It might be helpful to look for some kind of introductory text on the broad terms and phrases used in western philosophy. Reading is hard, and most of these thinkers were using normal words in jargony ways and assuming that the reader was well familiar with the contemporary literature at the time of writing. I strongly disagree with starting way back and working forwards. If you want to read Aristotle that's cool, it should just be because you want to actually read Aristotle. Otherwise you'll just get bogged down trying to see the big picture development of thousands of years of thought. If you get worried that you don't understand a point that he's making because he's likely referring to some aspect of contemporary Greek life, civics, or philosophy that you don't know, there's always scholarship that helps explain on the interwebs. Lectures and stuff too.