Department of Classics

MA Reading List

In order to qualify for the Master of Arts Degree in Classics, candidates must have read one of the following lists of texts (either Greek or Latin) and be acquainted with the basic recent scholarship concerning them.  This will be tested in a  Reading List Exam, which must be passed by the end of the fourth semester of full-time candidacy or the sixth semester of part-time candidacy.  For the other literature, each candidate must complete at least two courses at the 400 level or higher, one of which will normally be a “special author” reading course, directed by a faculty member. 

GREEK

Aeschylus, Agamemnon
----------, Prometheus Bound
Aristophanes, Clouds
----------, Frogs
Aristotle, Poetics
[Demosthenes], Against Neaira
Euripides, Medea
----------, Bacchae
Herodotus, Book One
Hesiod, Works & Days
Homer, Iliad 1, 6, 9, 16, 22, 24
----------, Odyssey 1, 9-12
Lysias, On the Murder of Eratosthenes (1)
Pindar, Olympian 2
----------, Nemean 8
Plato, Apology, Phaedo, Republic 1
Sophocles, Oedipus the King
----------, Antigone
Thucydides, Book One

LATIN

 Apuleius, "Cupid and Psyche" from Metamorphoses (4.28-6.24)
Caesar, Gallic Wars, 1
Catullus, 1-15, 31, 36, 42-44, 46, 63
Cicero, Pro Caelio
----------, Scipio’s dream from The Republic
----------, a selection of letters
Horace, Ars Poetica
----------, Odes Book 3
----------, Satires II,6
Juvenal, Satire 3
Livy, History 1
Lucretius, De rerum natura, 1
Ovid, Metamorphoses 1
Petronius, Trimalchio’s dinner from Satyricon (26-72)
Plautus, Amphytruo, Miles gloriosus
Tacitus, Histories 1 or Agricola
Virgil, Aeneid 1,4,6

*Cicero Letters:

Fam. 5.7 (to Pompey)
Att. 1.16 (Clodius’ trial)
Att. 2.19 (“First Tirumvirate”)
Att. 3.4 (in exile)
Fam. 14.2 (to his family)
Q. fratrem 2.3 (political turmoil in Rome, 56BC)
Fam. 5.12 (to Lucceius the “historian”)
Fam. 15.4 (to Cato)
Att. 9.11A (to Caesar)
Fam. 11.27 (to Matius on Caesar’s assassination)