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Reading List

(N.B.: This list applies for graduate students entering in the fall of 2004 or later. The reading list for students admitted before 2004 is available here.)

The following list of Greek and Latin literature is intended to provide explicit guidance to candidates for the Ph.D. in Classics over their course of study.

Direct knowledge of literature in each of the categories designated in this list (e.g. 'the pre-Socratics,' 'late Latin') is absolutely indispensable. But you may modify the components of these rubrics if such change makes for a better alignment of your interests. For example, you might read other works by a given writer than the ones named here (.e.g., Cicero's De officiis in place of De natura deorum), substitute roughly comparable writers (e.g., Themistius for Libanius) or read more of one author and less of another (e.g., more Persius, less Juvenal).

Although the Greek and Latin sight exams are drawn from authors on the reading list, those exams are intended to determine your ability to read the languages at sight rather than to recall passages read previously. This list, on the other hand, presents the categories, authors and texts that are most central to the discipline and most important for you to know well as a professional classicist.

As to the connection between this list and the doctoral orals, note that it is only implicit. The orals test your knowledge of the history of Greek and Latin literature, and much may be covered that is not text-based. On the other hand, it is obvious that by the time the orals are attempted you must control the general categories here indicated and should be familiar with the works listed within them (with due allowance for your own modifications).

Greek Authors

Archaic Epos

  • Homer, Iliad, Odyssey

  • Hymns 1-4, 9

  • Hesiod, Theogony 1-885; Works and Days 1-821

Early Lyric : as in West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci; Page, Lyrica Graeca Selecta (OCT); Page, Supplementum Lyricis Graecis (1974).

  • Archilochus, Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Semonides, Alcman, Mimnermus, Solon, Stesichorus, Sappho, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Xenophanes, Phocylides, Demodocus, Theognis 1-254, 341-54, 667-82, Hipponax, Simonides, Scolia, as in Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry 1976

Lyric

  • Pindar, Olympians, Pythians

  • Bacchylides, Epinicians 3,5

The Pre-Socratics

  • B fragments from Diels and Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, sixth edition, unless otherwise indicated.

  • Thales A12, A13, A14

  • Anaximander 1

  • Xenophanes: as above, under EARLY LYRIC

  • Heraclitus 1, 2, 10, 12, 30, 31, 40, 45, 48, 50, 51, 54, 55, 57, 60, 61, 62, 67, 80, 88, 90, 91, 93, 102, 107, 111, 113, 114, 115, 123, 125

  • Parmenides 1-19

  • Empedocles (from Brad Inwood, The Poem of Empedocles, Revised Edition): 1-28, 38, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67, 106

  • Anaxagoras 1-12

  • Protagoras 1-4

  • Gorgias 11 (Helen)

Tragedy

  • Aeschylus, Oresteia, and one other play

  • Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, and any other three plays

  • Euripides, Medea, Hippolytus, Ion, Bacchae

Comedy

  • Aristophanes, Acharnians, Clouds, Birds, Frogs

  • Menander, Dyskolos

Historical Writing

  • Herodotus

  • Thucydides

  • Xenophon, Hellenica 1-2, Apology, Symposium

  • Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians

  • Polybius, Bks 1-2, 6

Oratory

  • Antiphon, On the Murder of Herodes

  • Andocides, On the Mysteries

  • Lysias, 1, 2, 12, 22

  • Demosthenes, Olynthiacs 1-3, Philippics 1-2, On the Crown

  • Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon

  • Isocrates, Antidosis

Philosophy

  • See above, Pre-Socratics

  • Plato, Apology, Crito, Symposium, Phaedrus, Gorgias, Republic; cf. Xenophon, above, HISTORICAL WRITING

  • Aristotle, Poetics, Nicomachean Ethics 1-3, 8-10, Politics 1

Hellenistic Poetry

  • Theocritus, Idylls 1-7, 11-13

  • Callimachus, Hymns ed. Pfeiffer; Aitia and Epigrams, as in Neil Hopkinson, A Hellenistic Anthology (1988); Epigram 28 Pfeiffer

  • Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 1.1-22; Bks 3-4

  • Epigrams, as in Hopkinson

Greek Literature in Imperial Times

  • "Longinus", On the Sublime

  • Dio Chrysostom, Discourse 7 ("the Euboean")

  • Plutarch, Lives: Pericles, Demosthenes, Alexander; Anthony; de audiendis poetis, Moralia 14D-37B

  • Lucian, Vera Historia 1-2, Menippus

  • Longus, Daphnis and Chloe

  • Libanius, Oration 13

  • Eunapius, Lives of the Sophists

Latin Authors

Early Epic, Comedy, Satire

  • Ennius, Annales, longer fragments, ed. Skutch

  • Plautus, Amphitruo, Menaechmi, Miles Gloriosus, Pseudolus

  • Terence, Andria, Phormio, Adelphoe

  • Lucilius, ed. Marx. Enough to mark the style and grasp the subject matter.

Early Prose

  • Twelve Tables: I, III, IV, VI, VIII, X, ed. Warmington (Loeb)

  • Cato, De Agri Cultura, Origines F. 1, 9-12, 18, 71, 77, 83, 95 ed. Peter

  • C. Sempronius Gracchus, F. 16-22, 26-28, 39-44, 47-61 ed. Malcovati

Cicero

  • Orations: De Imperio Cn. Pompeii (=Pro lege Manilia), Catilinarians 1-4, Pro Archia, Pro Caelio, Pro Milone, Philippics 1-2.

  • Rhetorica: De Oratore, Brutus.

  • Philosophica: De Legibus, De Re Publica, Tusculan Disputations, De Natura Deorum.

  • Letters: as in Shackleton Bailey, Select Letters 1980.

Latin Historical Writing

  • See Cato, as above, under EARLY PROSE

  • Caesar, De Bello Gallico, De Bello Civili Bk. 1

  • Sallust, Catilinae Coniuratio, Bellum Iugurthinum

  • Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Bks 1-10, 21-22

  • Tacitus, Agricola, Historiae, Annales, Dialogus

  • Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum

  • Ammianus Marcellinus Bks 14-18

Poetry of the Late Republic

  • Lucretius, De Rerum Natura

  • Catullus, Carmina

Poetry under Augustus

  • Vergil, Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid

  • Horace, Epodes, Sermones, Odes, Epistles, Ars Poetica

  • Tibullus, Carmina Bks 1-2

  • Propertius, Elegiae

  • Ovid, Ars Amatoria, Metamorphoses, Tristia Bk. 2, Fasti

Literature under Nero

  • Seneca, Dialogus De Ira; De Clementia; Epistulae Morales 7, 12, 47, 51, 56, 86, 114, 122; Naturales Quaestiones; De Nilo; Medea, Phaedra, Thyestes

  • Lucan, Bellum Civile

  • Petronius

Satire

  • See Lucilius and Horace above.

  • Persius, Saturae: Prologus, Satire 1

  • Juvenal, Saturae 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 15

Under the Flavians and the Antonines

  • Martial, Liber de Spect. 1-2, 9(7), 15(13), 20(17); Epigrammata: Bk. 1: Praef., 1-4, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 20, 29, 32; Bk. 2; Epist.: Bk. 8: 55, 73; Bk. 9; Bk. 10: 1-2; Bk. 12: 57, 94; Bk. 13: 3; Bk. 14: 2

  • Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria Bks 1, 10

  • Pliny the Younger, Epistulae 1.1,5,6; 2.1; 3.5,7,16,21; 4.14; 5.8; 6.16,20; 7.17,27,33; 8.20; 9.6,7,10,33; 10.96-97

  • Apuleius, Metamorphoses, Apology

Late Latin

  • Mamertinus, Gratiarum actio . . . Juliano, ed. Myers (OCT)

  • Ausonius, Mosella

  • Symmachus, Epistulae, Bk. 1, Laudatio 2, ed. Seeck

  • Prudentius, Praefatio, Psychomachia 1-309

  • Claudian, In Eutropium 1-2

  • Macrobius, Saturnalia, Bk. 1: Praefatio

  • Augustine, Confessiones, Bks 1, 4

  • Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae, Bk. 1; Carmina 1-2, ed. Luetjohann