In these letters to his friends and relations, Pliny the Younger, lawyer, author, and natural philosopher, provides a fascinating insight into Roman life in the period 97 to 112 AD. Part autobiography, part social history, they document the career and interests of a senator and leading imperial official whose friends include the historians Tacitus and Suetonius. Pliny's letters cover a wide range of topics, from the contemporary political scene to domestic affairs, the educational system, the rituals and conduct of Roman religion, the treatment of slaves, and the phenomena of nature. He describes in vivid detail the eruption of Vesuvius, which killed his uncle, and the daily routines of a well-to-do Roman in the courts and at leisure, in the city, or enjoying rural pursuits at his country estates. This is a lively new translation by eminent scholar Peter Walsh, based on the Oxford Classical Text and drawing on the latest scholarship. In his introduction, Walsh considers the political background of the letters, the span of Pliny's career, the range of topics covered in the letters, and Pliny's literary style. Invaluable notes identify the letters' recipients and explain allusions to historical events and terms. A general index is supplemented by two specific indexes on aspects of social life and Pliny's correspondents. This classic will make great reading for those with an interest in classical literature and ancient history.

Complete Letters (Oxford World's Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Pliny, The Younger

Walsh, P.G.

Essays & Correspondence

Oxford University Press

Apuleius's Golden Ass is a unique, entertaining, and thoroughly readable Latin novel--the only work of fiction in Latin to have survived from antiquity. It tells the story of the hero Lucius, whose curiosity and fascination for sex and magic results in his transformation into an ass. After suffering a series of trials and humiliations, he is ultimately returned to human shape by the kindness of the goddess Isis. Simultaneously a blend of romantic adventure, fable, and religious testament, The Golden Ass is one of the truly seminal works of European literature, of intrinsic interest as a novel in its own right, and one of the earliest examples of the picaresque. This new translation is at once faithful to the meaning of the Latin, while reproducing all the exuberance of the original.

The Golden Ass (The ^AWorld's Classics)

Apuleius

History & Criticism

Cicero's philosophical works are now exciting renewed interest and more generous appreciation, in part because they provide vital evidence of the views of the (largely lost) Greek philosophers of the Hellenistic age, and partly because of the light they cast on the intellectual life of first-century Rome. The Nature of the Gods is a central document in this area, for it presents a detailed account of the theologies of the Epicureans and of the Stoics, together with the critical objections to these doctrines raised by the Academic school.

The Nature of the Gods (Oxford World's Classics)

History

Ciceró

Ancient Civilizations

The Satyricon is the most celebrated prose work to have survived from the ancient world. It can be described as the first realistic novel, the father of the picaresque genre. It recounts the sleazy progress of a pair of literate scholars as they wander through the cities of the southern Mediterranean in the age of Nero, encountering en route type-figures whom the author wishes to satirize. P.G. Walsh captures the spirit of the original in this new and lively translation. His introduction and detailed notes provide the reader with a comprehensive guide to the meanings and intentions of the story and the later history of its literary influence.

The Satyricon (The ^AWorld's Classics)

Petronius

Boethius composed De Consolation Philosophiae in the sixth century A.D. while awaiting death by torture, condemned on a charge of plotting against Gothic rule, which he protested as manifestly unjust. Though a Christian, Boethius details the true end of life as the soul's knowledge of God, and consoles himself with the tenets of Greek philosophy, not with Christian precepts. Written in a form called Meippean Satire that alternates between prose and verse, Boethius' work often consists of a story told by Ovid or Horace to illustrate the philosophy being expounded. The Consolation of Philosophy dominated the intellectual world of the Middle Ages; it inspired writers as diverse Thomas Aquinas, Jean de Meun, and Dante. In England it was rendered into Old English by Alfred the Great, into Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer, and later Queen Elizabeth I made her own translation. The circumstances of composition, the heroic demeanor of the author, and the Meippean texture of part prose, part verse have been a fascination for students of philosophy, literature, and religion ever since.

The Consolation of Philosophy (Oxford World's Classics)

Politics & Social Sciences

Boethius

Philosophy

The Golden Ass (Oxford World's Classics)

The Satyricon (Oxford World's Classics)

Genre Fiction

Cicero write On Obligations (De Officiis) in late 44 BC after the assassination of Julius Caesar to provide principles of behavior for aspiring politicians. It has subsequently played a seminal role in the formation of ethical values in western Christendom. Adopted by the fourth-century Christian humanists, it became transmuted into the moral code of the high Middle Ages. Thereafter, in the Renaissance from the time of Petrarch, and in the Age of Enlightenment that followed, it was given central prominence in discussion of the government of states. Today, when corruption and conflict in political life are the focus of so much public attention, On Obligations is still the foremost guide to good conduct. This new edition is based on a more systematic examination of the vast manuscript tradition than has previously been attempted, and shows with new clarity the major contribution to the improvement of the text made by scribes and readers of the later manuscripts, both in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance.

On Obligations (Oxford World's Classics)

Apuleius's Golden Ass is a unique, entertaining, and thoroughly readable Latin novel--the only work of fiction in Latin to have survived from antiquity. It tells the story of the hero Lucius, whose curiosity and fascination for sex and magic results in his transformation into an ass. After suffering a series of trials and humiliations, he is ultimately transformed back into human shape by the kindness of the goddess Isis. Simultaneously a blend of romantic adventure, fable, and religious testament, The Golden Ass is one of the truly seminal works of European literature, of intrinsic interest as a novel in its own right, and one of the earliest examples of the picaresque. This new translation is at once faithful to the meaning of the Latin, while reproducing all the exuberance of the original.

The Golden Ass

The Satyricon

The Satyricon is the most celebrated prose work to have survived from the ancient world. It can be described as the first realistic novel, the father of the picaresque genre. It recounts the sleazy progress of a pair of literate scholars as they wander through the cities of the southern Mediterranean in the age of Nero, encountering en route type-figures whom the author wishes to satirize--a professor, a libidinous priestess, a vulgar freedman turned millionaire, a manic poet, a superstitious sea-captain, and a femme fatale. P.G. Walsh captures the spirit of the original in this new and lively translation; his introduction and detailed notes provide the serious student with a comprehensive guide to the meanings and intentions of the story.

Humor & Satire

Clarendon Press/Oxford

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