1.5 What are the famous classical authors? O-P
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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? O-P
Ovid
dates: 43 BCE - c.17 CE
language of composition: Latin
genre: poetry
style:
diff : 5
works: Metamorphoses, Tristia, Ars Amatoria
Philostratus
dates: 170 - 245 CE
language: Greek
genre: biography
style: artificial
difficulty: 8
works: Lives of the Sophists, Life of Apollonius of Tyana
fun fact:
for further information: http://magna.com.au/~prfbrown/a_tyana0.html
Pindar
dates: 518-438 BCE
language of composition: Greek
genre: victory ode
style: uses a huge variety of meters and myths
diff : 9
works: Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian Odes, all to celebrate
victories in Greek athletic contests
fun fact: In Olympian 1, he criticizes earlier poets for spreading lies about
how the gods ate Pelops' shoulder.
Plato
dates: 429-347 BCE
language of composition: Greek
genre: philosophy
style: idiosyncratic Attic prose
diff : 3
works: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic (many others)
fun fact: Early dialogues often show Socrates and an interlocutor wrestling
with a question which neither answers, but Socrates' achievement is
getting the interlocutor to admit that he does not know the answer.
Plautus, Titus Maccius
dates: 250-184 BCE
language of composition: Latin
genre: comedy
style: popular and brilliant, basically founded on mistakes, sometimes vulgar.
Some "archaic" features.
diff : 8 (He uses colloquial Latin)
works: Amphitruo, Asinaria (The comedy of the donkeys), Aulularia (The comedy
of the pot), Captivi (The prisoners), Curculio (The weevil), Casina,
Cistellaria (Comedy of the box), Epidicus, Bacchides, Mostellaria
(Comedy of the Ghost), Menaechmi, Miles gloriosus (The blusterer
soldier), Mercator (the merchant), Pseudolus, Poenulus (The man from
Carthage), Persa (The persian), Rudens (The rope), Stichus, Trinummus
(The three coins), Truculentus, Vidularia (The comedy of the case)
Pliny (the Younger)
dates: 61/62-c.112 CE
language of composition: Latin
genre: letters
style: prose
diff : 4
works: Letters
fun fact: One of his letters ("Rides, et licet rideas") is one of the stand-by
texts in showing fonts in letterpress printing. Adopted and adapted by
the writers of Framemaker(TM).
Plutarch
dates: 50-120 CE
language of composition: Greek
genre: prose (especially biography)
style: many metaphors
diff : 2
works: Lives, Moralia (rhetorical treatises, moral essays, philosophical
dialogues and treatises, antiquarian works)
fun fact: For the last thirty years of his life, he was a priest at Delphi.
Propertius
dates: 1st century BCE
language of composition: Latin
genre: poetry (elegies)
style:
diff :
works: Elegies (four books)
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