The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning the definition of justice and the order and character of the just city-state and the just man. It is Plato's best-known work and has proven to be one of the most intellectually and historically influential works of philosophy and political theory. In it, Socrates along with various Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just...
In Tom Holland' s vibrant translation, one of the great masterpieces of Western history springs to life. Herodotus of Halicarnassus- hailed by Cicero as the “Father of History”- composed his histories around 440 BC. The earliest surviving work of nonfiction, The Histories works its way from the Trojan War through an epic account of the war between the Persian empire and the Greek city-states in the fifth century BC, recording landmark events that...
Composed in Latin in the early years of the first century by the Roman poet Ovid, the "Metamorphoses" presents a collection of amazing tales of transformation based on Greek mythology and legend. Michael Simpson's prose translation of Ovid's masterpiece in the rapid and direct American idiom catches the swiftness and clarity of the Latin original. His introduction sketches the poet's life, describes his extant works, discusses his unusual exile to...
"Augustine's fourth-century spiritual autobiography is not only a major document in the history of Christianity and a classic of Roman Africa, it also marks a vital moment in the history of Western culture. As Augustine recounts his life, he probes the great themes that others were to explore after him - faith, time, truth, identity, and self-knowledge - with a degree of detail unmatched in ancient literature. Illustrated with vivid portraits of friends,...
Euripides, along was Sophocles, and Aeschylus, is largely responsible for the rise of Greek tragedy. It was in the 5th Century BC, during the height of Greece's cultural bloom, that Euripides lived and worked. Of his roughly ninety-two plays, only seventeen tragedies survive. Both ridiculed and lauded during his life, Euripides now stands as an innovator of the Greek drama. Collected here are six of Euripides' tragedies in prose translation by Edward...
The three plays in this volume demonstrate different sides of Henrik Ibsen's genius, but all deal with themes of alienation from society and the breaking down of convention. A Doll's House (1879) portrays a woman questioning her duty to her husband and seeking to escape the stifling confines of her marriage-a theme that shocked contemporary audiences and established Ibsen's name outside Scandinavia. In The League of Youth (1869), his first prose drama,...
The landmark political treatise that refuted the so-called divine right of kings and established the principles of representative government "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." With these stirring words, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins The Social Contract-the first shot in a battle of ideas that would set the stage for the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. In the feverish days of the Enlightenment, Rousseau...
Considered by many to be the most important work on Alexander the Great, Arrian's "The Campaigns of Alexander" or "The Anabasis of Alexander" is an accurate and thorough account of the Macedonian conqueror's military exploits. Arrian of Nicomedia was a Roman historian, public figure, military commander, and well-acclaimed philosopher of the 2nd century. As a youth, he studied under Epictetus, and later strove in his literary works to emulate the great...
