Groups
People
Signup
Login
Movies
TV Shows
DVDs
Music
Books
Games|
Views : 310 |
10
Votes
|
Argonautica, composed in the 3rd century BCE, is the epic retelling of Jason’s quest for the golden fleece. It greatly influenced Roman authors such as Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid, and was imitated by Valerius Flaccus. This new edition of the first volume in the Loeb Classical Library offers a fresh translation and improved text. 
Appian's history of the rise of Rome is a record of expansion and conquests. In his animated narrative the historian--a Greek from Alexandria--often shows us events from the point of view of the conquered peoples. His accounts of the Spanish, Hannibalic, Punic, Illyrian, Syrian, and Mithradatic wars are in Volumes I and II. 
Appian's Civil Wars, in Volumes III and IV of the Loeb series, is the only surviving continuous narrative of the period from the Gracchi to the Roman annexation of Egypt. 
The previous bowdlerized edition of Catullus is completely revised and corrected here. This Second Edition restores lines that had been omitted from the Latin text for their "indecency," and provides a complete and accurate re-translation. The text of Tibullus has been emended; the text of Pervigilium Veneris has been thoroughly corrected and the translation revised. 
In letters to his dear friend Atticus, Cicero reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except, perhaps, his brother. These letters, in this four-volume series, also provide a vivid picture of a momentous period in Roman history--years marked by the rise of Julius Caesar and the downfall of the Republic. D. R. Shackleton Bailey's authoritative edition and translation of the Letters to Atticus is now added to the Loeb Classical Library (replacing an outdated edition); it is a revised version of his Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries edition, and includes many explanatory notes. 
Centering on the right of proper burial for those fallen in battle, Suppliant Women reflects on war and on the rule of law. In Electra Euripides gives us his version of the famous legend of the murder of Clytaemestra by her children in revenge for her killing their father--a portrayal interestingly different from that in Sophocles' Electra. Narrating sudden reversals in the hero's fortunes, Heracles testifies to the fragility of human happiness. 
Trojan Women, a play about the causes and consequences of war, develops the theme of the tragic unpredictability of life. Iphigenia among the Taurians and Ion exhibit tragic themes and situations (the murder of close relatives); each ends happily with a joyful reunion. 
In this fifth volume of the new Loeb Classical Library Euripides, in Helen the poet employs an alternative history in which a virtuous Helen never went to Troy but spent the war years in Egypt, falsely blamed for the adulterous behavior of her divinely created double in Troy. This volume also includes Phoenician Women, Euripides' treatment of the battle between the sons of Oedipus for control of Thebes; and Orestes, a novel retelling of Orestes' lot after he murdered his mother, Clytaemestra. Each play is annotated and prefaced by a helpful introduction. 
One of antiquity's greatest poets, Euripides (ca. 485-406 BCE) has been prized in every age for the pathos, terror, surprising plot twists, and intellectual probing of his dramatic creations. He wrote nearly ninety plays, of which eighteen have come down to us (plus a play of unknown authorship long included with his works). In this new Loeb Classical Library edition of Euripides, David Kovacs presents a freshly edited Greek text and an accurate and graceful translation with explanatory notes. Cyclops is a satyr play, the only complete example of this genre to survive. Alcestis tells the story of a woman who agrees--in order to save her husband's life--to die in his place. Medea is the quintessential tragedy of revenge: Medea kills her own children, as well as their father's new wife, to punish him for desertion. 
Wilmer C. Wright, Translator Julian's surviving works, all in Greek, are given in the Loeb Classical Library in three volumes: the eight Orations (1–5 in Volume I, 6–8 in Volume II) include two in praise of Constantius, one praising Constantius's wife Eusebia, and two theosophical hymns (in prose) or declamations, of interest for studies in neo-Platonism, Mithraism, and the cult of the Magna Mater in the Roman world. 
