Classics: Literature

Greek literature, ancient, the writings of the ancient Greeks. The Greek Isles are recognized as the birthplace of Western intellectual life. The earliest extant European literary works are the Iliad and the Odyssey, both written in ancient Greek probably before 700 BCE, and attributed to Homer. Among other early epic poems, most of which have perished, those of Hesiod, the first didactic poet, remain.

Greek poet. Homer is considered to be the author of the the Iliad and the Odyssey, the great early epics of Greek literature.

Greek playwright, Athenian comic poet, greatest of the ancient writers of comedy.

Athenian tragic dramatist, b. Eleusis. The first of the three great Greek writers of tragedy.

Greek tragic dramatist, younger contemporary of Aeschylus and older contemporary of Euripides, b. Colonus, near Athens.

Greek tragic dramatist, ranking with Aeschylus and Sophocles. Born in Attica, he lived in Athens most of his life.

From Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia
(late 7th-early 6th cent. BCE) Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Little reliable information about her life survives: She was from a prominent family, had brothers and probably a daughter, and may have spent time in exile. Her work was edited by Alexandrian critics in the Hellenistic period and came to nine book-rolls, including one book of wedding poetry.

Greek poet, generally regarded as the greatest Greek lyric poet.

Greek historian, called the Father of History, b. Halicarnassus, Asia Minor. Only scant knowledge of his life can be gleaned from his writings and from references to him by later writings, notably the Suda.

Greek historian of Athens, one of the greatest of ancient historians. His family was partly Thracian. As a general in the Peloponnesian War he failed (424 BCE) to prevent the surrender of the city of Amphipolis to the Spartan commander Brasidas and was exiled until the end of the war.

Greek historian, b. Athens. He was one of the well-to-do young disciples of Socrates before leaving Athens to join the Greek force (the Ten Thousand) that was in the service of Cyrus the Younger of Persia.

Greek philosopher. Plato's teachings have been among the most influential in the history of Western civilization.

Greek philosopher, b. Stagira. He is sometimes called the Stagirite.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(ca. 356–ca. 260 BCE) Greek historian of Tauromenium (now Taormina), Sicily. Son of the tyrant of the city, he was banished by Agathocles either in 317 or 312 BCE and lived for 50 years in Athens, where he wrote a history of his native land. This history, now lost except for fragments which have survived as quotations in other works, covered the period from earliest times to the events of his own lifetime.

Greek historian, b. Megalopolis. As one of the leaders of the Achaean League and a friend of Philopoemen, he was influential in Greek politics.

From Who's Who in Ancient Egypt, Routledge
(ca. 1st cent. BCE) A native of Sicily, Diodorus was an assiduous writer and produced a monumental history of the world, Bibliotheke Historica, the first book of which includes information about Egypt which Diodorus seems to have visited, if only briefly.

From Who's Who in The Roman World, Routledge
(ca. 1st cent. BCE) Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and literary critic from Halicarnassus in southwestern Asia Minor who moved to Rome in about 30 BCE where he taught rhetoric and became a great enthusiast for all things Roman. Much of his work survives: his Roman Antiquities, of whose twenty books we have the first ten, began publication in 7 BCE.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
(ca. 100 CE) Roman historian. He was a Greek, born in Alexandria. He held various offices in Alexandria, was an advocate in Rome, and then imperial procurator in Egypt. His history of the Roman conquests, from the founding of Rome to the reign of Trajan, is more a collection of monographs on specific events than a continuous history.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(89–180 CE) Flavius Arrianus Xenophon, Arrian, is important to the history of science as a compiler and commentator on the works of others. Arrian wrote the Anabasis, one of the most important sources for the study of the reign of Alexander the Great, in which Alexander’s scientific interests are discussed at length.

