Ancient Rome and Latin Literature Reading List in English Translation - Compiled by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Ancient Roman Civilization and Latin Literature Reading List in English Translation - Compiled by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Understanding ancient Roman society and civilization is important in the United States, because our government institutions are based on those of Republican Rome and not Imperial Rome.  

Latin schools are often located in large cities in the US as training grounds for future lawyers.  They all have mock jury as a club and US government study clubs like Close-Up, which is sponsored by the US Congress.

The ancient Romans produced much literature about administering and maintaining good government, legal rhetoric, science, plays, and literature.

Reviews and interpretations of these books can be found on library literature databases, publisher’s websites (Oxford University Press notably), and Goodreads (an Amazon subsidiary company).

I put together a list of books on ancient Roman Civilization below that is divided into the following categories in no particular order of preference:

History:

-The Rise of Rome by Livy

-Agricola and Germania by Tacitus

-The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius

-The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar

-The War with Hannibal by Livy

-The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives by Plutarch

-Histories by Tacitus

-Makers of Rome: Nine Lives – Coriolanus, Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Cato the Elder, Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Sertorious, Brutus, Marc Anthony, and Julius Caesar by Plutarch

-The Early History of Rome by Livy

-The Rise of the Roman Empire by Polybius

-The Rise and Fall of Athens (Theseus, Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicius, Alcibiades, and Lysander) by Plutarch

-The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives: (Agesilaus, Pelopidas, Dion, Timoleon, Demosthenes, Phocion, Alexander, Demetriusm, and Pyrrhus) by Plutarch

-On Sparta by Plutarch

-The Life of Alexander the Great by Plutarch

-The Annals of Ancient Rome by Tacitus

-The Civil Wars by Appian

-The Civil War by Gaius Julius Caesar

-The Later Roman Empire by Ammanius Marcellinus

-The Essential Writings of Flavius Josephus

-The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus by Cassius Dio

-The Letters of the Younger Pliny by Pliny the Younger

Literature and Mythology

-Metamorphoses by Ovid

-Odes by Horace

-Georgics by Virgil

-The Complete Poems by Catallus

-The Sixteen Satires by Juvenal

-The Comedies: Volume 1 – 4 by Plautus

-The Biographies of Hercules, Troades, Phoenissue, Medea, Phaedra, Oedipus, Thyestes, Hercules, Oetaneus, Fabula Praetesta by Seneca

-The Aeneid by Virgil

-Theogeny – Works and Days by Hesiod

-The Library of Greek Mythology by Appollodorus

Rhetoric and Law

-Selected Works by Cicero

-On Obligations by Cicero

-Murder Trials by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Science and Philosophy

-Natural History by Pliny

-Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

-On the Nature of the Universe by Lucretius

-Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

-The Niomachean Ethics by Aristotle

-Selected Political Speeches by Cicero

-Letters from a Stoic by Seneca

-The Satyricon by Petronius

-The Essential Writings by Epictetus

-On the Republic – On the Laws by Cicero

Happy Reading!!

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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