Satire blends with comic art in Lucian's tales, fantasies, and dialogues. With ebullient wit he mocks teachers of literature, the various philosophical schools, popular religions, historians and writers, the Olympian gods, and the foibles of mortals. In The Dream he jocularly recounts his own career. Native of Samosata on the Euphrates, Lucian traveled widely in the Roman Empire as far as Gaul. His 80 extant works (published here in 8 volumes) offer insight on the intellectual world of the second century CE along with mischievous and sophisticated entertainment. 
Petronius's picaresque novel (probably written during Nero's reign) presents in lurid detail the disreputable travels and adventures of Encolpius, a swashbuckling young coward lacking both morals and income. It has been called a kaleidoscope picture of literature, lust, and life. Perhaps best known are the chapters describing Trimalchio's wildly extravagant dinner party with rambunctious entertainment. For the revised edition, Warmington debowdlerized Heseltine's translation and expanded the explanatory notes. This volume also contains Apocolocyntosis, the satire on the death and apotheosis ("pumpkinification") of the emperor Claudius which is attributed to Seneca. 
This biography of a first-century C.E. holy man has become one of the most widely discussed literary works of later antiquity. With an engaging style, Philostratus portrays a charismatic teacher and religious reformer from Tyana in Cappadocia (modern central Turkey) who travels across the known world, from the Atlantic to the Ganges. His miracles, which include extraordinary cures and mysterious disappearances, together with his apparent triumph over death, caused pagans to make Apollonius a rival to Jesus of Nazareth. 
This biography of a first-century C.E. holy man has become one of the most widely discussed literary works of later antiquity. With an engaging style, Philostratus portrays a charismatic teacher and religious reformer from Tyana in Cappadocia (modern central Turkey) who travels across the known world, from the Atlantic to the Ganges. His miracles, which include extraordinary cures and mysterious disappearances, together with his apparent triumph over death, caused pagans to make Apollonius a rival to Jesus of Nazareth. 
 0  0 The passionate and dramatic elegies of Propertius gained him a reputation as one of Rome's finest love poets. Here he portrays the uneven course of his love affair with Cynthia and also tells us much about the society of his time. And in later poems he turns to the legends of ancient Rome. G. P. Goold's 1990 edition of the elegies of Propertius (revised in 1999) solves some long-standing questions of interpretation and delivers a faithful and stylish prose translation. 
Quintus' work is a bold and generally underrated attempt in Homer's style to complete the story of Troy from the point at which the Iliad closes. Quintus tells us the stories of Penthesilea, the Amazonian queen; Memnon, leader of the Ethiopians; the death of Achilles; the contest for Achilles' arms between Ajax and Odysseus; the arrival of Philoctetes; and the making of the Wooden Horse. The poem ends with the departure of the Greeks and the great storm which by the wrath of heaven shattered their fleet. 
Hugh Lloyd-Jones gives us a new translation of the seven surviving plays of Sophocles. The facing Greek is the corrected version of the Oxford Classical Text edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones and Nigel Wilson (1990). Volume I contains Oedipus Tyrannus, Ajax, and Electra. 
Volume II contains Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Philoctetes, and The Women of Trachis. 
Terence came to Rome from North Africa as a slave in the household of a senator who freed him. His six plays (all of them extant), first performed in the 160s BCE in Rome, were all based on New Comedy models--like other Roman comedies of the time. In contrast to the exuberance and buffoonery of Plautus, Terence gives us realistic scenes and witty, refined Latin. Volume I contains a substantial introduction and three plays: The Woman of Andros, a romantic comedy; The Self-Tormentor, which looks at contrasting father-son relationships; and The Eunuch, whose characters include the most sympathetically drawn courtesan in Roman comedy. 
The other three plays are in Volume II: Phormio, a comedy of intrigue with an engaging trickster; The Mother-in-Law, unique among Terence's plays in that the female characters are the admirable ones; and The Brothers, which explores contrasting approaches to parental education of sons. 
The writings of the Apostolic Fathers give a rich and diverse picture of Christian life and thought in the period immediately after New Testament times. Some of them were accorded almost Scriptural authority in the early Church. This new Loeb edition reflects the latest scholarship. 