Greek essayist and biographer, b. Chaeronea, Boeotia. He traveled in Egypt and Italy, visited Rome (where he lectured on philosophy) and Athens, and finally returned to his native Boeotia, where he became a priest of the temple of Delphi.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(276–195 BCE) Eratosthenes of Cyrene was the Librarian at Alexandria and a geographer of note. Author of the Geographica, Eratosthenes mapped the world and estimated the earth’s circumference, providing one of the most accurate assessments of the ancient world.

Greek mathematician whose works, and the style in which they were presented, formed the basis for all mathematical thought and expression for the following 2,000 years (although they were not entirely without fault).

Greek mathematician, physicist, and inventor. He is famous for his work in geometry (on the circle, sphere, cylinder, and parabola), physics, mechanics, and hydrostatics.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(130–200 CE) Galen was a Greek physician from Asia Minor who was a master of medical science and physician to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(63 BCE–21 CE) Strabo was the Greek writer of Geography, an influential treatise on history and geography. Strabo was a Stoic philosopher influenced by Athenodorus, a contemporary Stoic philosopher, Xenarchus, a notable Peripatetic philosopher, and the geographer Tyrannion.

(Claudius Ptolemaeus) Celebrated Greco-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. He made his observations in Alexandria and was the last great astronomer of ancient times.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(55–135 CE) Epictetus was a Greek slave who became a leading voice of Stoicism during the Roman Principate. He was a student of Musonius Rufus, a Roman Stoic philosopher. After being freed by his master Epaphroditus and then banished from Rome by the emperor Domitian, Epictetus set up a school in western Greece on the Adriatic, at Nicopolis.

From Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy
(ca. 200 CE) Author of the only preserved example of an ancient “History of Philosophy.” From the Renaissance until ca. 1800, Diogenes Laertius was the main model for historiography of philosophy.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)ju'vənəl, fl. 1st to 2d cent. A.D., Roman satirical poet. His verse established a model for the satire of indignation, in contrast to the less harsh satire of ridicule of Horace. Little is known about his life except that during much of it he was desperately poor. A tradition tells that as a youth he was banished from court for satirizing an imperial favorite; later his work reveals a deep hatred for the Emperor Domitian.

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
(AD 39-65) Born in Corduba (Córdoba), Spain, he was the nephew of the philosopher Seneca, the Younger. He studied in Rome and in Athens, and became proficient in rhetoric and philosophy. He was recalled to Rome by the Emperor Nero, who made him quaestor and augur. In ad60 he won the poetry competition in the first Neronia games. In ad62 he published the first three books of his epic Bellum Civile (Pharsalia) on the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(5–65 CE) Seneca was an extremely influential statesman and Stoic philosopher of the mid-first century CE. He was primarily a moralist, but he also speculated on nature in his Natural Questions, and he explored the human psyche in the Moral Letters.

From The Classical Tradition, Marcus Valerius Martialis (ca. 41-104 ce), Roman epigrammatist. His 14 books of epigrams embraced many topics: flattery of social superiors, satire of man's foibles, eroticism, and devotion to his Spanish heritage. Born in Bilbilis, a provincial city in ancient Hispania, he left for Rome after receiving a standard Roman education in Greek and rhetoric. Once in Rome, he wrote epigrams praising many patrons, most prominently the emperor Domitian. After Domitian's fall, Martial retired to Bilbilis, where he lived until his death.

From The classical tradition. The Roman Suetonius (late 1st-early 2nd century ce) was the most influential and best-known biographer in the Latin language. He composed lives of the Roman emperors down to Domitian (De vita Caesarum). He chose to begin the series not with Augustus but with Julius Caesar, whom Trajan, under whom he wrote, publicly commemorated as the founder of the imperial line.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(56–117 CE)Cornelius Tacitus was a historian, biographer, and ethnographer. He was a senator during the Flavian and Antonine dynasties of the Roman Principate. His works included the Annals, Histories, Agricola, and Germania. Tacitus was one of the most sophisticated Roman authors, a polymath of note, who, as an ethnologist, penned an enduring portrait of the peoples of Germany.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(23–79 CE) Pliny the Elder, Gaius Plinius Secundus, was a Roman polymath and author of Natural History, which is a diverse collection of anecdotes, history, geography, medical information of varying worth, discussions of astronomy and earth science, and a catalog of Roman knowledge on botany and zoology.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
(61–113 CE) Gaius Plinius Luci was nephew and heir of Pliny the Elder. He was, like his uncle, interested in a variety of topics of inquiry, some of them scientific, which are revealed in his Letters. Pliny was a consul, senator, and lawyer.

From Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia
(ca. 35-ca. 90 CE) Pleader in Roman courts and first public professor of Latin rhetoric in Rome, whose Institutio oratoria, written in retirement, is singular among ancient works of educational theory in its consideration of practical pedagogy.

From The MacMillan Encyclopedia
The period (18-c. 130 AD) succeeding the Golden Age of Latin literature. During this time rhetorical brilliance and ornamentation became prized for its own sake. Major writers include the satirist Juvenal, the epigrammatist Martial, the historians Tacitus and Suetonius, and the philosopher and dramatist Seneca.

From The Macmillan Encyclopedia
The period (70 BCE-18 CE) during which some of the highest achievements of Latin literature were produced. The first part of the period (70-43 BCE) was dominated by Cicero. The major writers of the subsequent Augustan age (43 BCE-18 CE) include Virgil, Horace, Livy, and Ovid.

Titus Lucretius Carus, Roman poet and philosopher. Little is known about his life. A chronicle of St. Jerome speaks of the loss of his reason through taking a love potion. It states that in sane intervals he had written books that were later emended by Cicero. The poetry of Lucretius constitutes one great didactic work in six books, De rerum natura [on the nature of things].

Latin name Quintus Horatius Flaccus. Roman poet and satirist: his verse includes the lyrics in the Epodes and the Odes, the Epistles and Satires, and the Ars Poetica.

Titus Livius. Roman historian; of his history of Rome in 142 books, only 35 survive.

Latin name Publius Ovidius Naso. Roman poet. His verse includes poems on love, Ars Amatoria, on myths, Metamorphoses, and on his sufferings in exile, Tristia.

Roman poet, b. Andes dist., near Mantua, in Cisalpine Gaul; the spelling Virgil is not found earlier than the 5th cent. CE. Vergil's father, a farmer, took his son to Cremona for his education. Vergil worked on the Aeneid, a national epic honoring Rome and foretelling prosperity to come. The adventures of Aeneas are unquestionably one of the greatest long poems in world literature.

From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the most well known of the Roman Stoic philosophers. He lived during the time of internal discord that destroyed the Roman Republic. Cicero translated his uncertainty about the state and corporeal matters into uncertainty about the nature and end of life.

From Who's Who in The Roman World, Routledge
Catullus, Gaius Valerius was a poet from Verona in Cisalpine Gaul. Catullus turned to the writing of poetry, in a wide variety of styles and metres, and introduced a new perspective into Latin literature which derived partly from the Alexandrian poets, especially Callimachus, to whose work he was introduced by Parthenius, and partly from Greek lyric poets such as Sappho.

From Who's Who in The Roman World, Routledge
Propertius was an elegiac poet from Assisi in Umbria. He published four books of poetry, which show development both in theme and range.

First Roman emperor, a grandson of the sister of Julius Caesar. Named at first Caius Octavius, he became on adoption by the Julian gens (44 BCE) Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian); Augustus was a title of honor granted (27 BCE) by the senate.

From Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia
(ca. 280–45 BCE) Hellenistic Greek poet and critic.

From Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History, Routledge
(ca. 3rd cent. BCE) Theocritus's poems (written for the most part in the poet's native western, or Doric, form of Greek) came to be known as ‘idylls’. They cover various styles and genres, the largest single group comprising the ‘bucolic’ idylls, which (through Virgil) originated the European pastoral tradition.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide
(ca. 3rd cent. BCE) Greek poet. He was the author of the epic Argonautica, which tells the story of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. A pupil of Callimachus, he was for a time head of the library at Alexandria.