Classics Past Readings

2025-2026

  • Sallust, History of the Catiline Conspiracy & Cicero, Ad Catalinam 1
  • Demosthenes, Philippics 1 & 3
  • Cicero, Philippics 2, 4, & 7
  • selections from Ovid, Metamorphoses (tales of Tiresias, Iphis, Achaeon, Narcissus, & Ianthe)

2024-2025

  • Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Oresteia, play 1)
  • Aeschylus, Libation Bearers (Oresteia, play 2)
  • Aeschylus, Eumenides (Oresteia, play 3)
  • Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis
  • Euripides, Iphigeneia among the Taurians
  • Euripides, Helen
  • Euripides, Orestes

2023–2024

    • Gilgamesh (recent translations include Stephen Mitchell & Sophus Helle)

    • Enuma Elish (Babylonian poem of creation)—translations include Timothy Stephany, L. W. King, Stephanie Dalley (in the Oxford World Classics series) and online as part of the Electronic Babylonian Library

    • Hesiod, Theogony

    • Hesiod, Works & Days

2022–2023

    • Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

2021–2022

    • Plutarch, selections from Essays

    • Plutarch, selected Parallel Lives

    • Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars—Augustus, Nero

    • Pseudo-Callisthenes, The Greek Alexander Romance

    • Tacitus, Agricola

    • Tacitus, Germania

    • Martial, Epigrams

    • Apuleius, The Golden Ass

    • Plutarch, “Whether Military or Intellectual Exploits Have Brought Athens More Fame” in Plutarch’s Essays, translated by Robin Waterfield (Penguin Books)

    • Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

2020–2021

    • Herodotus, Histories books I–IX

    • Lucan, De Bello Civili, I–X

    • Guest speaker Robert Strassler discusses the history of the Landmark Historians series, the creation of the Landmark Herodotus text we are using, and Herodotus more generally

2019–2020

    • Sophocles, Oedipus the King 

    • Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus

    • Sophocles, Antigone

    • Aristotle, Poetics

    • Euripides, Medea

    • Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica

    • Seneca, Medea

2018–2019

    • Augustine, Confessions

    • Euripides, Hippolytus

    • Seneca, Phaedra

    • Aristophanes, Clouds

    • Horace, Odes

    • Virgil, Æneid

    • Mary Norris, Greek to Me

2017–2018

    • James Davidson, Courtesans & Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens​

    • Homer, The Iliad

    • Homer, The Odyssey

    • Vergil, The Aeneid, (Virgil, The Æneid, translated by David Ferry (University of Chicago Press, 2017; ISBN: 9780226450186))

2016–2017

    • Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics​

    • Quintus Cicero, Commentariolum Petitionis / Electioneering Handbook, and How to Win an Election: An Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians trans. Philip Freeman

    • Aristophanes, Assemblywomen & Wealth (Henderson’s translation)

    • Hippocratic Corpus: “The Oath,” “The Canon,” “Airs, Waters, Places,” “Aphorisms,” “Dreams (Regimen IV),” “A Regimen for Health,” & “The Seed & The Nature of the Child” in Hippocratic Writings, trans. G. E. R. Lloyd

    • Plato, Cratylus

    • Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, and Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, trans. Ronald Melville with notes by Don & Peta Fowler

    • Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, and The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, trans. A. S. L. Farquharson, ed. R. B. Rutherford

    • Correspondence with Fronto

2015–2016

    • E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational

    • Euripides, The Bacchae

    • Diane J. Rayor, The Homeric Hymns

    • Robin Waterfield, The First Philosophers

    • Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus 

    • Ann Carson, If Not, Winter

    • Diane Rayor, Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works

    • Callimachus, Callimachus: Hymns, Epigrams, Select Fragments (trans. Lombardo & Rayor)

    • Catullus, The Poems of Catullus (trans. Guy Lee)

    • Ovid, Amores I.1

    • Ovid, Metamorphoses (trans. A. D. Melville)

    • Peter Green, trans., The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters

    • Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics

2014–2015

    • Euripides, The Bacchae

    • W. Robert Connor, Greek Orations Gorgias, Encomium of Helen

    • Aristophanes, Frogs

    • Plato, “Apology of Socrates,” “Symposium,” and “Phaedrus” Aristophanes, “Clouds”

    • Longus, Daphnis and Chloe

    • Lucian, a selection of his satires and satiric dialogues

    • Seneca, Thyestes, Phaedra, Octavia

2013–2014

    • Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

    • Aeschylus, Agamemnon

    • Aeschylus, Libation Bearers

    • Aeschylus, Eumenidies

    • Sophocles, Antigone

    • Sophocles, The Electras

    • Euripides, The Electras

2012–2013

    • Herodotus, Books 1-9

    • Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes and Prometheus Bound

    • Sophocles, Philoctetes

    • Aristophanes, Acharnians and The Knights

    • Euripides, Hippolytus and The Suppliants

    • Gore Vidal, Creation

    • Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War

2011–2012

    • Greek lyric poets, including Sappho, Archilochus, and Alcaeus

    • Aeschylus, Persians

    • Sophocles, Electra

    • Euripides, Medea

    • Aristotle, Poetics

    • Homer, The Odyssey

    • Mason, The Lost Books of the Odyssey

    • Atwood, The Penelopiad

2009–2011

    • Hesiod, Theogony and Homeric Hymns

    • Homer, The Iliad andThe Odyssey 

    • Atwood, The Penelopiad