Greek Roman category: 1023 books

The oldest surviving play of the great Greek tragedian Sophocles, "Aias" or "Ajax" unfolds the destiny of the warrior Aias after the Trojan War. He is infuriated with the Greek leaders for awarding the armor of Achilles to Odysseus, and he vows to kill them in his vengeance. When he attempts to seek...

Among the most celebrated plays of ancient Athens, Oedipus the King is one of seven surviving dramas by the great Greek playwright, Sophocles, now available from Harper Perennial in a vivid and dynamic new translation by award-winning poet Robert Bagg. Praised by Aristotle as the pinnacle of Greek...

Medea finds her position in the Greek world threatened when her husband Jason attempts to leave her for a Greek princess of Corinth. In this classic translation of Seneca’s Medea, Ella Harris retains the powerful effects of the monologues, as well as the unique flavor of Seneca's language.

Ecclesiazusae (Greek: Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι Ekklesiazousai; translated as Assemblywomen, Congresswomen, Women in Parliament, Women in Power, and A Parliament of Women) is a play dating from 391 BC which is similar in theme to Lysistrata in that a large portion of the comedy comes from women...

Along with Sophocles and Euripides, Aristophanes is considered one of the three great Greek playwrights. Only eleven of his nearly forty plays survive in their entirety to this day. "The Frogs and Other Plays" includes the titular play along "The Wasps" and "The Thesmophoriazusae." Produced the year...

Along with Sophocles and Euripides, Aristophanes is considered one of the three great Greek playwrights. Only eleven of his nearly forty plays survive in their entirety to this day. "The Frogs" was produced the year after the death of Euripides, and laments the decay of Greek tragedy which Aristophanes...

Greek playwright, Aristophanes, lived during the 5th and 4th century BC and is considered one of the principal authors of the Greek classical period. Of the nearly thirty plays he wrote during his career, eleven are extant. Amongst the most famous of these is “Lysistrata,” a comedy which focuses...

Peace (Greek: Εἰρήνη Eirēnē) is an Athenian Old Comedy written and produced by the Greek playwright Aristophanes. It won second prize at the City Dionysia where it was staged just a few days before the Peace of Nicias was validified (421 BC), which promised to end the ten year old Peloponnesian...

Greek playwright, Aristophanes, lived during the 5th and 4th century BC and is considered one of the principal authors of the Greek classical period. Of the nearly thirty plays he wrote during his career, eleven are extant. Amongst the most famous of these is “Lysistrata,” a comedy which focuses...

Prometheus Bound is the starkest and strangest of the classic Greek tragedies, a play in which god and man are presented as radically, irreconcilably at odds. It begins with the shock of hammer blows as the Titan Prometheus is shackled to a rock in the Caucasus. This is his punishment for giving the...

The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus concerning the end of the curse on the House of Atreus and the pacification of the Erinyes. The name derives from the character Orestes, who sets out to avenge his father's murder. The only extant example of an ancient Greek theater...

From The Persians "Defeat is impossible Defeat is unthinkable We have always been the favorites of fate. Fortune has cupped us In her golden palms. It has only been a matter Of choosing our desire. Which fruit To pick from the nodding tree." This chilling passage is from Ellen McLaughlin’s...

Regarded by many as Euripides' masterpiece, Bakkhai is a powerful examination of religious ecstasy and the resistance to it. A call for moderation, it rejects the temptation of pure reason as well as pure sensuality, and is a staple of Greek tragedy, representing in structure and thematics an exemplary...

Actor, a young man of Ancient Greece looking to make a name for himself, ends up on a trail of side-kicking for some of the greatest heroes ever. However, each one seems to be a little off from their legend. Jason is a jerk. Perseus is an old fart. Theseus is a liar. And so on and so on. Only by the...