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Latin and Greek Literature of the Roman World

The books of the Roman world, in Latin and in Greek, in roughly chronological order.

Work	Author	Date	Genre	About
Twelve Tables	Decemvirs	c. 450 BC	Law	The foundation of Roman law, compiled by the decemviri legibus scribundis: ten tables in 451 BC and two more in 450. It survives only in quotations; Cicero says schoolboys learned it by heart. Its ban on patrician–plebeian marriage was repealed by the Lex Canuleia (445 BC).
In Catilinam	Cicero	63 BC	Oratory	Cicero's speeches against Catiline: the first delivered to the Senate in the Temple of Jupiter Stator in early November 63 BC ('O tempora, o mores!'), the second and third to the people, the fourth in the Senate debate on executing the conspirators.
De rerum natura	Lucretius	c. 55 BC	Philosophy	Lucretius's only work, arguing that the universe consists of atoms and void, that the soul is mortal and that the gods do not intervene. Cicero and his brother discussed it in 54 BC. Poggio Bracciolini rediscovered it in 1417.
De re publica	Cicero	51 BC	Philosophy	Cicero's answer to Plato's Republic, written 54–51 BC, praising Rome's mixed constitution. Its finale, the Dream of Scipio (Somnium Scipionis), survived separately through Macrobius's commentary. Angelo Mai recovered about a third of the rest.
De Bello Gallico	Julius Caesar	c. 50 BC	History	Caesar's seven books, one per campaigning year, from the Helvetii to Alesia, including the invasions of Britain and ethnographies of Gauls and Germans. An eighth book covering 51–50 BC was added by Aulus Hirtius.
De Bello Civili	Julius Caesar	c. 47 BC	History	Caesar's self-justifying commentaries on the war with Pompey, probably left unfinished. They were continued by other hands in the Alexandrian, African and Spanish Wars.
De finibus bonorum et malorum	Cicero	45 BC	Philosophy	Cicero's most systematic ethical treatise, with Torquatus speaking for Epicurus and Cato the Younger for the Stoics. A passage from it is the source of the 'lorem ipsum' filler text.
De officiis	Cicero	44 BC	Philosophy	Based on the Stoic Panaetius, it treats the honestum, the utile and conflicts between them. Hugely influential: one of the first classical texts printed (1465), and a favourite of Ambrose, Erasmus and Voltaire.
Eclogues	Virgil	c. 38 BC	Poetry	Virgil's first major work (c. 42–38 BC). The 'Messianic' Fourth Eclogue was read by Christians as a prophecy of Christ. The tenth consoles the poet Gallus; 'omnia vincit amor' comes from it.
Georgics	Virgil	29 BC	Poetry	Virgil's poem of the land, modelled on Hesiod's Works and Days and completed in 29 BC, when he read it to Octavian at Atella. Source of 'labor omnia vicit' and 'tempus fugit' (fugit inreparabile tempus).
De architectura	Vitruvius	c. 25 BC	Technical	Vitruvius's handbook (c. 30–20 BC), requiring that buildings have firmitas, utilitas and venustas. Rediscovered by the humanists, it became the bible of Renaissance architects such as Alberti and Palladio.
Aeneid	Virgil	19 BC	Epic	Virgil's masterpiece, written 29–19 BC and left unrevised at his death. Books 1–6 (wanderings, Dido, the underworld) echo the Odyssey, 7–12 (war in Latium) the Iliad. Anchises' speech in Book 6 defines Rome's mission: 'parcere subiectis et debellare superbos'.
Ars Poetica	Horace	c. 19 BC	Poetry	Horace's 476-line epistle on literary craft, the most influential work of criticism in Latin. It demands unity, decorum and endless revision, and that poetry both please and instruct (dulce et utile).
Ars Amatoria	Ovid	c. AD 2	Poetry	Ovid's manual of seduction (c. 2 BC–AD 2), two books for men and one for women, recommending the theatre, circus and porticoes as hunting grounds. Its flouting of Augustus's moral legislation was the official ground of his exile in AD 8.
Metamorphoses	Ovid	AD 8	Epic	Ovid's epic of transformations, completed about AD 8 just before his exile: Daphne, Narcissus, Pyramus and Thisbe, Icarus, Pygmalion, Baucis and Philemon. After Virgil the most influential Latin poem and the chief source of classical myth for later Europe.
