Books in the Loeb Classical Library series

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.

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.

In his Life of Apollonius Philostratus (second to third century CE) portrays a first-century CE teacher, religious reformer, and perceived rival to Jesus. Apollonius's letters, ancient reports about him, and a letter by Eusebius (fourth century CE) that is now central to the history of Philostratus's work add to the portrait.

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.

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.

In Moral Essays, Seneca (c. 4-65 CE) expresses his Stoic philosophy on providence, steadfastness, anger, forgiveness, consolation, the happy life, leisure, tranquility, the brevity of life, and gift-giving.

On the City of God by Augustine (354-430 CE) unfolds God's action in the progress of the world's history, and propounds the superiority of Christian beliefs over pagan in adversity.

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."

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.

Quintus Ennius (239-169), widely regarded as the father of Roman literature, was instrumental in creating a new Roman literary identity, domesticating the Greek forms of epic and drama, and pursuing a range of other literary and intellectual pursuits. He inspired major developments in Roman religion, social organization, and popular culture.

Seneca (ca. AD 4-65) authored verse tragedies that strongly influenced Shakespeare and other Renaissance dramatists. Plots are based on myth, but themes reflect imperial Roman politics. John G. Fitch has thoroughly revised his two-volume edition to take account of scholarship that has appeared since its initial publication.

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.

In On the Characteristics of Animals, Aelian (c. 170-after 230 CE) collects facts and fables about the animal kingdom and invites the reader to ponder contrasts between human and animal behavior.

Plotinus (204/5-270 CE) was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them sometime between 301 and 305 CE in six sets of nine treatises each (Enneads), with a biography of his master in which he also explains his editorial principles.

In The Learned Banqueters (late-2nd century CE), Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work provides quotations from works now lost, and preserves information about wide range of information about Greek culture.

Confessions is a spiritual autobiography of Augustine's early life, family, associations, and explorations of alternative religious and theological viewpoints as he moved toward his conversion. Cast as a prayer addressed to God, it offers a gripping personal story and a philosophical exploration destined to have broad and lasting impact.

Appian (first-second century CE), a Greek from Antioch, offers a history of the rise of Rome but often shows us events from the point of view of the conquered peoples. Books on the Spanish, Hannibalic, Punic, Illyrian, Syrian, Mythridatic, and Civil wars are extant.