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Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 1:29 pm
by Odysseusa
Torah and Bible
Iliad and Odyssey
Vedas and Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita
I Ching and Art of War
Any more recommendation?
Re: Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:06 pm
by Ad Orientem
Way too many to catalogue but here are a few off the top of my head...
Works and Days and Theogony- Hesiod
The Illiad and Odyssey- Homer
Commentaries on the Campaign in Gaul- Gaius Julius Caesar
Various Works- Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides
Various Works- Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
History of the Peloponnesian War- Thucydides
Various Works- Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius of Rhodes
City of God and Confessions- Blessed Augustine of Hippo
Various Works- Timaeus, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Appian of Alexandria, Arrian, and Plutarch
Orations and Various Works- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Various Works- Cato, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Livy, Tibullus, Propertius, Pliny the Elder & Younger
The Fathers of the Church- Various
Re: Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:14 pm
by KevinW
The classical stoic philosophers:
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Enchiridion by Epictetus, and others
Also the classical Greek math texts of Euclid, Plato, and others.
Re: Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 7:06 pm
by dualstow
The Dao De Jing attributed to Lao-zi ( Tao Te Ching; Lao-tzu /

? ??)
Edit: apparently Chinese characters don't display here. ;-)
Re: Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:40 pm
by MediumTex
What's the cutoff date?
Re: Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 1:01 pm
by Odysseusa
MediumTex wrote:
What's the cutoff date?
How about when Jesus was born?
Re: Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 1:09 pm
by Ad Orientem
Odysseusa wrote:
MediumTex wrote:
What's the cutoff date?
How about when Jesus was born?
Antiquity is generally understood to have extended far beyond the birth of Christ. Most historians date the end as the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, though I hasten to note that the Roman Empire in the East did not fall until AD 1453.
Re: Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 7:47 pm
by Coffee
The Collected Works of Mark Twain.
Re: Essential Books in Ancient Time
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 7:52 pm
by Ad Orientem
Coffee wrote:
The Collected Works of Mark Twain.
A Connecticut Yankee in Cleopatra's Court?