Portal:Classical Latin literature
This section only includes English translations of Latin texts, and works written in English. For texts in Latin, see Latin Wikisource.
Wikisource hosts copies of the following general works on Latin literature:
- "Latin Literature," by William Young Sellar and John Percival Postgate in Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed., 1911).
- Ancient Classics for English Readers
Wikisource hosts the following collections of Latin literature:
- Loeb Classical Library, by Harvard University Press
- Vol. II, Rome of The World's Famous Orations
Child portal: Appendix Vergiliana (works spuriously ascribed to Virgil)
Roman historiography built upon the Greek model, but with an agenda of persuasive and moral narrative.
- Ammianus Marcellinus — Roman History
- Eutropius — Abridgement of Roman History
- Florus — Epitome of Roman History
- Livy — From the Founding of the City
- Sallust — Bellum Catilinae • Bellum Jugurthinum
- Tacitus — Annals • Histories
Related portal: Ancient Rome
The Commentaries of Julius Caesar were written and published annually, as a sort of "dispatches from the front". They were important in shaping Caesar's public image when he was away from Rome for long periods. The authorship of three of the commentaries has been questioned.
- Commentaries on the Civil War (Commentarii de Bello Civili)
- Commentaries on the Gallic War (Commentarii de Bello Gallico)
- Attributed to Caesar, but the authorship is in doubt — The African War • The Alexandrian War • The Spanish War
- The Commentaries of Cæsar, by Anthony Trollope
Marcus Tullius Cicero is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. His style influenced the Latin language for nearly two millenia.
Correspondence includes both personal letters and epistles.
- Catullus — The poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus
- Horace — Ars Poetica • Carmen Saeculare • Odes (Carmina) • Satires (Sermones)
- Juvenal — Satires
- Martial — Epigrams
- Ovid — Amores • Ars Amatoria • Metamorphoses
- Wikisource translations: Baucis and Philemon • Daedalus and Icarus • Daphne and Apollo • Pygmalion and Galatea • Pyramus and Thisbe
- Virgil — Aeneid • Eclogues (Bucolics) • Georgics
Child portal: Appendix Vergiliana (poetry spuriously ascribed to Virgil)
Related portal: Ancient poetry
By the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, drama had become firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers had formed.
- Plautus — Menaechmi • Miles Gloriosus • Mostellaria
- Seneca — Agamemnon • Hercules Furens • Hercules Oetaeus • Medea • Oedipus • Phaedra (Hippolytus) • Phoenissae • Thyestes • Troades • Octavia (disputed)
- The Ten Tragedies of Seneca, transl. Bradshaw (1902) • The Tragedies of Seneca, transl. Miller (1907)
- Terence — Adelphoe • Andria • Eunuchus • Heauton Timorumenos • Hecyra • Phormio
Ancient philosophy included natural philosophy, which has since become the separate field of natural science.
- Cicero — Philosophical works
- Lucretius — On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura)
- Pliny the Elder — Natural History (Historia Naturalis)
Miscellaneous additional Latin writings:
- Lucius Apuleius — The Golden Asse (Asinus aureus)
- Petronius — The Satyricon
- Seneca — Apocolocyntosis
- Suetonius — Lives of Eminent Grammarians • The Lives of the Twelve Caesars
- Tacitus — Agricola • Germania
- Vitruvius — Ten Books on Architecture
For a more extensive listing, see: Category:Works originally in Latin
- Latin Wikisource
- Call number PA6000 on the Online Books Page