Competency Reading List for Classics Majors

The reading list below contains the texts with which we encourage majors to be familiar. Authors and texts are arranged by genre. We require that texts marked with an asterisk be read; the others we encourage you to read. You will read some in their original languages or in translation during course work; we urge you to read the rest in English translation as you make time during school or between semesters. Please make a copy of this list and mark off texts as you read them, and add others that do not appear on this list. You will prepare such a list of your reading for the faculty before your oral exam. Faculty will be glad to recommend translations for the ancient works.

GREEK

LATIN
Epic and Didactic
 Homer Iliad*; Odyssey*
Hesiod Theogony, Works and Days
Apollonius Argonautica 1 and 3
Lucretius De Rerum Natura Books 1* and 3
Virgil Georgics 1 and 4, Aeneid*
Ovid Metamorphoses 1*, 6*, 10*, 15*
Lucan Bellum Civile (Pharsalia) Book 1
Statius Thebaid 1
Tragedy
 Aeschylus Oresteia* (Agamemnon, Choephoroi, Eumenides)
Sophocles Antigone, Oedipus Rex*, Philoctetes
Euripides Medea, Hippolytus, Bacchae*
 Seneca Thyestes
Comedy
 Aristophanes Clouds, Birds, Frogs*
Menander Dyscolus
 Plautus Menaechmi*
Terence Adelphoe
History
 Herodotus Histories 1*, 5-9
Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War 1-3*, 5-7*
Xenophon HellenicaI
 Caesar Gallic War 1 and 6
Sallust Bellum Catilinae
Livy Ab Urbe Condita Books 1*, 5*, 21*, and 22*
Augustus Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Tacitus Annals 1*, 14*, and 15*, Agricola, Histories 1
Lyric and Pastoral Poetry
 Lyric Poetry:
Archilochus*, Tyrtaeus*, Solon*, Sappho*, Alcaeus*
Pindar Olympians 1, 7, 14; Pythians 1, 8, 10; Nemean 5, Isthmian 5
Theocritus Idylls 1, 7, 11, 15
Catullus All poems*
Virgil Eclogues*
Horace Odes 1-4 (Carmina)*
Statius Silvae 1.1, 2.6, 2.7
Oratory/ Philosophy
 Presocratics Fragments of Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Democritus
Plato Apology*, Republic 1-2, 9-10, Symposium*, Phaedrus
Aristotle Poetics, Nicomachean Ethics I
Epictetus Handbook (Enchiridion)
 Cicero Catilinarians 1-4*, Philippic 2, De Oratore 1, Tusculan Disputation 5
Seneca De Ira1

Biography/ Autobiography

 Plutarch Life of Pericles Suetonius Nero
Augustine Confessions 3 and 8
Elegy
   Tibullus Book 1
Propertius "Monobiblos" Book 1*
Ovid Ars Amatoria 1*, Amores 1*
Satire
   Horace Satires 1* (Sermones), Epistles 2
Persius Satire 1
Petronius Cena Trimalchionis (Satyricon 27-79)
Martial All epigrams from Book 1
Juvenal Satires 1*, 3*, and 10*
Letters
   Seneca Epistles 40, 47, 77, 79, 88, 90, 114
Pliny the Younger 5.10*, 6.16* and 20*, 10.96* and 97*

GREEK HISTORY

ROMAN HISTORY

GREEK/ROMAN ART