The writings of the Apostolic Fathers give a rich and diverse picture of Christian life and thought in the period immediately after New Testament times. Some of them were accorded almost Scriptural authority in the early Church. This new Loeb edition of these essential texts reflects current idiom and the latest scholarship. 
From Augustine's large output the Loeb Classical Library offers that great autobiography the Confessions (in two volumes). 
Theocritus was the founder of bucolic or pastoral poetry. Of his so-called Idylls, 'Little forms' or pieces (not all are genuine), ten are about pastoral life real or idealised; several are small epics (three are hymns); two are beautiful 'occasional' poems (one about a country walk, one to accompany a gift of a distaff for the wife of his friend Nicias); six are love-poems; several are mimes, striking pictures of common life; and three are specially expressive of his own feelings. The 24 'Epigrams' were apparently inscribed on works of art. Moschus wrote a (lost) work on Rhodian dialect. Though he was classed as bucolic, his extant poetry (mainly 'Runaway Love' and the story of 'Europa') is not really pastoral, the 'Lament for Bion' not being Moschus's work. 'Megara' may be by Theocritus; but 'The Dead Adonis' is much later. Most of Bion's extant poems are not really bucolic, but 'Lament for Adonis' is floridly brilliant. 
Julian's Misopogon (The Beard Hater) is a case of the satirist directing his sharp wit at himself: self-mockery employed to undercut the taunts of critics. When the citizens of Antioch jeered at the emperor's "philosophical" beard, he responded with a satire on his own appearance and austere life style. A work of ironic self-disparagement, Misopogon reflects strikingly on the emperor's personality. Julian's conception of the ideal ruler emerges through the satire of The Caesars. He begins with a reference to the Saturnalia, and his treatment of the gods here is appropriate to that festival. The piece contains some echoes of Lucian's satires--but Julian is nowhere as light-hearted as Lucian. 
Lawyer and for a time private secretary to the emperor Hadrian, Suetonius was a knowledgeable and diligent collector of facts about his world. His Lives of the Caesars and Lives of Illustrious Men are invaluable and fascinating sources of information. Seasoned with entertaining anecdotes and bits of scandalous gossip relating to the lives of the first 12 emperors, Suetonius's biographies offer a colorful picture of Roman imperial politics and society. His account of Nero's death is justly famous. 
Of the eighty books of Dio's great work, Books 36-60 have come down to us (with some gaps). The facilities for research afforded by Dio's official duties--he held a number of high offices--as well as his own diligence make him a vital source for the history of this period. 
The poetry of Horace (born 65 BCE) is richly varied, its focus moving between public and private concerns, urban and rural settings, Stoic and Epicurean thought. Here is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of the great Roman poet's Odes and Epodes. 
One of the best known examples of the hagiographic novel, this is the tale of an Indian prince who becomes aware of the world's miseries, is converted to Christianity by the monk Barlaam, founds a Christian kingdom, and spends his later years as a hermit in the desert. Not until the mid-nineteenth century was it fully recognized that this Greek romance is actually the legend of the Buddha in a Christianized version. D. M. Lang's Introduction traces the parallels between the two stories, notes the influences of the Manichaean creed, and discusses the importance of Arabic versions of the legend. 
Dialogue on Oratory is a lively conversation of three friends--a lawyer, a poet, and a connoisseur of oratory--about declining standards in the art of public speaking (a question that also troubled Quintilian). The discussion, relaxed and urbane, is concerned with eloquence in both political and lawcourt speeches. This work by Tacitus has a distinctly Ciceronian air. 
This volume concludes Lives of the Caesars and also contains Lives of Illustrious Men. 
The history of the Roman Republic for the years 49-48 BCE centers on two striking personalities: Julius Caesar and Pompey. Caesar's account of the war between them, from its outbreak to the decisive battle of Pharsalus in 48--in lucid and spare prose--is here well translated by Peskett. 
