Life of Alexander
In 336 b.c. Philip of Macedonia was assassinated and his twenty-year-old son, Alexander, inherited his kingdom. Immediately quelling rebellion, Alexander extended his father's empire throughout the Middle East and into parts of Asia, fulfilling the soothsayer Aristander's prediction that the new king "should perform acts so important and glorious as would make the poets and musicians of future ages labour and sweat to describe and celebrate him."
The Life of Alexander the Great is one of the first surviving attempts to memorialize the achievements of this legendary king, remembered today as the greatest military genius of all time. This exclusive Modern Library edition, excerpted from Plutarch's Lives, is a riveting tale of honor, power, scandal, and bravery written by the most eminent biographer of the ancient world.
Price: $11.99
Antigone
The curse placed on Oedipus lingers and haunts a younger generation in this new and brilliant translation of Sophocles' classic drama. The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an unconventional heroine who pits her beliefs against the King of Thebes in a bloody test of wills that leaves few unharmed. Emotions fly as she challenges the king for the right to bury her own brother. Determined but doomed, Antigone shows her inner strength throughout the play.
Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Whether this is your first reading or your twentieth, Antigone will move you as few pieces of literature can.
Price: $8.99
Apology
Apology by Plato is an essential dialogue that explores the trial of Socrates. It offers a deep insight into the life and thought of Socrates, as well as a discussion of the nature of philosophy and the importance of pursuing knowledge. In this work, Plato recounts Socrates' defense of himself against his accusers, and his conviction of impiety and corruption of the youth by the court.
He argues for the importance of philosophy as a way of life, and for the superiority of the philosopher's life over that of the ordinary man. Through this work, Plato reveals the importance of the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, and the need for individuals to pursue their own paths of understanding. Plato's Apology is a timeless classic and a must-read for anyone interested in philosophy and the history of Western thought.
Price: $7.49
Bacchae
Euripides' Bacchae is one of the most widely read and performed Greek tragedies. A story of implacable divine vengeance, it skilfully transforms earlier currents of literature and myth, and its formative influence on modern ideas of Greek tragedy and religion is unparalleled.
This up-to-date edition offers a detailed literary and cultural analysis. The wide-ranging Introduction discusses such issues as the psychological and anthropological aspects of Dionysiac ritual, the god's ability to blur gender boundaries, his particular connection to dramatic role-playing, and the interaction of belief and practice in Greek religion.
Price: $9.25
Life of Caesar
The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, where emperors had no choice but to fight, to thrill, to dazzle. To rule as a Caesar was to stand as an actor upon the great stage of the world.
No biographies invite us into the lives of the Caesars more vividly or intimately than those by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, written from the center of Rome and power, in the early 2nd century AD.
Price: $10.00
Histories
The earliest surviving work of nonfiction, The Histories traces events from the Trojan War through an epic account of the Persian Wars, recording landmark moments that shaped Western civilization and still spark modern imagination.
Price: $12.50
Iliad
Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.
Price: $13.75
Lysistrata
Writing at the time of political and social crisis in Athens, Aristophanes was an eloquent yet bawdy challenger to the demagogue and the sophist.
The Acharnians is a plea for peace set against the background of the long war with Sparta. In Lysistrata a band of women tap into the awesome power of sex in order to end a war.
The darker comedy of The Clouds satirizes Athenian philosophers, Socrates in particular, and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged.
Price: $8.25
Odyssey
If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of an everyman's journey through life.
Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.
Price: $14.00
Oedipus Tyrannus
Considered by many the greatest of the classic Greek tragedies, Oedipus Rex is Sophocles' finest play and a work of extraordinary power and resonance. Aristotle considered it a masterpiece of dramatic construction and refers to it frequently in the Poetics.
In presenting the story of King Oedipus and the tragedy that ensues when he discovers he has inadvertently killed his father and married his mother, the play exhibits near-perfect harmony of character and action. Moreover, the masterly use of dramatic irony greatly intensifies the impact of the agonizing events and emotions experienced by Oedipus and the other characters in the play.
Price: $9.75