Books about classical literature and life, Greek and Roman, and related subjects.
A Companion to Latin Studies. Edited by Sir John Edwin Sandys. Second edition. Cambridge, 1913. —A huge fat book full of chronological tables and information on every aspect of Roman culture up to and beyond the end of the Empire.
A Companion to Greek Studies. Edited by Leonard Whibley. Third edition. Cambridge, 1916. —Just as fat and useful as the Latin Studies volume above.
A Classical Dictionary; containing a copious account of all the proper names mentioned in ancient authors; with the value of coins, weights, and measures, used among the Greeks and Romans; and a chronological table. By J. Lempriere, D. D. Second American from the eighth London edition. New-York: Printed and published for A. T. Goodrich, and Williams S. Gilley, New-York; Matthew Carey, and Edward Earle, Philadelphia; by T. & W. Mercein. 1816.
☛Our own great Charles Anthon regarded Lemprière’s as a very poor work, but one nearly impossible to displace in the market, as he noted in the preface to his own Classical Dictionary (below):
It cannot be denied that Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary was a very popular work in its day. The numerous editions through which it ran would show this very conclusively, without the necessity of any farther proof. Still, however, it may be asserted with equal safety, that this same popularity was mainly owing to the circumstance of there being no competitor in the field. Considered in itself, indeed, the work put forth but very feeble claims to patronage, for its scholarship was superficial and inaccurate, and its language was frequently marked by a grossness of allusion, which rendered the book a very unfit one to be put into the hands of the young. And yet so strong a hold had it taken of public favour both at home and in our own country, that not only were no additions or corrections made in the work, but the very idea itself of making such was deemed altogether visionary. The author of the present volume remembers very well what surprise was excited, when, on having been employed to prepare a new edition of Lempriere in 1825, he hinted the propriety of making some alterations in the text. The answer received from a certain quarter was, that one might as well think of making alterations in the Scriptures as in the pages of Dr. Lempriere! and that all an editor had to do was merely to revise the references contained in the English work.
We might note that Lemprière’s is still in print from cheap reprint houses, and Anthon’s is not. A look at Anthon’s will suggest, however, that it is the bulk of the book, and not its quality, that puts it out of the reach of cheap reprints.
A Classical Dictionary, containing an account of the principal proper names mentioned in ancient authors and intended to elucidate all the important points connected with geography, history, biography, mythology, and fine arts of the Greeks and Romans. Together with an account of coins, weights, and measures, with tabular values of the same. By Charles Anthon, LL.D. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1852.
Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities. Edited by Harry Thurston Peck, M.A., Ph.D. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: American Book Company, 1923.
Life and Letters in the Fourth Century. By Terrot Reaveley Glover. Cambridge, 1901.
A History of Ancient Greek Literature by Gilbert Murray, M.A. 1903.
Authors and Their Public in Ancient Times: A Sketch of Literary Conditions and of the Relations with the Public of Literary Producers, from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Roman Empire. By George Haven Putnam. Third Edition, Revised. New York & London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1923. [George Haven Putnam was one of the Sons.]
Commentaries of Caesar, by Anthony Trollope; Tacitus, by William Bodham Donne. Part of the series “Ancient Classics for English Readers.” 1870. It is very interesting to hear the voice of Anthony Trollope speaking in such a work as this; it is like meeting an old friend in an unfamiliar city.
Macrobius; or, Philosophy, Science and Letters in the Year 400. By Thomas Whittaker. Cambridge, 1923.
☛See especially John Pentland Mahaffy, who has his own page.
Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero. By W. Warde Fowler, M.A. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1924.
La Toilette chez les Romaines au temps des empereurs. Étude des principaux Objets de Toilette en os trouvés dans les fouilles de la Nécropole de Trion & du coteau de Fourvière. Par L. C. Crochet. Douze planches photolithographiques hors texte. Lyon: Sézanne Frères, 1888. —A short but very useful treatise, with many footnotes, on Roman women’s grooming and finery and the cosmetics and utensils they used, followed by a dozen photographs crowded with Roman toiletries.
Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. By Samuel Dill. London: MacMillan and Co., 1925. —This is the second edition, originally printed in 1905.
Roman Life and Manners Under the Early Empire. By Ludwig Friedländer. Authorized translation of the seventh and revised edition of the Sittengeschichte Roms. London: George Routledge & Sons, [1908]. —Volume I is not indicated as the first of a series; Volumes II and III state “in three volumes,” but include a note on the back of the title page that “The Author’s Excursions and Notes will be published in a fourth volume.”
Vol. I. Translated by Leonard A Magnus. —Includes a very detailed chronological table.
Vol. II. Translated by J. H. Freese and Leonard Magnus.
Vol. III. Translated by J. H. Freese.
Vol. IV. Appendices and Notes from the Sixth Edition by A. B. Gough. 1913.
Roman
Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. Second
edition, revised. London: Macmillan and Co., 1910.
1933
printing, apparently identical to 1910.
La Femme dans l’antiquité grecque. Texte et dessins de G. Notor. Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1901.