Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who led the Macedonian army to victory in Egypt, Syria, Persia and India, was perhaps the most successful conqueror the world has ever seen.
The works collected in this volume have profoundly shaped the history of criticism in the Western world: they created much of the terminology still in use today and formulated enduring questions about the nature and function of literature.
Probably written by a student of Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution is both a history and an analysis of Athens' political machinery between the seventh and fourth centuries BC, which stands as a model of democracy at a time when city-states lived under differing kinds of government.
The Satires of Horace (65-8 BC), written in the troubled decade ending with the establishment of Augustus' regime, provide an amusing treatment of men's perennial enslavement to money, power, glory and sex.
The most renowned of all works of Scandinavian literature and our most extensive source of Norse mythologyWritten in Iceland a century after the close of the Viking Age, The Prose Edda tells ancient stories of the Norse creation epic and recounts the battles that follow as gods, giants, dwarves and elves struggle for survival.
The Metaphysics presents Aristotle's mature rejection of both the Platonic theory that what we perceive is just a pale reflection of reality and the hardheaded view that all processes are ultimately material.
'With icy remorselessness, it puts paid to any notion that the horrors of modern history might be an aberration - for it tells of universal war, of terrorism, revolution and genocide' Tom HollandThe long life-and-death struggle between Athens and Sparta plunged the ancient Greek world into decades of war.
In The Persian Expedition, Xenophon, a young Athenian noble who sought his destiny abroad, provides an enthralling eyewitness account of the attempt by a Greek mercenary army - the Ten Thousand - to help Prince Cyrus overthrow his brother and take the Persian throne.
With the emergence of democracy in the city-state of Athens in the years around 460 BC, public speaking became an essential skill for politicians in the Assemblies and Councils - and even for ordinary citizens in the courts of law.
A tender novel describing eager and inept young love, Daphnis and Chloe tells the story of a baby boy and girl who are discovered separately, two years apart, alone and exposed on a Greek mountainside.
The Acharnians/The Clouds/Lysistrata'We women have the salvation of Greece in our hands'Writing at a time of political and social crisis in Athens, the ancient Greek comic playwright Aristophanes was an eloquent, yet bawdy, challenger to the demagogue and the sophist.
Medea/Hecabe/Electra/HeraclesFour devastating Greek tragedies showing the powerful brought down by betrayal, jealousy, guilt and hatredThe first playwright to depict suffering without reference to the gods, Euripides made his characters speak in human terms and face the consequences of their actions.
King Oedipus/Oedipus at Colonus/AntigoneThree towering works of Greek tragedy depicting the inexorable downfall of a doomed royal dynastyThe legends surrounding the house of Thebes inspired Sophocles to create this powerful trilogy about humanity's struggle against fate.
Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome recount the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus up to the death of Nero in AD 68.
Taking the legends surrounding King Arthur and weaving in new psychological elements of personal desire and courtly manner, Chr tien de Troyes fashioned a new form of medieval Romance.
'The most truthful translation ever, conveying as many nuances and whispers as are possible from the original' The TimesAfter a century of civil strife in Rome and Italy, Virgil wrote the Aeneid to honour the emperor Augustus by praising his legendary ancestor Aeneas.
Part of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Elder Edda is one of the classic books that influenced JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings'So the company of men led a careless life,All was well with them: until One beganTo encompass evil, an enemy from hell.
Tom Holland's 'stirring new translation' (Telegraph) of Herodotus' Histories, one of the great books in Western history - now in paperbackThe Histories of Herodotus, completed in the second half of the 5th century BC, is generally regarded as the first work of history and the first great masterpiece of non-fiction writing.
Einhard's Life of Charlemagne is an absorbing chronicle of one of the most powerful and dynamic of all medieval rulers, written by a close friend and adviser.
Once upon a time, the name Baghdad conjured up visions of the most magical, romantic city on earth, where flying carpets carried noble thieves off on wonderful adventures, and vicious viziers and beautiful princesses mingled with wily peasants and powerful genies.
One of the most important philosophical works of all time, in a new Penguin Classics translation by Adam Beresford'Right and wrong is a human thing' What does it mean to be a good person?
The great work of Welsh literature, translated in full for the first time in over 100 years by two of its country's foremost poetsTennyson portrayed him, and wrote at least one poem under his name.
Taking the form of a discussion between the hedonist Philebus, his na ve disciple Protarchus and Socrates, Philebus is a compelling consideration of the popular belief that pleasure is the greatest attainable good.
Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events that follow when a mysterious green-coloured knight rides into King Arthur's Camelot in deep mid-winter.
Lawyer, philosopher, statesman and defender of Rome's Republic, Cicero was a master of eloquence, and his pure literary and oratorical style and strict sense of morality have been a powerful influence on European literature and thought for over two thousand years in matters of politics, philosophy, and faith.
