A brief outline

ROMAN LITERATURE

The early authors (until the 2nd c. BC)

• Like many warrior cultures, the early Romans were men of few words. This changed after they came in contact with the Greeks.• Livius Andronicus (Greek

Prisoner) translated the Odyssey and Greek plays.• Naevius (war veteran): Epic

poem on the first Punic War.• Ennius Annales (Poem on early

Rome in dactylic hexameter)• Plautus and Terence: adapted

Greek plays for the Roman stage• Cato On Agriculture; also an

eloquent orator.

The Golden Age (age of Cicero: 1st c.)

• Cicero: Politician, orator, rhetorician, philosopher, lawyer. The father of Latin Prose.• Caesar: On the civil and the

Gallic wars.• Sallust: Catilina, Iugurtha.• Lucretius: On the Nature of

the Gods (poem with Epicurean philosophy).• Catullus: Lyric poet• Varro: antiquarian,

grammarian, work on agriculture.

The Golden Age: The Augustan Age (1st c. AD)

• Virgil Aeneid. Georgics, Bucolics•Horace Odes, Epodes, Satires• The Elegiac poets:• Propertius • Tibullus•Gallus•Ovid: Metamorphoses, Ars Amatoria, Heroides, Amores.

The Silver Age (Imperial period from later 1st c. AD)

• Seneca (Stoic philosopher)• Petronius (Satyricon: Novel)• Tacitus Annals, Histories• Suetonius The 12 Caesars.• Pliny Natural History• Quintilian Institutio Oratoria• Gellius Noctes Atticae• Marcus Aurelius: The

philosopher emperor (In Greek)• Statius Thebaid• Juvenal Satires• Lucan Pharsalia• Martial Epigrams

Latin Christian Authors (from the 3rd c.)

•Lactantius (the advisor of Constantine)•Tertullian•Ambrose of Milan• Jerome•Augustine of Hippo•Prudentius Psychomachia (Christian Poetry)