The Epigrams

Catullus: The Complete Poems

• UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 3 mins)
• By Catullus
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Acerbic wit and stinging satire are contrasted with delicate sensibility and passionate desire in the work of the Latin poet Catullus. Armed with an urbane sophistication and an aristocratic circle of friends, Catullus moved about easily in the upper ranks of Roman society and was acquainted with Cicero, Caesar, and Pompey among others.

The Satires

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 51 mins)
• By Juvenal
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Listening to The Satires by Juvenal is to come face to face with the corruption, the debauchery, the waste, the sloth, and the mean-spirited greed of ancient Rome...or is it more like modern times? Indeed, these masterpieces of biting social commentary could easily have been written today about any number of metropolitan areas we are all familiar with.

The Satires

• UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 19 mins)
• By Horace
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Quintus Horatius Flaccus was born on December 8, 65 BC in the southeastern region of Hellenized Italy. He died on November 27, 8 BC. Horace was the son of a freedman of modest means. In the civil war between Antony and Octavian, he threw in his lot with Antony and fled along with the rest upon their defeat at Phillipi in 42 BC. His subsequent discovery by Maecenas and eventual rehabilitation with the Augustan regime was one of history's most fortunate reconciliations.

The Georgics

• UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 19 mins)
• By Virgil
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Virgil's Georgics ranks as one of the most precious pastoral poems ever written, and it has served as a model for its type ever since. Georgics means "of or relating to agriculture or rural life" and it comes from the Greek word, "georgicus". Virgil's main theme in this, his second great work after The Eclogues, was the importance of peace both in the spiritual and physical sense.

The Works and Days

• UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 42 mins)
• By Hesiod, Richmond Lattimore (translator)
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Among the finest poets of ancient Greece was Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer, who lived in the eighth century B.C. It is still a matter of dispute whether Homer or Hesiod was the earlier poet, and sometimes whether they were one and the same person! At any rate, Hesiod's incredible poetry serves as a major source for our understanding of Greek mythology, farming practices, time keeping and astronomy. In and of itself, the "Works and Days" is unparalleled in its richness and beauty, easily rivaling Homer.

On the Nature of Things

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 15 mins)
• By Lucretius
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

This famous work by Lucretius is a masterpiece of didactic poetry, and it still stands today as the finest exposition of Epicurean philosophy ever written. The poem was produced in the middle of first century B.C., a period that was to witness a flowering of Latin literature unequaled for beauty and intellectual power in subsequent ages. The Latin title, De Rerum Natura, translates literally to On the Nature of Things and is meant to impress the reader with the breadth and depth of Epicurean philosophy.

The Odes of Pindar

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 20 mins)
• By Pindar
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Pindar was one of the greatest lyric poets of ancient Greece. He is best known today for his odes to the victors of athletic contests, including those at famed Olympia. These odes, the only complete surviving pieces by Pindar, are marvels of sustained imagination, packed with dense parallels between the athletic victor, his illustrious aristocratic ancestors, and the myths of Olympian gods and heroes like Jason, Heracles, and Perseus.

The Odes of Horace

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 18 mins)
• By Horace
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Along with Virgil, Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was the greatest poet produced by Rome, and in many ways his work has had arguably an even greater impact. His brilliant expression and astonishing acumen continue to amaze readers today, either in their original Latin or in innumerable worldwide translations. Shakespeare's debt to Horace is incalculable, and it is difficult to read his Sonnets today without immediately being reminded of the famous Odes.

The Aeneid

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 31 mins)
• By Virgil
• Narrated By Simon Callow

The publication of a new translation by Fagles is a literary event. His translations of both the Iliad and Odyssey have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and have become the standard translations of our era. Now, with this stunning modern verse translation, Fagles has reintroduced Virgil's Aeneid to a whole new generation, and completed the classical triptych at the heart of Western civilization.

The March of the Ten Thousand

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 32 mins)
• By Xenophon
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Translated by W. E. D. Rouse, The March of the Ten Thousand is one of the most admired and widely read pieces of ancient literature to come down to us. Xenophon employs a very simple, straightforward style to describe what is probably the most exciting military adventure ever undertaken. It is an epic of courage, faith and democratic principle.

The Complete Works of Tacitus: Volume 1: The Annals, Part 1

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 36 mins)
• By Cornelius Tacitus
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

In the pantheon of ancient men of letters, none hold a more venerated position than the Roman historian, Tacitus, venerated alike for the accuracy of his chronicles as well as for the superiority of his style. He was a writer of unexcelled genius and consummate skill. But his work fell into oblivion not long after his death, and has come down to us based on the text of a single tattered manuscript from the Middle Ages.

Plato's Republic

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 45 mins)
• By Plato
• Narrated By Ray Childs

The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing?

