notes pitched at one year of Greek and literal cribs. In print (Baker); free to borrow on archive.org.
4. Byzantine texts for reading practice
Once the above is solid, read Byzantine authors themselves. The Sourced Reading List handles the PhD corpus; for practice, facing-translation editions are the gentlest route.
Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library — Byzantine Greek series GREN
Facing-page editions. Byzantine texts with Greek and English on opposite pages — the most comfortable way to read real Byzantine literature while still learning. In print, but many titles are on the PhD list, so they double as study material.
Les Belles Lettres — Collection Budé (CUF, série grecque) GRFR
Facing-page editions. The French critical-edition series ("les Budés") — Greek text with facing French translation, introduction, and apparatus. The French counterpart to the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; the série grecque runs through the mid-6th c., so it takes in the late-antique / early-Byzantine authors (and the classical texts the Byzantines themselves read). In print.
Free graded Byzantine texts you already have GR
Cross-reference. Stage 4 of the Pathway lists free bilingual/vernacular texts good for early reading — the Life of Mary of Egypt, the Akathistos Hymn, the Lament for Constantinople, selected kontakia of Romanos, and Digenes Akrites (facing English). Start there.
Reference tools (keep open while reading)
Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität (LBG) — Trapp et al. GRDE
Reference grammar. Explains how Attic forms became Byzantine and modern ones — handy when a later text departs from the classical rules your textbook taught.
French — learning materials (backup)
Riemann–Goelzer–Barbier, La Première Année de grec (avec corrigés) EXGRFR
Course + key. The classic French first-year Greek course, lessons with exercises and their corrigés — a complete French-medium equivalent of a Textkit primer.
Éloi Ragon, Premiers exercices grecs (avec corrigés) EXGRFR
Koine method + key. A French-medium beginner's method for New Testament Greek with corrected exercises — the Koine bridge in French. Confirm access status before relying on it.
Online course. A free, structured two-year beginner course: each session pairs a morphology/syntax lesson, a vocabulary sheet, and exercises with corrigés.
(The Pathway already lists Vernhes' Hermaion — the standard in-print French course.)
German — learning materials (further backup)
Deutscher Bildungsserver / ELIXIER — Altgriechisch EXDE
Worksheets. A curated set of free German teaching materials, worksheets, and exercises for Ancient Greek — useful drills if you work in German.
H. von Siebenthal, Grundkurs neutestamentliches GriechischEXGRDE
Commercial Brunnen Verlag — full course
Koine course + key. A thorough German-medium NT-Greek course; the appendix has extra exercises for every lesson with solutions. In print (free sample extract online) — the leading German Koine bridge.
Italian — learning materials
G. Montefameglio, Corso completo di greco biblico per autodidattiEXGRIT
The single most useful overview to read first is Browning (or Horrocks, in the Pathway); Toufexis and Rollo explain why Byzantine Greek is a learned–vernacular continuum rather than one fixed language.