The faithful Penelope, the forgiving Briseis, the reproachful Dido, the impassioned Medea--a procession of legendary women express their emotions and narrate their memories in the fictional letters to absent husbands and lovers that constitute Ovid's Heroides (Heroines). The moods and situations of these heroines vary widely, but their soliloquies are all dramatic. Six of the poems form exchanges, including an entertaining correspondence between Paris and Helen, and an exchange between Hero and Leander which immortalized their story. This volume also contains Ovid's Amores, three books of elegies ostensibly about the poet's love affair with his mistress Corinna (recalling the elegies of Propertius that revolve around Cynthia). 
In the Metamophoses Ovid retells in one poetic whole an enormous range of stories of classical mythology. Connected by the theme of miraculous change (hence the title), the narratives pass in review, from the dawn of creation down to the transfiguration of Caesar's soul into a star. Each important myth is touched upon and ingeniously linked to the next as the poet progresses through his historical account. Ovid's most influential work is here given a fluent prose translation. 
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, also known as The Golden Ass, is truly enchanting: a delightful romance combining realism and magic. The hero, Lucius, eager to experience the sensations of a bird, resorts to witchcraft, but an unfortunate pharmaceutical error turns him into an ass. The bulk of the novel recounts his adventures as an animal. Lucius also retails many stories he overhears, the most charming being that of Cupid and Psyche; some are as ribald as they are witty. 
Leucippe and Clitophon, written in the 2nd century A.D., is exceptional among the ancient romances in being a first-person narrative: the adventures of the young couple are recounted by the hero himself. The colorful story Clitophon tells us includes shipwrecks, apparent deaths, attacks by pirates and brigands, abductions, and other frights and obstacles. Love triumphs in the end. Achilles Tatius' style is notable for descriptive detail and for his engaging digressions. 
Most popular of Plutarch's writings have always been the 46 Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman). The irresistably humane Lives give not merely a record of careers and illustrious deeds but rounded portraits of statesmen, orators, and military leaders. For, Plutarch says: "It is not Histories I am writing, but Lives"; the virtues (or vices) and character of his subjects is what he seeks "and by means of these to portray the life of each." 
Procopius' History of the Wars in 8 books recounts the Persian Wars of emperors Justinus and Justinian down to 550 (2 books); the Vandalic War and after-events in Africa 532–546 (2 books); the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths in Sicily and Italy 536–552 (3 books); and a sketch of events to 554 (1 book). The whole consists largely of military history, with much information about peoples and places as well, and about special events. He was a diligent, careful, judicious narrator of facts and developments and shows good powers of description. He is just to the empire's enemies and boldly criticises emperor Justinian. 
More scholar and armchair voyager than actual adventurer (though he claimed he traveled widely--from the Black Sea to Ethiopia, Armenia to Etruria), Strabo, antiquity's great geographer, left us this extraordinary storehouse of travel lore, Geography. In outline he follows the great mathematical geographer Eratosthenes, but adds general descriptions of separate countries including physical, political, and historical details. On the mathematical side it is an invaluable source of information about Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Posidonius. Volume I contains the two introductory books. 
Books numbers 3 and 4 deal with Spain and Gaul, 5 with Italy and Sicily. 
Cyropaedia, a historical romance on the education of Cyrus (the Elder), reflects Xenophon's ideas about rulers and government. 
Pliny's polished and wonderfully descriptive letters--discussing personal, public, and literary concerns--offer a picture of his own large circle of friends (which included Tacitus, Martial, and Suetonius) and of Roman society in all its diversity. Justly famous in this collection are two letters in which he describes in detail the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. Book 10 contains his correspondence with the emperor Trajan about conditions in Bithynia and Pontus; it includes the earliest pagan accounts of Christians and their rites. 
