Claudius Claudianus (fl. circa 400 AD) was one of the last major poets of the Roman Empire. Highly regarded by his contemporaries, he is one of the great transmitters of Latin culture to Medieval Europe. The Panegyric on the IVth Consulate of the Emperor Honorius, written for an important state occasion, ranks among his major works. Its core is a detailed discourse on kingship, a subject of paramount interest which the Middle Ages inherited from antiquity; and in its entirety it is an interestingly worked example of formal encomium - the praise of a ruler. William Barr's translation sets out...

Aulus Persius Flaccus (A.D. 34-62) wrote in racy conversational Latin six satires countering contemporary vice with Stoic morality; he died young. This is not easy poetry, with its sudden shifts of tone, switches of speaker and situation, vivid evocation of the everyday roman background, and confident handling of philosophical positions. But it is still a good read. This edition prints the Latin text faced with a brilliant verse translation by Guy Lee. The introduction and commentary provided by William Barr make it a suitable class text.

Phaedra, a disturbing drama of unnatural love, violence, and perverted loyalty, is one of eight surviving tragedies written by the millionaire philosopher and litterateur Lucius Annaeus Seneca (ca 1 B.C. - A.D. 65), chief minister to the Emperor Nero. A.J. Boyle's penetrating introduction and extensive notes show why Seneca so deeply influenced Renaissance drama: psychological insight, vivid and powerful verse, highly effective staging (although the question of performance is controversial), and an intellectually demanding conceptual framework. The translation, printed facing the Latin text,...

Tibullus's two books of elegies belong to the early part of the reign of Augustus (31-19 B.C.). His themes were love, the countryside and Rome, its gods and traditions. His patron was the great general and orator M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus. One of the four canonical Latin elegiac poets (Gallus, of whom almost nothing survives, Propertius and Ovid being the others), Tibullus has a distinctive voice and an individual approach to the conventional subject matter, bland on the surface but turbulent and passionate on deeper examination. His easy stylistic mastery cloaks vivid intellectual...

Introduction, text, translation and commentary.

Originally published in 1998, this is a new paperback edition of Guy Lee's translation of the Odes and the Carmen Saeculare . Lee adheres to the metrical patterns of the Latin and reproduces the vigour and subtlety of the original poems. Horace cannot fail to please whether brilliantly tongue-in-cheek - .. when you Lydia, praise Telephus and his neck (rosy pink ), Telephus and his arms (wax-smooth ) yuk, I can feel it, my liver boiling with sour bile and oedematous' ( Odes 1,13 ) or pleasantly urbane, urging his readers to indulge in a few cups of innocuous Lesbian wine'.

Originally published in 1998, this is a new paperback edition of Guy Lee's translation of the Odes and the Carmen Saeculare . Lee adheres to the metrical patterns of the Latin and reproduces the vigour and subtlety of the original poems. Horace cannot fail to please whether brilliantly tongue-in-cheek - .. when you Lydia, praise Telephus and his neck (rosy pink ), Telephus and his arms (wax-smooth ) yuk, I can feel it, my liver boiling with sour bile and oedematous' ( Odes 1,13 ) or pleasantly urbane, urging his readers to indulge in a few cups of innocuous Lesbian wine'.