The Roman historian Eutropius flourished in the fourth century AD and is the author of ‘Breviarium historiae Romanae’, a compendium of ten books of Roman history, from the foundation of the city to the accession of Valens. It has come down to us complete and was compiled with considerable care and written with impartiality in a succinct style. It is particularly useful to historians for its account of the First Punic War, as Livy’s books spanning that period have not survived. Delphi’s Anc...

Flourishing in the third century, Herodian of Antioch wrote a ‘Roman History’, covering the period of the Roman Empire from the death of Marcus Aurelius (AD 180) to the accession of Gordian III (238). It was a century of turbulent strife, when a succession of frontier crises and a disastrous lack of economic planning established a pattern of military coups and increasing cultural divides. Herodian’s history is one of the few texts charting this period to have survived and it is more or les...

The Roman historian Velleius Paterculus lived during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, serving as a military tribune and later as a cavalry officer and legatus in Germany and Pannonia. Written in a highly rhetorical style, his ‘Compendium of Roman History’ is a summary of Roman history from the mythical fall of Troy to AD 29. As Paterculus approaches his own times, he becomes much fuller in his treatment of history, especially dealing with the years between the death of Julius Caesar in...

Regarded by some as the greatest genius of the early Christian church, Origen of Alexandria was a third century scholar, ascetic and theologian. He was a prolific writer of approximately 2,000 treatises in multiple branches of theology, including textual criticism, biblical exegesis and hermeneutics and spirituality. His treatise ‘On the First Principles’ systematically lays out the principles of Christian theology and became the foundation for later theological writings; while the treatis...

The father of Roman literature, Quintus Ennius (239–169 BC) was instrumental in creating a new Roman literary identity. Though later overshadowed by Virgil’s ‘The Aeneid’, Ennius was revered by his contemporaries for producing the first true Latin epic poem. ‘The Annals’ covered Roman history from the fall of Troy to the censorship of Cato the Elder. Sadly, Ennius’ works survive only in fragments, recorded by later writers and painstakingly collected over the centuries by classical...

An Egyptian priest that flourished in the third century BC, Manetho wrote ‘Aegyptiaca’ (History of Egypt), which provided a detailed history of his homeland to the Hellenic world. Although his original texts are now largely lost, important remains have survived, transmitted to us as fragments from several ancient authors. For many centuries, before hieroglyphics could be read, Manetho’s writings were one of the chief sources of information on Egyptian history. Delphi’s Ancient Clas...

A man of unusually complex character, Julian the Apostate was a military commander, philosopher, social reformer and man of letters. He was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire and it was his wish to bring the Empire back to its ancient Roman values in order to save it from ‘dissolution’. He purged the top-heavy state bureaucracy and attempted to revive traditional Roman religious practices at the expense of Christianity. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReade...

A rhetorician of the late second century, Athenaeus wrote ‘The Deipnosophistae’ (‘Dinner-Table Philosophers’), a fifteen-book encyclopaedia of information on the ancient world, preserving otherwise lost treasures from many important writers. The text is structured as a dialogue in the vein of Plato, offering an amusing account of a Greek symposium. ‘The Deipnosophistae’ details the many different cuisines and entertainments of ancient banquets, held together by the intellectual tal...

A historian of the first century BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus taught rhetoric in Rome while studying the Latin language, collecting material for his magnum opus, ‘Roman Antiquities’. Dionysius states that his objects in writing history were to please lovers of noble deeds and to repay the benefits he had enjoyed while living in Rome, though he wrote also to reconcile Greeks to Roman rule. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, w...

A second century theologian from Carthage, Tertullian was an important early Christian writer, who produced an extensive corpus of literature. As the initiator of ecclesiastical Latin, he was instrumental in shaping the vocabulary and thought of Western Christianity. Tertullian has been described by some as the father of Latin Christianity and the founder of Western theology. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, with both Englis...

A Greek Stoic philosopher of the first and second century, Epictetus settled permanently in Nicopolis in Epirus, where he founded his own school, which he called a ‘healing place for sick souls.’ There he taught a practical philosophy, which has been recorded by his principal student Arrian, the famous author of the historical work ‘Anabasis of Alexander’. The ‘Discourses’ present Epictetus’ Stoic ethics as broad and firm in method, and occasionally humorous and melancholic in spir...

Norse sagas concern tales of ancient Nordic and Germanic history, detailing early Viking voyages, the battles that took place during these voyages, exotic adventures in foreign lands and the migration to Iceland. These prose sagas were written in the Old Norse language, sharing similarities with epic poetry, telling of heroic deeds of days long gone. The tales offer an endless panorama of pagan chieftains, Viking warriors, historic saints, noble bishops and ordinary men and women, ...