Fasti	Ovid	c. AD 8	Poetry	Ovid's six books covering January to June, originally dedicated to Augustus and re-dedicated in exile to Germanicus. A major source for Roman cult, e.g. the Lupercalia, Parilia and Vestalia.
Res Gestae Divi Augusti	Augustus	AD 14	Inscription	Augustus's own account of his achievements, completed shortly before his death in AD 14. It opens with his raising an army at nineteen and ends with the title pater patriae. Copies survive from Ancyra, Apollonia and Pisidian Antioch in Galatia; Mommsen called it the 'queen of inscriptions'.
Geographica	Strabo	c. AD 20	Technical	Strabo's survey, finished c. AD 18–24. It works from Spain and Gaul through Italy, Greece and Asia to Egypt and Libya, mixing geography with history and ethnography. Almost entirely extant.
Satyricon	Petronius	c. AD 60	Novel	The earliest surviving Roman novel, attributed to Nero's courtier Petronius. Its centrepiece, the Cena Trimalchionis, is a prime source for colloquial Latin and freedman culture; it also contains the tales of the Widow of Ephesus and the werewolf.
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium	Seneca the Younger	c. AD 64	Letters	Seneca's last and most popular work, in twenty books, on friendship, time, death, slavery (Letter 47) and the crowd. Aulus Gellius quotes from a lost twenty-second book.
Pharsalia	Lucan	c. AD 65	Epic	Lucan's Bellum Civile, breaking off with Caesar at Alexandria. Its republican sympathies grow as it proceeds; highlights include the witch Erictho's necromancy (Book 6) and Cato's march through the Libyan desert (Book 9).
The Jewish War	Josephus	c. AD 75	History	Josephus's history, first written in Aramaic and then in Greek c. AD 75–79 under Flavian patronage. It includes his own surrender at Jotapata, an excursus on the Roman army, and the Flavian triumph of AD 71.
Natural History	Pliny the Elder	AD 77	Technical	Pliny the Elder's compilation, the largest single work to survive from the Roman Empire. Book 1 is a table of contents and list of sources. Its final books are the main ancient source for the history of Greek art.
Antiquities of the Jews	Josephus	c. AD 94	History	Josephus's presentation of his people's past for a Graeco-Roman audience (AD 93/94), modelled on Dionysius's Roman Antiquities. It is a key source for Herod the Great and includes a detailed account of Caligula's assassination.
Germania	Tacitus	AD 98	History	Tacitus's 46-chapter treatise: general customs first, then a tribe-by-tribe survey from the Rhine to the Baltic. It survived in a single manuscript, found at Hersfeld in the fifteenth century, and was heavily exploited by later German nationalism.
Moralia	Plutarch	c. AD 100	Philosophy	The conventional title for Plutarch's non-biographical writings. They include antiquarian works on Roman and Greek customs, advice on marriage and politics, and Delphic theological dialogues.
Histories (Tacitus)	Tacitus	c. AD 109	History	Tacitus's first major historical work (c. AD 105–110), probably twelve or fourteen books covering 69–96, of which 1–4 and part of 5 survive. It reveals 'the secret of empire: that an emperor could be made elsewhere than at Rome'.
Parallel Lives	Plutarch	c. AD 110	Biography	Plutarch's chief work (c. AD 100–120), dedicated to Sosius Senecio: twenty-three pairs survive, with four single lives. He insists he writes 'lives, not histories', seeking character in small details.
Annals (Tacitus)	Tacitus	c. AD 117	History	Tacitus's masterpiece (c. AD 115–120), in sixteen or eighteen books covering AD 14–68. Books 1–6 (Tiberius; most of 5 lost) and 11–16 (Claudius from 47 and Nero to 66) survive. Annals 15.44 describes the Great Fire and Nero's punishment of the Christians.
The Twelve Caesars	Suetonius	c. AD 121	Biography	Suetonius's De vita Caesarum (c. AD 121) in eight books; the opening of the Life of Julius Caesar is lost. Source of 'Veni, vidi, vici', 'Alea iacta est', 'Varus, give me back my legions' and Vespasian's 'I think I am becoming a god'. The model for later imperial biography.
