Books in the Loeb Classical Library series

Nearly all the works Aristotle (384-322 BCE) prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as practical; logical; physical; metaphysical; on art; other; fragments.

Cato's second century BCE De Agricultura is our earliest complete Latin prose text, recommends farming for its security and profitability, and advises on management of labor and resources. Varro's Res rustica (37 BCE) is not a practical treatise but instruction, in dialogue form, about agricultural life meant for prosperous country gentlemen.

In Fasti Ovid (43 BCE-17 CE) sets forth explanations of the festivals and sacred rites that were noted on the Roman calendar, and relates in graphic detail the legends attached to specific dates. The poem is an invaluable source of information about religious practices.

Nearly all the works Aristotle (384-322 BCE) prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as practical; logical; physical; metaphysical; on art; other; fragments.

Nearly all the works Aristotle (384-322 BCE) prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as practical; logical; physical; metaphysical; on art; other; fragments.

We know more of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE), lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, than of any other Roman. Besides much else, his work conveys the turmoil of his time, and the part he played in a period that saw the rise and fall of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic.

Theocritus (early third century BCE) was the inventor of the bucolic genre, also known as pastoral. The present edition of his work, along with that of his successors Moschus (fl. mid-second century BCE) and Bion (fl. around 100 BCE), replaces the earlier Loeb Classical Library volume of Greek Bucolic Poets by J. M. Edmonds (1912).

Greek mathematics from the sixth century BCE to the fourth century CE is represented by the work of, e.g., Pythagoras; Proclus; Thales; Democritus; Hippocrates of Chios; Theaetetus; Plato; Eudoxus of Cnidus; Aristotle; Euclid; Eratosthenes; Apollonius; Ptolemy; Heron of Alexandria; Diophantus; and Pappus.

Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, composed in the third century BCE, is an 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.

The great Athenian philosopher Plato was born in 427 BCE and lived to be eighty. Acknowledged masterpieces among his works are the Symposium, which explores love in its many aspects, from physical desire to pursuit of the beautiful and the good, and the Republic, which concerns righteousness and also treats education, gender, society, and slavery.

Nearly all the works Aristotle (384-322 BCE) prepared for publication are lost; the priceless ones extant are lecture-materials, notes, and memoranda (some are spurious). They can be categorized as practical; logical; physical; metaphysical; on art; other; fragments.

Enquiry into Plants and De Causis Plantarum by Theophrastus (c. 370-c. 285 BCE) are a counterpart to Aristotle's zoological work and the most important botanical work of antiquity now extant. In the former Theophrastus classifies and describes. His On Odours and Weather Signs are minor treatises.

The letters of Pliny the Younger (c. 61-c. 112 CE), a polished social document of his times, include descriptions of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE and the earliest pagan accounts of Christians. The Panegyricus is an expanded, published version of Pliny's oration of thanks to the Emperor Trajan in 100 CE.

The prolific scholar-poet Callimachus of Cyrene spent his career at the royal court and great Library at Alexandria. Creatively reworking the language and generic properties of his predecessors, Callimachus developed a distinctive style, learned and elegant, that became an important model for subsequent poets both Greek and Roman.

The prolific scholar-poet Callimachus of Cyrene spent his career at the royal court and great Library at Alexandria. Creatively reworking the language and generic properties of his predecessors, Callimachus developed a distinctive style, learned and elegant, that became an important model for subsequent poets both Greek and Roman.

The prolific scholar-poet Callimachus of Cyrene spent his career at the royal court and great Library at Alexandria. Creatively reworking the language and generic properties of his predecessors, Callimachus developed a distinctive style, learned and elegant, that became an important model for subsequent poets both Greek and Roman.

Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) produced in his Natural History a vast compendium of Roman knowledge. Topics included are the mathematics and metrology of the universe; world geography and ethnography; human anthropology and physiology; zoology; botany, agriculture, and horticulture; medicine; minerals, fine arts, and gemstones.

Of the roughly seventy treatises in the Hippocratic Collection, many are not by Hippocrates (said to have been born in Cos in or before 460 BCE), but they are essential sources of information about the practice of medicine in antiquity and about Greek theories concerning the human body, and he was undeniably the "Father of Medicine."

The Historia Augusta is a biographical collection written by a single author under six pseudonyms that covers the lives of the Roman emperors from Hadrian (r. 117-138) to Carinus (283-285). While it is our most detailed surviving source for this period, it has more value as an enigmatic work of literary fiction than as history.

The Historia Augusta is a biographical collection written by a single author under six pseudonyms that covers the lives of the Roman emperors from Hadrian (r. 117-138) to Carinus (283-285). While it is our most detailed surviving source for this period, it has more value as an enigmatic work of literary fiction than as history.

Works in this volume explore the relationship between two people known as love (eros) or friendship (philia). In Lysis, Socrates meets two young men at a wrestling school; in Symposium, he joins a company of accomplished men at a drinking party; and in Phaedrus, experimental speeches about love lead to a discussion of rhetoric.

Enriched by anecdotes, gossip, and details of character and personal appearance, Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius (born c. 70 CE) is a valuable and colourful source of information about the first twelve Roman emperors, Roman imperial politics, and Roman imperial socity. Part of Suetonius' Lives of Illustrious Men (of letters) also survives.

The major works of Josephus (c. 37-after 97 CE) are History of the Jewish War, from 170 BCE to his own time, and Jewish Antiquities, from creation to 66 CE. Also by him are an autobiographical Life and a treatise Against Apion.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, born c. 60 BCE, aimed in his critical essays to reassert the primacy of Greek as the literary language of the Mediterranean world. They constitute an important development from the somewhat mechanical techniques of rhetorical handbooks to more sensitive criticism of individual authors.

Seneca (c. 4-65 CE) devotes most of Naturales Quaestiones to celestial phenomena. In Book 1 he discusses fires in the atmosphere; in 2, lightning and thunder; in 3, bodies of water. Seneca's method is to survey the theories of major authorities on the subject at hand, so his work is a guide to Greek and Roman thinking about the heavens.

Silius Italicus (25-101 CE) composed an epic Punica in 17 books on the Second Punic War (218-202 BCE). Silius' poem relies largely on Livy's prose for facts. It also echoes poets, especially Virgil, and employs techniques traditional in Latin epic.

Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea from about 315 CE, was the most important writer in the age of Constantine. His history of the Christian church from the ministry of Jesus to 324 CE is a treasury of information, especially on the Eastern centers.

Aulus Gellius (c. 123-170 CE) offers in Attic Nights (Gellius began to write these pieces during stays in Athens) a collection of short chapters about notable events, words and questions of literary style, lives of historical figures, legal points, and philosophical issues that served as instructive light reading for cultivated Romans.