Greek & Roman

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are unquestionably two of the greatest epic masterpieces in Western literature....

One of the most significant books ever written by a head of State, the Meditations are a collection of philosophical thoughts by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius....

What is justice? In Plato’s Socratic dialogue, The Republic, the citizens of ancient Greece explore the world’s most fundamental question....

The first of Homer's great epic poems, the Iliad portrays the final days of the Trojan war....

Robert Fitzgerald's translation of The Odyssey has been the standard translation for more than three generations of students and poets....

The Aeneid represents one of the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of Western Civilization....

To retrieve the poem's energy, Alice Oswald has stripped away its story, and her account focuses by turns on Homer's extended similes and on the brief 'biographies' of the minor war-dead....

Carved close to the original Greek, acclaimed classicist Caroline Alexander's new translation is swift and lean, with the driving cadence of its source....

When a jealous Zeus discovers that Prometheus, has introduced the gift of fire to liberate mortals from oppression and servitude, he has Prometheus bound to a rocky prison....

The Bacchae is concerned with two opposite sides of human nature: the rational and civilized side, which is represented by the character of Pentheus, the king of Thebes, and the instinctive side, which is represented by Dionysus....

The epic tells the story of a group of refugees from the ruined city of Troy, whose attempts to reach a promised land in the West are continually frustrated by the hostile goddess Juno....

The Odyssey is the greatest adventure story ever written, and one of the great epic masterpieces of Western literature....

The Peloponnesian War drags on and on with no end in sight, and the tough-minded Lysistrata has had enough. Men! - always making stupid decisions that affect everyone. Women's opinions are never listened to. Taking matters into her own hands, Lysistrata convenes a meeting of women from warring city-states across Greece and calls for a sex strike. It's a hard sell, but in the end, it is agreed: They will withhold sex until the war is brought to hasty a close.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C.-43 B.C.) is one of the seminal figures in the history of Western philosophy, politics, and letters. On Moral Ends (De Finibus) is considered by many to be his most important work in philosophy. In a series of stimulating dialogues, Cicero seeks to answer the question "What is humanity's Ultimate Good?" by examining the ethical systems of three different schools of thought. In so doing, he reveals powerful and startling truths about wisdom, virtue, and our deepest desires. Quintus Curtius is the pen name of attorney and translator George J. Thomas.

Timotheus was a great general but was known more for his statecraft. Like an honorable man taken from an ancient version of Game of Thrones, see how he maneuvers through the courts of ancient Greece. Finally, in his old age, politics catch up to him, but his son works to carry on his honor. 

Conon the Athenian (not the Barbarian of a similar name) was the general who set Greece free. March along the shores of the Peloponese and launch attacks at sea with him as Nepos regales the life of this famed hero. Here is the man who would see the great walls of Athens rebuilt but find his own life finished in prison. 

Cornelius Nepos greatly admired Timoleon, a man of wisdom and patience who knew evil when he saw it. He was ready and willing to do right by his homeland of Corinth, even when it meant betraying his own brother, the dictator. Timoleon stands through time as a model citizen and leader who, in his old age, became blind just like true justice. 

Athens was in the throes of tyranny as a troop of murderous madmen stalked the streets. Who would break the city free from the horrid results of war? Listen as Thrasybulus puts everything on the line to save the city he loves.