Enchiridion	Epictetus	c. AD 125	Philosophy	The 'Handbook' of Epictetus, a digest of the Discourses. It was adapted for Christian monastic use and became one of the most read works of ancient philosophy.
Almagest	Ptolemy	c. AD 150	Technical	Ptolemy's astronomical synthesis (c. AD 150), building on Hipparchus. It remained the authoritative model of the heavens in the Islamic world and Europe until Copernicus and Kepler.
Geography (Ptolemy)	Ptolemy	c. AD 150	Technical	Ptolemy's gazetteer and treatise on projections, drawing on Marinus of Tyre. Translated into Latin c. 1406, it shaped Renaissance cartography; its underestimate of the globe encouraged Columbus.
The Golden Ass	Apuleius	c. AD 170	Novel	Apuleius's Metamorphoses, the only Latin novel to survive complete; Augustine supplies the familiar title. The inset tale of Cupid and Psyche fills Books 4–6; Book 11 is a major source for the Isis cult.
A True Story	Lucian	c. AD 170	Novel	Lucian's two-book spoof of Homer, Herodotus and Ctesias, often called the first science fiction. It also visits the Isles of the Blest, where Homer settles questions about his poems.
Meditations	Marcus Aurelius	c. AD 175	Philosophy	Marcus Aurelius's reflections 'to himself' (c. AD 170–180), never intended for publication. Book 1 lists his debts to family and teachers such as Fronto, Rusticus and Antoninus Pius; the rest are exercises in accepting mortality and doing one's duty.
Enneads	Plotinus	c. AD 270	Philosophy	The collected writings of Plotinus, composed at Rome c. 253–270 and published by Porphyry about 301 with a Life of Plotinus as preface. The title means 'nines'.
Antonine Itinerary	Anonymous	c. AD 300	Technical	The chief written source for the Roman road network, probably begun under Caracalla (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) and revised to c. AD 300. Its fifteen British routes (the Iter Britanniarum) are fundamental for the geography of Roman Britain.
Historia Augusta	Anonymous	c. AD 395	Biography	Lives of emperors, heirs and usurpers for AD 117–284, with a gap for 244–260. Hermann Dessau showed in 1889 that the six 'Scriptores' (Spartianus, Capitolinus, Lampridius, Gallicanus, Pollio, Vopiscus) are a fiction. Full of invented documents, yet indispensable for the third century.
Confessions	Augustine	c. AD 400	Philosophy	Augustine's account of his life to his conversion in 386 and Monica's death, written c. 397–400, followed by meditations on memory, time and Genesis. 'Our heart is restless until it rests in you.' 'Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.'
Notitia Dignitatum	Anonymous	c. AD 400	Technical	The 'List of Offices', our main evidence for late Roman administration and army deployment. The eastern half reflects c. 395; the western was updated into the 420s. It survives through Renaissance copies of a lost Carolingian manuscript from Speyer.
De re coquinaria	Anonymous	c. AD 400	Technical	The only cookery book to survive from the Roman world, transmitted under the name of Marcus Gavius Apicius. Its books have Greek titles such as Epimeles (the careful cook) and Thalassa (seafood).
Vulgate	Jerome	c. AD 405	Philosophy	Largely the work of Jerome between 382 and c. 405: a revision of the Old Latin Gospels, then a fresh Old Testament translated 'iuxta Hebraeos'. The Council of Trent declared it authoritative in 1546; it is the text of the Gutenberg Bible.
The City of God	Augustine	AD 426	Philosophy	Augustine's largest work, written 413–426. Books 1–10 refute pagan religion and philosophy, drawing on Varro; books 11–22 trace the origin, course and ends of the two cities. It asks: 'Without justice, what are kingdoms but great robber bands?'
Theodosian Code	Theodosius II	AD 438	Law	The first official codification of Roman imperial law, ordered by Theodosius II and accepted in the West by Valentinian III. Book 16 collects the laws on religion. It underlies the Breviary of Alaric (506) and was superseded in the East by Justinian's Code.
Tabula Peutingeriana	Anonymous		Technical	The only surviving map of the cursus publicus road network, showing stations, distances, spas and cities (Rome, Constantinople and Antioch personified) in a drastically stretched strip. The archetype dates from the fourth or fifth century; the extant copy was made in the thirteenth century. The westernmost section is lost.

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