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Philology Reading List

Reading List for PhD candidates in Classical Philology

The General Examinations will be based on the following reading lists. Students are expected to read widely across both lists in the original languages in order to acquire familiarity with the major genres and periods of Greek and Latin literature.

Students may petition the graduate committee to make substitutions of items on the reading list in two categories:

  • Substitutions of a work by the same author, provided that the substituted material is roughly of the same length and parallel in genre, and
  • A work of one author on the list for a work of another, or a work of an author not on the list for an author on the list, provided that the substituted material is roughly of the same length and parallel in genre. Petitions should be submitted to the graduate committee in advance of the regular advising meeting at the beginning of the semester, no later than the beginning of the term in which the student will sit the General Examinations (normally the spring term of the second year). Petitions will be discussed with the student at this advising meeting and the approved list will be used as the basis for the written translation examinations.

Greek Literature

  • Aeschines: Against Ctesiphon 159–end
  • Aeschylus: Oresteia, Persae
  • Apollonius Rhodius: I 1153–1357, III 1–166, 609–824
  • Aristophanes: Acharnians, Birds, Clouds, Frogs
  • Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics I, Poetics
  • Callimachus: Aitia frr. 1–2, 67–75, 110, Hymns 2
  • Demosthenes: Olynthiacs 1, On the Crown 199–end, Philippics 1
  • Dio Chrysostom: Euboicus
  • Epigrams (numbered as in Page, Epigrammata Graeca, except where otherwise specified):
    • Antipater Sidonius: XI, XXXVI–XL
    • Asclepiades: I, VI, XI, XX–XXII, XXXI–XXXIII
    • Callimachus: II–V, VIII, XI, XIV–XV, XXIX–XXX, XXXIV, XXXVIII, XLIII, XLV, LI–LIII, LVI, LIX, LXVII
    • Dioscorides: XVII, XXII
    • Hedylus: XI
    • Meleager: VI, IX, XIII, XXIX–XXXVI, XL–LVI, CIII
    • Philodemus: XXIII
    • Posidippus IX, XXIV, Lithika I–XX Austin–Bastianini
    • Theocritus: XIII–XV
  • Euripides: Bacchae, Hippolytus, Medea
  • Gorgias: Helen
  • Herodotus: I 1–130, III 1–16, 30–87, VIII 18–99
  • Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days
  • Homer: Iliad, Odyssey, Hymns 2 and 5
  • Isocrates: Panegyricus 26–50, Helen
  • Longus: Daphnis and Chloe 1, 4
  • [Longinus]: De sublimitate 1–16
  • Lucian: Dream, Assembly of the Gods
  • Lyric Poetry: selections as in D. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry
  • Lysias: 1, 7, 12
  • Menander: Samia
  • Pindar: Olympians 1, 2, 7, 14; Pythians 1, 4, 8, 10; Nemeans 6, 7, 8, 10; Isthmians 7, 8
  • Plato: Apology, Gorgias, Republic I, VI 496a11–VII 518d7, Symposium
  • Plutarch: Demosthenes-Cicero, including synkrisis
  • Polybius: VI 2–10, XXXVIII 22, XXXIX 1–6
  • Sophocles: Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Tyrannus
  • Theocritus: 1, 2, 7, 11, 13
  • Thucydides: I 1–23, 31–44, 66–88, 118–146, II 34–65, III 35–85, V 26, 84–116, VI 8–23, VII 84–87, VIII 1
  • Xenophon: Agesilaos

Latin Literature

  • Apuleius: Metamorphoses I, IV 28–VI 24
  • Augustus: Res Gestae
  • Caesar: Bellum Gallicum I, Bellum Civile III
  • Catullus: all
  • Cicero: In Catilinam 1–4; Pro Archia; Pro Caelio; Philippics 1, 7, 14; Somnium Scipionis; De Officiis I 1–60; Brutus; letters, as in D. R. Shackleton Bailey's Select Letters
  • Ennius: all fragments
  • Horace: Odes, Epodes, Satires I, Epistles I, II 1
  • Juvenal: 1–5, 10
  • Livy: I, VI, XXI, XXXIII
  • Lucan: I
  • Lucretius: I, III, IV 1058–1287, V 772–1457, VI 1138–1286
  • Martial: I
  • Ovid: Amores I, Fasti IV, Heroides I, VII, Metamorphoses I, VIII, X, XV 745–879, Tristia I
  • Persius: 1
  • Petronius: Satyrica 26.7–78.8
  • Plautus: Amphitruo, Menaechmi
  • Pliny: Epistulae I 1, 20, II 1, III 5, 6, 16, 19, 21, IV 14, V 8, VI 16, 20, VII 24, 33, VIII 8, IX 33, 36, X 61, 62, 96, 97
  • Propertius: I, II 1, 8, 10, 12, 13B, 15, 26A, 34, III 1–5, IV 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11
  • Quintilian: X 1
  • Sallust: Catiline
  • Seneca: Medea, Epistulae Morales 7, 12, 47, 51, 56, 86, 88, 114, 122
  • Seneca (Rhetor): Controversiae I 2, Suasoriae VI
  • Statius: Silvae I 1, II 2, 7, IV 6, Thebaid IX
  • Suetonius: Tiberius
  • Tacitus: Agricola, Dialogus, Histories I, Annals I, IV, XIV
  • Terence: Eunuchus, Adelphoe
  • Tibullus: I, II
  • Virgil: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid