Pagan Things

Classics For Pagans

The Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations were pagan and are the foundation of Western Culture, but reading them can be a bit overwhelming. Below is a selection of authors or subjects I've found helpful in my own development as a pagan. Many of these texts are available at The Perseus Project, complete with hyperlinking to background information and a version of the work in the original language. All are available from Loeb.

Author's Name

Primary Language

Flourished

Major Work

Astronomy

Ptolemy	Greek	200 AD	Tetrabiblos
Hyginus	Latin	200 AD	Astronomica
Manilius	Latin	10 AD	Astronomica

Comedic Theatre

Aristophanes	Greek	-400
Menander	Greek	-300 BC
Plautus	Latin	-200 BC
Terence	Latin	-170 BC

Dramatic Theatre

Aeschylus	Greek	-500 BC
Euripides	Greek	-450 BC
Sophocles	Greek	-475 BC

Epic

Hesiod	Greek	-700 BC	Theogony
Homer	Greek	-800 BC	Iliad, Odyssey
Nonnos	Greek	500 AD	Dionysiaca
Apuleius	Latin	200 AD	The Golden Ass
Ovid	Latin	1 AD	Metamorphoses
Statius	Latin	100 AD	Achilleid
Valerius Flaccus	Latin	100 AD	The Argonautica
Vergil	Latin	-100 BC	Aeneid

Fables

Aesop	Greek	-600 BC	Fables
Babrius	Greek	200 AD
Phaedrus	Greek	-90 BC

Fiction

Achilles Tatius	Greek	200 AD	Leucippe and Clitophon
Alciphron	Greek	200 AD
Athenaeus	Greek	200 AD	The Deipnosophists
Longus	Greek	300 AD	Daphnis and Chloe
Philostratus	Greek	217 AD
Petronius	Latin	50 AD	Satyricon

Geography

Pausanias	Greek	150 AD	Guide to Greece
Strabo	Greek	1 AD	Geography

History

Diodorus Siculus	Greek	-100 BC	The Library of History
Herodotus	Greek	-450 BC	Histories
Plutarch	Greek	150 AD	Lives
Thucydides	Greek	-425 BC
Xenophon	Greek	-400 BC

Lexicography

Suidas

Greek

1000 AD

The Suda

Medicine

Galen	Greek	200 AD
Hippocrates	Greek	-400 BC

Mythography

Antoninus Liberalis	Greek	200 AD	Metamorphoses
Apollodorus	Greek	100 AD	The Library
Apollonius	Greek	-295 BC	Library
Hyginus	Latin	200 AD	Fabulae

Natural History

Aelian	Greek	225 AD	On the Characteristics of Animals
Lucretius	Latin	100 AD
Pliny The Elder	Latin	50 AD	Natural History

Poetry

Bacchylides	Greek	-450 BC
Callimachus	Greek	-450 BC
Pindar	Greek	-500 BC	Odes
Theocritus	Greek	-270 BC
Theognis	Greek	-546 BC
Lucan	Latin	50 AD
Martial	Latin	75 AD	Epigrams