'You know how to win a battle, Hannibal; you do not know how to use the victory!' Livy's great history of Rome contains, in Books 21 to 30, the definitive ancient account of …
'People have it in their minds that he would have been a match for Alexander, had Alexander turned his arms on Europe.' So Livy characterizes Papirius Cursor, one of Rome's famous …
The Gallic War, published on the eve of the civil war which led to the end of the Roman Republic, is an autobiographical account written by one of the most famous figures of …
'no one else in our times has attempted to write a universal history' Polybius' ambitious goal was to describe how Rome conquered the Mediterranean world in less than fifty-three …
'He was atrocious in his brutality, but his lechery was kept hidden... In the end, he erupted into an orgy of crime and ignominy alike' Such is Tacitus' obituary of Tiberius, and …
Phaedra * Oedipus * Medea * Trojan Women * Hercules Furens * Thyestes Seneca's plays are the product of a sensational, frightening, and oppressive period of history. Tutor to the …
The Lives of the Caesars include the biographies of Julius Caesar and the eleven subsequent emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitelius, …
'You ask what is the proper measure of wealth? The best measure is to have what is necessary, and next best, to have enough. Keep well!' The letters written by the Stoic …
`All over Italy men were conscripted, and weapons requisitioned; money was exacted from towns, and taken from shrines; and all the laws of god and man were overturned.' The …
`The language is refined, the smile not grave, My honest tongue recounts how men behave.' The Satyricon is the most celebrated work of fiction to have survived from the …