The Metamorphoses

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 16 mins)
• By Ovid
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

An undeniable masterpiece of Western Civilization, The Metamorphoses is a continuous narrative that covers all the Olympian legends, seamlessly moving from one story to another in a splendid panorama of savage beauty, charm, and wit. All of the gods and heroes familiar to us are represented. Such familiar legends as Hercules, Perseus and Medusa, Daedelus and Icarus, Diana and Actaeon, and many others, are breathtakingly recreated.

The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 49 mins)
• By Apuleius
• Narrated By Jonathan Keeble

This tale of a man who, when tinkering with magic, becomes changed into an ass is one of the most entertaining and remarkable stories from classic Latin literature. It is funny, bawdy and completely approachable - but also shows life from the point of view of a beast of burden in the Roman Empire of the second century CE.

Fear and Trembling

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 52 mins)
• By Soren Kierkegaard
• Narrated By Ron Welch
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which can be put from another point of view by saying that it applies at every moment. It rests immanently in itself, has nothing outside itself that is its end, but is itself the purpose for everything outside, and when that is taken up into it, it has no further to go.

The Commentaries

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 54 mins)
• By Julius Caesar
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Julius Caesar wrote his exciting Commentaries during some of the most grueling campaigns ever undertaken by a Roman army. The Gallic Wars and The Civil Wars constitute the greatest series of military dispatches ever written. As literature, they are representative of the finest expressions of Latin prose in its "golden" age, a benchmark of elegant style and masculine brevity imitated by young schoolboys for centuries.

The Peloponnesian War

• UNABRIDGED (26 hrs and 18 mins)
• By Thucydides
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Historians universally agree that Thucydides was the greatest historian who has ever lived, and that his story of the Peloponnesian conflict is a marvel of forensic science and fine literature. That such a triumph of intellectual accomplishment was created at the end of the fifth century B.C. in Greece is, perhaps, not so surprising, given the number of original geniuses we find in that period. But that such an historical work would also be simultaneously acknowledged as a work of great literature and a penetrating ethical evaluation of humanity is one of the miracles of ancient history.

Hannibal: One Man Against Rome

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Harold Lamb
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

This is the breathtaking adventure of the great Carthaginian general who shook the foundations of Rome. In the world's first "global" conflict, Hannibal Barca marched up and down the Italian peninsula for 18 years, appearing well nigh invincible to a Rome which began to doubt itself for the first time in its history.

The Oresteia

• ORIGINAL (3 hrs and 37 mins)
• By Aeschylus
• Narrated By full cast

In The Oresteia, Aeschylus dramatizes the myth of the curse on the royal house of Argos. The action begins when King Agamemnon returns victorious from the Trojan War, only to be treacherously slain by his own wife. It ends with the trial of their son, Orestes, who slew his mother to avenge her treachery - a trial with the goddess Athena as judge, the god Apollo as defense attorney, and, as prosecutors, relentless avenging demons called The Furies.

The Foundations of Western Civilization

• ORIGINAL (24 hrs and 54 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Thomas F. X. Noble

What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.

The Jugurthine War & The Conspiracy of Cataline

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 20 mins)
• By Sallust, Cicero
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

A bloody revolt by a North African prince and a plot to seize control of Rome are the subjects of two short masterpieces of ancient history by the illustrious Roman chronicler, Sallust. He could not have chosen two more dramatic episodes in the long history of this city.

The Pilgrim's Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 3 mins)
• By John Bunyan
• Narrated By David Shaw-Parker
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

For 300 years, The Pilgrim's Progress has remained perhaps the best-loved and most read of devotional fictions. In plain yet powerful and moving language, Bunyan tells the story of Christian's struggle to attain salvation and the Gates of Heaven. He must pass through the Slough of Despond, ward off the temptations of Vanity Fair, and fight the monstrous Apollyon. In Part II, his wife and children follow the same path, helped and protected by Great-heart, until for them, too, "the trumpets sound on the other side."

Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans

• UNABRIDGED (83 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Plutarch
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

Plutarch (c. AD 46-AD 120) was born to a prominent family in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, about 20 miles east of Delphi in the region known as Boeotia. His best known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek life and one Roman life as well as four unpaired single lives.

Alexander the Great

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 55 mins)
• By Arrian
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

This is the incredible story of the world's greatest conqueror, a man who single handedly changed the course of history...and who was worshipped as a god. There have been many attempts in the 2,300 years since Alexander's death to tell the epic story of this enigmatic soldier. His deeds read like the stuff of legends. Of all the chroniclers of Alexander, and there have been many famous ones, including Plutarch and Ptolemy, none have given us a clearer and truer account than the one by Arrian.