 | The Oxford Classical Dictionary
Buy new: $78.75 / Used from: $48.13 Extremely useful reference
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 | The Oxford History of the Classical World
Buy used from: $0.75 Uneven, and not what it should be, but still useful to have in one place.
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 | The World of Athens (Reading Greek) by Joint Association of Classical Teachers
Buy used from: $0.01 An introduction to Classical Athenian culture for beginning students of Greek; has lots of useful information.
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 | The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture by Peter V. Jones
Buy new: $36.99 / Used from: $11.76 A similar book on Rome.
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 | The Iliad of Homer by Homer
Buy new: $10.08 / Used from: $0.85 This is the translation the classicists I know still prefer. Homer is indispensable -- all educated people in the ancient Mediterranean memorized him.
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 | The Odyssey of Homer (Bantam Classics) by Homer
Buy new: $5.95 / Used from: $0.01 Most of my friends who read Greek aren't as keen on Lattimore's Odyssey, so I've picked this one somewhat at random.
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 | Odes, Pindar & Selected Fragments by Pindar
Buy used from: $0.01 Pindar is really hard, and hard to translate. If you read German, Hölderin gives you an idea of what he's like (and translated some poems). This seems the best version in English for the moment.
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 | Lucian: Selected Dialogues (Oxford World's Classics) by Lucian
Buy new: $11.21 / Used from: $2.90 Underrated today, but very important in the Renaissance. A Hellenistic Greek essayist.
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 | Selected Essays and Dialogues (Oxford World's Classics) by Plutarch
Buy used from: $17.05 Plutarch is better known for his Lives (which are also quite interesting), but his essays are fascinating. This is a small seleciton.
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 | Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford World's Classics)
Buy used from: $3.92 I'm not sure any English anthology of Greek lyric poetry is entirely satisfactory, but this one coves a lot of ground (except Pindar).
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 | Aeschylus I: Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides (The Complete Greek Tragedies) (Vol 1) by Aeschylus
Buy new: $8.39 / Used from: $0.01 The very first tragedies; great choral passages.
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 | The Histories (Penguin Classics) by Herodotus
Buy new: $7.91 / Used from: $4.12 Herodotus has more good stories than any other historian, and early modern opera mines him for them.
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 | The Poems of Callimachus by Callimachus
Buy new: $72.00 / Used from: $22.31 Hellenistic poetry at its most scholarly. A model for Cavafy as well as Catullus, Propertius, Vergil et al.
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 | The Poems of Catullus: A Bilingual Edition by Gaius Valerius Catullus
Buy new: $25.46 / Used from: $16.45 A new translation with facing-page Latin. Catullus is crucial for Propertius and Ovid, and much modern love lyric; and he's fun.
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 | The Complete Elegies of Sextus Propertius: (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) by Propertius
Buy new: $29.95 / Used from: $5.00 A recent translation that looks quite good.
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 | Livy: The Early History of Rome, Books I-V (Penguin Classics) (Bks. 1-5) by Titus Livy
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $4.62 The early books of Livy contain the foundation myths of Rome.
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 | The Georgics of Virgil: Bilingual Edition
Buy new: $11.25 / Used from: $5.77 A modern bilingual edition.
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 | The Aeneid of Virgil (Bantam Classics) by Virgil
Buy new: $5.95 / Used from: $0.01 I rather liked this translation when I was an undergrad.
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 | The Love Poems (Oxford World's Classics) by Ovid
Buy new: $14.28 / Used from: $0.01 This looks like the best of the paperback translations.
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 | Ovid's Metamorphoses by Ovid
Buy new: $24.69 / Used from: $3.56 The Metamorphoses that Shakespeare read, a bit modernized. More modern translations available in Oxford World's Classics, Penguin, etc.
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 | Complete Letters (Oxford World's Classics) by Pliny the Younger
Buy new: $8.52 / Used from: $0.95 Pliny's letters open a window on the Roman world and are a great read (better than Cicero's letters).
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 | The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin Classics) by Tacitus
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $0.01 Tacitus is the most important Roman historian for the Renaissance.
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 | The Golden Ass (Oxford World's Classics) by Apuleius
Buy new: $10.36 / Used from: $0.93 One of my favorites; a truly odd book. And the source of the Cupid and Psyché story
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