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Reading path

The Ancients

Everything written before 500 AD. The foundations of Western and Eastern literature, philosophy, and drama. Three thousand years of human thought and still no one has improved on most of it. These are the voices that every subsequent writer has been answering, arguing with, or stealing from. Gods and mortals, duty and desire, the examined life and the unexamined one. Start here and you will recognise the fingerprints of these works on everything that came after.

In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.

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The route

  • 1. The Epic of GilgameshAnonymous, 2100 BCE
  • 2. The IliadHomer, 750 BCE
  • 3. The OdysseyHomer, 750 BCE
  • 4. The AeneidVirgil, 19 BCE
  • 5. MetamorphosesOvid, 8 CE
  • 6. Oedipus RexSophocles, 429 BCE
  • 7. AntigoneSophocles, 441 BCE
  • 8. MedeaEuripides, 431 BCE
  • 9. The BacchaeEuripides, 405 BCE
  • 10. LysistrataAristophanes, 411 BCE
  • 11. OresteiaAeschylus, 458 BCE
  • 12. The ApologyPlato, 399 BCE
  • 13. The RepublicPlato, 375 BCE
  • 14. The SymposiumPlato, 385 BCE
  • 15. Nicomachean EthicsAristotle, 350 CE
  • 16. MeditationsMarcus Aurelius, 180 CE
  • 17. The EnchiridionEpictetus, 135 CE
  • 18. Letters to LuciliusSeneca, 65 CE
  • 19. Fragment 31Sappho, 600 BCE
  • 20. ConfessionsSaint Augustine, 400 CE
  • 21. The Book of JobAnonymous, 600 BCE
  • 22. The Bhagavad GitaVyasa, 200 BCE
  • 23. The Tao Te ChingLaozi, 600 BCE
  • 24. The DhammapadaAnonymous, 300 BCE
  • 25. ZhuangziZhuang Zhou, 300 BCE
  • 26. MahabharataVyasa, 400 BCE
  • 27. Parallel LivesPlutarch, 100 CE
  • 28. RamayanaValmiki, 200 BCE
  • 29. The BibleUnknown, 1400 BCE
  • 30. AnalectsConfucius, 479 BCE
  • 31. Oedipus at ColonusSophocles, 401 BCE
  • 32. The Art of WarSun Tzu, 500 BCE
  • 33. Love Songs of Ancient EgyptUnknown, 1300 BCE
  • 34. PhiloctetesSophocles, 409 BCE
  • 35. EcclesiastesAnonymous, 250 BCE
  • 36. On FriendshipMarcus Tullius Cicero, 44 BCE
  • 37. HippolytusEuripides, 428 BCE
  • 38. Aesop's FablesAesop, 560 BCE
  • 39. The History of the Peloponnesian WarThucydides, 410 BCE
  • 40. The Golden AssApuleius, 158 CE
  • 41. Euclid's ElementsEuclid, 300 BCE