William H. Race gives us, in two volumes, a new edition and translation of Pindar's four books of victory odes, along with surviving fragments of his other poems. Brief introductions to each ode and full explanatory footnotes afford invaluable guidance throughout. Like Simonides and Bacchylides, Pindar wrote elaborate odes in honor of prize-winning athletes. His 45 victory odes celebrate triumphs in athletic contests at the four great Panhellenic festivals: the Olympic, Pythian (at Delphi), Nemean, and Isthmian games. In these poems, Pindar commemorates the achievement of athletes and powerful rulers against the backdrop of divine favor, human failure, heroic legend, and the moral ideals of aristocratic Greek society. Readers have long savored their rich poetic imagery, moral maxims, and vivid portrayals of sacred myths. 
Hesiod's exact dates are unknown, but he has often been considered a younger contemporary of Homer. This volume of the new Loeb Classical Library edition contains his two extant poems, along with a selection of testimonia from a wide variety of ancient sources. 
These reflections on ethical, religious, and existential questions were written in periods of solitude during the emperor's military campaigns. Originally intended for his private guidance and self-admonition, the Meditations has endured as a potent expression of Stoic belief (the influence of Epictetus is apparent throughout) as well as a widely influential personal guide to the moral life. This unique text also provides an intimate look at the ideas and convictions of this fascinating philosopher-emperor. 
Plautus made the Romans laugh. This highly successful playwright transformed the mild-mannered Greek New Comedy written more than a century earlier into a more playful and ribald style. Unlike Terence, whose plays were thoroughly Hellenic, Plautus introduces into his borrowings Roman characters, customs, and objects. Plautus is the earliest Latin author of whom we have more than fragments; twenty-one of his plays are extant. 
Here is the first of a new two-volume edition of Seneca's tragedies, with a fully annotated translation facing the Latin text. Seneca's plays depict intense passions and interactions in an appropriately strong rhetoric. Their perspective is much bleaker than that of his prose writings. In this new translation John Fitch conveys the force of Seneca's dramatic language and the lyric quality of his choral odes. 
For this revised edition of the Loeb Classical Library's Virgil, G. P. Goold has corrected the text in accord with recent scholarship, revised the translation to reflect current idiom, and supplied a new introduction and explanatory notes. Fairclough's edition, long a faithful standard, has thus been thoroughly updated. 
The Loeb edition of Virgil, long a standard, has now been thoroughly updated. Retaining the excellence of Fairclough's "heroic prose" translation but pruning away its archaisms, G. P. Goold gives us a revised reading that reflects current idiom. Goold has also amended the text and apparatus and provides a new Introduction and explanatory notes. In a preface to the Appendix Vergiliana he addresses the provenance and attribution of these poems traditionally ascribed to Virgil and previously collected as his "Minor Poems." 
Roman history from the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE to the death of Augustus in CE 14 is narrated in Books 44-56 of Dio's History. 
The Greek Anthology ('Gathering of Flowers') is the name given to a collection of about 4500 short Greek poems (called epigrams but usually not epigrammatic) by about 300 composers. The fifteen books of the Palatine Anthology are: I, Christian Epigrams; II, Descriptions of Statues; III, Inscriptions in a temple at Cyzicus; IV, Prefaces of Meleager, Philippus, and Agathias; V, Amatory Epigrams; VI, Dedicatory; VII, Sepulchral; VIII, Epigrams of St. Gregory; IX, Declamatory; X, Hortatory and Admonitory; XI, Convivial and Satirical; XII, Strato's 'Musa Puerilis'; XIII, Metrical curiosities; XIV, Problems, Riddles, and Oracles; XV, Miscellanies. Book XVI is the Planudean Appendix: Epigrams on works of art. Outstanding among the poets are Meleager, Antipater of Sidon, Crinagoras, Palladas, Agathias, Paulus Silentiarius. 
This volume contains Book VII, Sepulchral; and VIII, Epigrams of St. Gregory. 
Here is the bucolic story of two foundlings, brought up by goatkeepers and shepherds on the island of Lesbos, who gradually fall in love. Notable among ancient romances for its perceptive characterizations, Daphnis and Chloe traces the development of the protagonists' love for each other from childlike innocence to full sexual maturity, the successive stages marked by adventures. The novel's picture of nature and rural life offers its own enchantments. This volume also contains the Love Romances of Parthenius, a collection of stories in abbreviated form, and fragments of the Ninus Romance. 
In the Enquiry into Plants Theophrastus classifies and describes varieties—covering trees, plants of particular regions, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and cereals; in the last of the nine books he focuses on plant juices and medicinal properties of herbs. The Loeb Classical Library edition is in two volumes. 
If the work of Hippocrates is taken as representing the foundation upon which the edifice of historical Greek medicine was reared, then the work of Galen, who lived some six hundred years later, may be looked upon as the summit of the same edifice. Galen's merit is to have crystallised or brought to a focus all the best work of the Greek medical schools which had preceded his own time. It is essentially in the form of Galenism that Greek medicine was transmitted to after ages. 
Caesar left wonderfully detailed accounts of his strategies and campaigns. The eight books collected as The Gallic War, reporting on his conquests of Gaul and two invasions of Britain, form an extraordinary source for military history and a masterful narrative. Edwards includes a descriptive appendix on the Roman army. 
The classical and Christian worlds come together in Boethius, the last writer of purely literary Latin from ancient times. His theological works, the Tractates, analyze questions on the Trinity and incarnation in Aristotelian terms. His famed Consolation of Philosophy, conceived as a dialogue between himself and Philosophy, is theistic in tone but draws freely on Greek and especially Neoplatonist sources. 
Probably the most attractive of Seneca's works is this collection of 124 Epistles or Letters to Lucilius. Here Seneca writes occasionally about technical problems of philosophy, but more often in a relaxed style about moral and ethical questions, relating them to personal experiences: visits to gladiatorial shows and seaside resorts, the rigors of travel, the loss of friends, and the like. The reader is thus transported to the first century Roman scene while sampling the Stoic philosopher's thoughts about the good life. 
Seneca is a figure of first importance in both Roman politics and literature: a leading adviser to Nero who attempted to restrain the emperor's megalomania; a prolific moral philosopher; and the author of verse tragedies that strongly influenced Shakespeare and other Renaissance dramatists. This volume completes the Loeb Classical Library's new two-volume edition of Seneca's tragedies. John Fitch's annotated translation conveys the force of Seneca's dramatic language and the lyric quality of his choral odes. 
The second volume contains two additional treatises: On Odours and Weather Signs. 
In this volume is Book IX, Declamatory Epigrams. 
Books X, Hortatory and Admonitory; XI, Convivial and Satirical; and XII, Strato's 'Musa Puerilis' are in this volume. 
Book XIII discusses metrical curiosities; Book XIV, Problems, Riddles, and Oracles; Book XV, Miscellanies. Book XVI is the Planudean Appendix: Epigrams on works of art. 
Xenophon's Hellenica, a history of Greek affairs from 411 to 362, begins as a continuation of Thucydides' account. 
Xenophon's vivid eyewitness account of the expedition of the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries who fought under Cyrus is now available in a fully revised edition. John Dillery has corrected the Greek text in accordance with current scholarship, revised Brownson's translation, supplied updated notes, and provided a new Introduction. Xenophon's Anabasis is an engrossing tale of remarkable adventures, as the Greeks retreated through inhospitable lands from the gates of Babylon back to the coast after Cyrus's death. It is also an invaluable source on Greek military forces. 
Juvenal and Persius are seminal as well as stellar figures in the history of satirical writing. Juvenal especially had a lasting influence on English writers of the Renaissance and succeeding centuries. The bite and wit of these two satirists are captured here in a new Loeb Classical Library edition. 
A key figure in early Christianity and its reaction to Hellenic culture, Clement (born probably 150 CE in Athens) had a wide knowledge of Greek literature--as his frequent quotations of Homer, Hesiod, the playwrights, and Platonic and Stoic philosophers attest. His "Exhortation to the Greeks"--in which he calls on the Greeks to give up their gods and turn to Christ--shows familiarity with the mystery cults. Along with the "Exhortation" this volume presents "The Rich Man's Salvation," a homily that offers a glimpse of Clement's public teaching. |
