ἠφανισμένος

I agree that sales rankings are problematic as a way of getting at what we're interested in here. In fact, I mentioned my reservations already. But if you share those reservations, then I'm puzzled as to why you brought up the numbers of people searching at Amazon and libraries. The second bolded statement needs qualification. Augustine wrote some of his works for "highly specialized" readers, I suppose, but then so did Cicero. Both wrote quite a lot, however, that can be read with profit and enjoyment in translation by a reasonably educated person. But what works do we have in mind? If we compare De amicitia to De civitate Dei, then we should also compare the Confessiones to something like De natura deorum.

Well, @sacklunch has given you some ideas. If we take Amazon as a starting point -- although I'm not at all sure that this is useful -- the Oxford World's Classics edition of Augustine's Confessions ranks at #6,688 overall in the "books" category, while the OWC edition of Cicero's Republic and Laws ranks at #57,403 and that of Cicero's letters ranks at #566,412. Perhaps this is not a fair comparison, since no one work of Cicero is as recognizable to the average reader as Augustine's Confessions. So let's take a less iconic work of Augustine's. The Penguin edition of The City of God ranks at #43,700 -- well below the Confessions but higher than both the editions of Cicero I mentioned. Of course this is cherry-picking to some extent, and I seriously doubt whether these numbers are useful at all, but it's not obvious to me that Cicero and Plutarch are much more in demand than Augustine and Jerome. Amazon aside, there's a very large number of Christians across denominations who are interested in Augustine and other early Christian writers but not necessarily in their classical, non-Christian predecessors.

Of course, you don't have to buy the "full version" (of which there are multiple tiers) in order to use the SBL GNT on the desktop program or the mobile apps. Thanks for linking to the app -- I'm pleasantly surprised that it correctly displays polytonic Greek in the mobile browser.

Logos Bible Software has an Android app which you can use to read the SBL GNT and everything on Perseus in Greek, Latin, and English. You have to create an account with Logos to download everything, but the resources I mentioned are free. I don't read Hebrew, so I can't help there.

I suspect the opposite might be closer to the truth.

While we're on the subject: Classics’ elitism should be lost in translation

For example, if you are a typologist, and wants to study the synchronic typology of the languages in the world. Certainly it is impossible for a typologist to be an expert learning all languages in the world and understanding all cultural nuisances of different lexical items in different languages in the world. Then, for typological research purpose, all the typologist needs for making an English translation for a lexical item in an unfamiliar language (say, some indigenous languages in South America) may be the core meaning of the lexical item and the peripheral meanings (which I think it is more closely tied to the specific culture where the language is used) can be omitted in this case. Thus, translation may be better for a typologist to run a typological research program. It is better in a sense that it is more practical, and cost-effective.(cost means a lot of things, such as time, finance, efforts to memorize etc) This is helpful, thanks. This is why, I think, I and others were puzzled by the approach you've taken in this thread. The discussion prior to your post was not aimed at linguists doing linguistic research. It was aimed at classicists and would-be classicists doing historical and literary work. Linguists can of course use and produce scholarship on many different languages without needing the kind of knowledge that we're suggesting is absolutely essential for someone wanting to do literature or history in a foreign language (ancient or modern).

I feel this argument very problematic. If the scholar does not know these distinctions and implications in the first place, how can he "read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts" that contain such distinctions and implications? If the scholar has already knows these distinctions and implications in the first place (not unlike some sort of a priori knowledge), then what is the point for this scholar to "read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts? Have you ever learned a foreign language to an intermediate or advanced proficiency level? It's a serious question. Because you learn languages by using them for communication -- in this context, through reading. The more you read, the more deeply you understand. The process is more like a dialectic than like what you're describing. Sure, they are different, but they are not totally different. Who's saying they're totally different? I'm really not sure what audience you're addressing here. Better for whom? For what purposes? What cases would those be?

The bolded sentences contain some major, major caveats. And yes, classicists are generally very interested in the form of the texts we study. Compare these sentences: Καλὴ ἡ παιδεία. Institutio bona est. “Education is good” is an acceptable translation of both, but the semantic range of καλή is not exactly the same of bona and not exactly the same as “good.” The same holds true for παιδεία / institutio / “education.” The scholar who has not read large quantities of Greek and Latin texts is essentially blind to these distinctions and the implications they hold for interpreting the texts. I don't think anyone is really arguing that translations of Greek and Latin texts are worthless qua translations. The point is that anyone who wishes to produce scholarly work based on Greek and Latin texts must read the originals and not be reliant on a translation, the quality of which you cannot evaluate if you don’t know the languages. This really doesn’t have much to do with Sapir-Whorf.

I agree with Ciistai. An additional consideration: most PhD programs in classics require German and either French or Italian. You'll need all three eventually, of course, but learning German first will keep your options open in case Italian happens to seem more immediately useful than French down the road.

"Various computer science programs have denied my application on the grounds that I do not know "mathematics." This is a SHAM, and all of academia should be ashamed of it. I did not apply to be a mathematician but to be a computer scientist. Oh, you might say, but how can you be a computer scientist if you do not know math? The answer is obvious! Computer programs can be used by just about anyone. Perhaps you needed mathematics to use them back in 1987 but no longer: now any man, woman, or child can buy a computer program at their local Office Depot." In case I need to spell it out: your argument fails because you've confused the skills necessary to produce scholarship with the skills necessary to read and appreciate classical texts. The former requires substantial knowledge of the classical languages, which is why your applications were rejected (assuming you're not a troll). The latter can of course be done to a large extent in English or any other modern language.

Notre Dame does not offer the PhD in classics.

The user has a negative reputation (numeric and otherwise) in this subforum. Also take a closer look at the institutions listed: Bob Jones and Princeton, Regent and Harvard. It's not a serious post.

If there's zero chance you'll accept the MA program's offer, then you're right, you don't want to waste their time. You can say that you're honored by the interview request, but that you just received a PhD offer and so would like to withdraw your application (or decline the offer, if it's an actual offer). They would much rather get a courteous email to that effect than spend half an hour talking to somebody who has already decided to decline their offer. But if they could conceivably change your mind, then it's perfectly fine to do the interview and see what they have to say. In that case, I wouldn't mention your other offer unless they ask.

Decent MA programs tend to want at least three years of one language and two years of the other. Penn's postbac requires at least two years of each language; UCLA's postbac requires at least one year of each. Postbacs are also generally not funded and hence, I would suspect, less competitive than funded MAs.