1.5 What are the famous classical authors? A-C
Description
This article is from the Classical Studies FAQ, by Richard M. Alderson III alderson@netcom2.netcom.com with numerous contributions by others.
1.5 What are the famous classical authors? A-C
While a complete list of even important authors cannot be given here, the ones
below commonly appear on reading lists of graduate departments of Classics.
The format is:
Author's Name
dates: (approximate)
language of composition: (language in which the works were written)
genre: (quick & dirty encapsulation)
style: (some elaboration of the above category, with notes on meter,
dialect)
diff : (difficulty; of course, highly subjective. Rated from 1-10,
easiest to hardest :))
works: (not necessarily complete; fragmentary works excluded)
fun fact: (sometimes not very much fun and often descending to the
level of gossip)
Note that both Greek and Latin authors are together in the same list; to
distinguish between them, check the "language of composition" field.
Aeschylus
dates: 525-456 BCE
language of composition: Greek
genre: drama
style: Classical Attic tragedy
diff : 8
works: Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers,
Eumenides, Supplices, Prometheus Bound
fun fact: Aeschylus was accidentally killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on
his bald head, mistaking him for a stone. Definitely an urban legend,
but one which has existed since classical times.
Apollonius Rhodius
dates: flourished 3rd century BCE
language of composition: Greek
genre: epic
style: Homeric vocabulary with some bold new similes and anthropological/
aetiological touches
diff : 6
works: Argonautica
fun fact: feuded with his teacher, Callimachus
Aristophanes
dates: 457-385 BCE
language of composition: Greek
genre: drama
style: Old Comedy
diff : 9
works: Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Wasps, Peace, Birds, Lysistrata,
Thesmophorizeusae (Female Celebrants of the Thesmophoria festival),
Frogs, Ecclesiazeusae (Female Legislators), Wealth
fun fact: Among his favorite targets for satire included the philosopher
Socrates (in Clouds), the Tragic playwright Euripides (in Frogs), and
the politician Cleon (in Knights).
Aristotle
dates: 384-322 BCE
language of composition: Greek
genre: treatises on philosophy, ethics, natural science, political science,
literary criticism
style: Attic prose
diff : 7
works: Metaphysics, De Anima, Nichomachean Ethics, History of Animals,
Physics, Politics, Rhetoric, Poetics [fragmentary]
fun fact: wrote accounts of the constitutions of 158 Greek states.
Gaius Julius Caesar
dates: c.100-15 March 44 BCE
language of composition: Latin
genre: Commentaries (diaries of his military and political career)
style: concise and objective at first sight; really, a praise for his
own and his army's work. Refers to himself in the third person.
diff : 2
works: De bello gallico (The Gallic Wars), De bello civili (The Civil War)
Callimachus
dates: 305-240 BCE
language of composition: Greek
genre: verse (epigram, narrative elegy, satiric iambic, hexameter hymn,
epyllion [little epic])
style: learned, allusive
diff : 7
works: Epigrams from Greek Anthology, Aetia (Causes), Iambics, Hymns, Hecale
fun fact: Hecale, an epyllion, gets its name from the elderly woman who
lets Theseus crash at her house while on his way to slay the bull of
Marathon.
Catullus
dates: 87-54 BCE
language of composition: Latin
genre: verse, elegies
style:
diff : 6
works: Carmina
Marcus Tullius Cicero
dates: 106-43 BCE
language of composition: Latin
genre: prose, political and legal oratory, philosophical dialogues and essays
style: learned, sometimes coy in his letters
diff: 3
works: Orations: Catilinariae, Pro Caelio, In Caium Verrem (Against Caius
Verres), Pro Archia, Pro Domo Sua, Pro Milone. Rhetorical
essays: De Oratore, Orator, Brutus. Philosophical essays: De re publica,
De legibus, Tusculanae disputationes, Cato Maior De senectute, Laelius
de amicitia, De officiis. Letters: Ad Quintum Fratrem, Ad Atticum, Ad
familiares, Ad Marcum Brutum
fun fact: The beginning of the First Catalinarian ("Quousque tandem abutere")
has been used for centuries by printers to show the characteristics of
fonts, while a laserprinter of the late 1970s used a modified form of a
page of the Loeb edition of his De Finibus for the same purpose (the
well-known "lorem ipsum dolor" text).
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