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Philosophy Reading List

Reading List for PhD candidates in Classical Philosophy

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

  • Aeschylus: Oresteia, Prometheus
  • Aristophanes: Acharnians, Birds, Clouds, Frogs
  • Aristotle: Categories 1–5; Physics I, II; Metaphysics A, L; Nicomachean Ethics I–III.5; Poetics
  • Callimachus: Aitia fr. 1–2, 67–75, 110, Hymns 2
  • Demosthenes: Olynthiacs 1, On the Crown 199–end, Philippics 1
  • Diogenes Laertius: X 1–83, 117–154
  • Euripides: Bacchae, Hippolytus, Medea
  • Gorgias: Helen
  • Herodotus: I 1–130, III 1–87
  • Hesiod: Theogony
  • Homer: Iliad, Odyssey, Hymns 2 and 5
  • Isocrates: Panegyricus
  • Lyric Poetry: selections as in D. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry
  • Lysias: 1, 7, 12
  • Menander: Samia
  • Parmenides: all B fragments
  • Pindar: Olympians 1, 2; Pythians 1, 8, 10
  • Plato: Apology, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Phaedo, Republic I, II 357A–369B, IV 427D–445E, V 473B–480A, VI 502C–VII 521B, Parmenides 126A–135C
  • Plotinus: Enneads I 6
  • Plutarch: De Stoicorum Repugnantiis
  • Sextus Empiricus: Pyrrh. Hyp. I
  • Sophocles: Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus
  • Theocritus: 1, 2, 7, 11, 13
  • Thucydides: I, II 34–65, III 35–85, V 26, 84–16, VI 8–23, VII 84–87, VIII 1
  • Xenophon: Memorabilia

Latin Literature

  • Apuleius: De Deo Socratis
  • Augustinus: De Magistro
  • Caesar: Bellum Gallicum I, Bellum Civile III
  • Catullus: all
  • Cicero: In Catilinam 1–4; Pro Caelio; Philippics 1; Academica; De Finibus; De Oratore I; Brutus; letters, as in D.R. Shackleton Bailey's Selected Letters
  • Ennius: all fragments
  • Horace: Odes, Epodes, Satires I, Epistles I, II 2
  • Juvenal: 1, 3, 4, 6, 10
  • Livy: I, XXI, XXXIII
  • Lucretius: I, II 1–293, III, IV 1058–1287, V, VI 1138–1286
  • Martial: I
  • Ovid: Amores I, Heroides 1, 4, Metamorphoses I, VII, VIII, Tristia I
  • Persius: 1
  • Plautus: Amphitruo, Pseudolus, Rudens
  • Pliny: Epistulae I 1, 20, II 1, III 5, 7, 16, 19, 21, IV 14, V 8, VI 16, 20, VII 17, 27, 33, X 96, 97
  • Propertius: I, II 1, 8, 10, 12, 13B, 15, 26A, 34, III 1–5, IV 3, 7, 8, 9, 11
  • Quintilian: X 1
  • Sallust: Catiline
  • Seneca: Medea, Epistulae Morales 7, 12, 47, 51, 56, 76, 86, 88, 108, 114, 120–122, 124, De Constantia Sapientis, De Vita Beata
  • Suetonius: Tiberius
  • Tacitus: Agricola, Dialogus, Histories I, Annals I–II 26, IV 1–12, 32–67, VI 18–30, 50–51, XI 23–38, XII 58–XIII 25, XIV 1–65, XV 38–65, XVI 18–35
  • Terence: Heauton Timorumenos, Adelphoe
  • Virgil: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid