Ancient & Classical

This best-selling translation of Hesiod's the Theogony, the Works and Days, and the Shield has been updated into the most indispensable edition yet for students of Greek mythology and literature.Next to the works of Homer, Hesiod's poems are foundational...

Philip Burton explores Augustine's treatment of language in his Confessions - a major work of Western philosophy and literature, with continuing intellectual importance. One of Augustine's key concerns is the story of his own encounters with language:...

One of Socrates' Athenian disciples in his youth, Xenophon (c. 498-354 bc) fought as a mercenary commander in Cyrus the Younger's campaign to seize the Persian throne, and later wrote a wide range of works on history, politics and philosophy. These six...

Rome, from the beginning.Livy (Titus Livius), the great Roman historian, was born at or near Patavium (Padua) in 64 or 59 BC; he may have lived mostly in Rome but died at Patavium, in AD 12 or 17. Livy's only extant work is part of his history of Rome...

Whitney's two volumes of verse miscellany, 'Sweet Nosegay' (1573) and 'The Copy of a Letter' (1567), were part of a literary trend of combining classical and Biblical references with popular and vernacular sources, and reflect the growing literary...

The fundamental tetralogy on Socrates' final days.Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family circa...

Pliny the Younger who lived c. 100 AD, left a large collection of letters, thanks to which we know him better than almost any other Roman. He is best known as witness to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 that destroyed Pompeii, and for his dealings with the...

The tragic cycle of justice.Aeschylus (ca. 525-456 BC), the dramatist who made Athenian tragedy one of the world's great art forms, witnessed the establishment of democracy at Athens, fought against the Persians at Marathon and probably also at Salamis,...

With this three-volume companion, students can access the full literary and historical significance of the Aeneid in English through an accessible yet authoritative line-by-line commentary. Written by an experienced teacher and expert on the Aeneid, this...

Bacchae is one of the most troubling yet intriguing of Greek tragedies. Written during Euripides' self-imposed exile in Macedonia, it tells of the brutal murder and dismemberment of Pentheus by his mother and aunts who, driven temporarily insane, have...

Persuasion analyzed.Aristotle (384-322 BC), the great Greek thinker, researcher, and educator, ranks among the most important and influential figures in the history of philosophy, theology, and science. He joined Plato's Academy in Athens in 367 and...

Three plays by ancient Greece's third great tragedian.One of antiquity's greatest poets, Euripides has been prized in every age for the pathos, terror, and intellectual probing of his dramatic creations. The new Loeb Classical Library edition of his...

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time A book about romantic love, Eros the Bittersweet is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept of "eros" in both classical philosophy and literature. Beginning with, "It...

A reintroduction to the myth of Amphion, recovering an overlooked sphere of lyric tradition. Amphion is the figure in Greek mythology who played so skillfully on a lyre that stones moved of their own accord to build walls for Thebes. While Amphion still...

This up-to-date edition makes Euripides' most famous and influential play accessible to students of Greek reading their first tragedy as well as to more advanced students. The introduction analyzes Medea as a revenge-plot, evaluates the strands of...

The Oxford Classical Texts, or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, are renowned for their reliability and presentation. The series consists of a text without commentary but with a brief apparatus criticus at the front of each page. There are...

With this three-volume companion, students can access the full literary and historical significance of the Aeneid in English through an accessible yet authoritative line-by-line commentary. Written by an experienced teacher and expert on the Aeneid, this...

In the first edition of "Women in Greek Myth", published in 1986, Mary R. Lefkowitz convincingly challenged narrow, ideological interpretations of the roles of female characters in Greek mythology. Where some scholars saw the Amazons as the last remnant...

The private correspondence of Rome's most prolific public figure.Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 106-43 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw ...

This edition is the first since J. D. Denniston's of 1926 to present the Latin text of and a commentary on the First and Second Philippics, two of the most polished orations in the Ciceronian corpus. These speeches, which were composed less than six...

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go...

Alcibiades was one of the most dazzling figures of the Golden Age of Athens. A ward of Pericles and a friend of Socrates, he was spectacularly rich, bewitchingly handsome and charismatic, a skilled general, and a ruthless politician. He was also a serial...

The Odyssey is vividly captured and beautifully paced in this swift and lucid new translation by acclaimed scholar and translator Peter Green. Accompanied by an illuminating introduction, maps, chapter summaries, a glossary, and explanatory notes, this...

Winner of the 2020 Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, France's best foreign book of the year. 'Astounding' Sebastian Barry 'A masterpiece' Ayad Akhtar 'This little book is ruminative, humane, and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Vince uses written and artifactual evidence of theatre history to explain the nature of its current state. His study of theatre's early forms discloses a wealth of significant...

The Bible is the most widely read book in the world. From the transcription of the Old Testament to Greek, to the collection of the Gospels, the Bible has always been in a state of literary and scholarly transition. In her classic work, The Study of the...

What could Greek poets or Roman historians say in their own language that would be lost in translation? After all, different languages have different personalities, and this is especially clear with languages of the ancient and medieval world. This...

From popular histories through to reworkings of classical subject matter by contemporary poets, dramatists, and novelists, the classical world and the masterpieces of its literature continue to fascinate readers and audiences in a huge variety of media...

These lively narrative poems, attributed in antiquity to Homer, are works of great charm. Composed for recitation at festivals in honour of the gods, they tell of Apollo's birth on the island of Delos and his foundation of the Delphic oracle; Hermes'...

With this three-volume companion, students can access the full literary and historical significance of the Aeneid in English through an accessible yet authoritative line-by-line commentary. Written by an experienced teacher and expert on the Aeneid, this...

This anthology is designed to meet the needs of Latin students today, acknowledging present constraints on their study-time. It adopts the authors' approach of their "Ecce Romani" series. To enable students to read Latin reasonably quickly, generous...

'you'll find another man to harvest, Glycerion: let this one go' The Greek satirist Lucian was a brilliantly entertaining writer who invented the comic dialogue as a vehicle for satiric comment. His influence was immense, not only in the Greek world,...

In the first book of odes, Horace presents himself to his Roman readers in a novel guise, as the appropriator of the Greek lyric tradition. He aspired to add a new province to the empire of the national literature. The first book is designed both to...

The most important primary texts on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome are translated into modern, explicit English and collected together for the first time in this comprehensive sourcebook. Covering an extensive period - from the earliest Greek...

The Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid abound with plants, yet much Vergilian criticism underestimates their significance beyond attractive background detail or the occasional symbolic set-piece. This volume joins the growing field of nature-centred studies...

'If something else can capture your attention Then it's not love, but just a trivial passion - Love is that flame which, once it blazes up, Burns everything but the Beloved up.' This is the first ever translation of the entirety of Book Five of...

Book XII brings Virgil's Aeneid to a close, as the long-delayed single combat between Aeneas and Turnus ends with Turnus' death - a finale that many readers find more unsettling than triumphant. In this, the first detailed single-volume commentary on the...

A literary cabinet of curiosities.Aelian's Historical Miscellany is a pleasurable example of light reading for Romans of the early third century. Offering engaging anecdotes about historical figures, retellings of legendary events, and enjoyable...

Monumental verse.The poetry of Horace (born 65 BC) is richly varied, its focus moving between public and private concerns, urban and rural settings, Stoic and Epicurean thought. The Loeb Classical Library edition of the great Roman poet's Odes and Epodes...

This book initiates the reader into the study of Akkadian literature from ancient Babylonia and Assyria. With this one relatively short volume, the novice reader will develop the literary competence necessary to read and interpret Akkadian texts in...