Need help choosing Greek/Roman authors

[Mudhammam]

So I've finished reading Aristotle's Organon (with incomplete translations of Analytica Priora, Topica, and De Sophistics Elenchis), and now am on to Physica. He's not nearly as fun as Plato, whose works were every bit as mythological and literary as they were philosophical, whereas Aristotle is quite professor-like and even extraordinarily scientific. I mean extraordinary in the sense of looking at the generations that preceded and followed him (at least for a thousand years). While his writing style is monotonous and dry at times (in a way that reminds me of Kant), it's really pleasing to see just how much---of logical and scientific principles---was founded on Aristotle, and why everyone who later sought a better scientific method has had to overthrow some Aristotlelian concept.

[Pizza]

Did Aristotle write those? I thought they were notes written by listeners to his public speaking.

[Mudhammam]

Did Aristotle write those? I thought they were notes written by listeners to his public speaking.

I think I may have heard that was the case with something attributed to him. I've also heard, if I remember correctly, that he wrote 150 separate works, including many dialogues, that only about 1/5 of his writings have been preserved, none of which was actually intended for the public. That's incredible because 1200 years later he was still "the Philosopher."

[Mudhammam]

Okay, so I just finished reading Aristotle's Basic Works and beginning tomorrow I am on to W. J. Oates' The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers, thanks to Pyrrho's suggestion. After that I'm taking a short break from my historical survey (centered around philosophy but allowing myself to indulge in important histories and poetries of the relevant times as well). Here is what I have completed thus far, as well as my plan, for which more suggestions are welcome:

Read (in order, though not necessarily consecutively)
B. Russell - A History of Western Philosophy (ongoing, per era)
Homer - The Iliad and The Odyssey
Kirk, Raven, and Schofield - The Presocratic Philosophers
J. Pritchard - Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament
Herodotus - The History
Thucydides - The Peloponnesian War
Plato - Complete Works
F. Nietzsche - Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
Aristophanes - Clouds, Wasps, and Peace
Xenophon - Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, and Apology
Aristotle - Basic Works (seven complete works, seven partial)

To Read (not listed in a particular order, which I will go through chronologically)
Cicero - Would prefer to read his letters, not so much his treatise on rhetoric. What's "An Old Age," as Rev. Rye suggested, about? What's a good translation (for either/both)?
Pliny the Elder - Natural History (translation?)
Ovid - Metamorphoses (trans?)
Catullus - Natachan said he was fun. What specifically?
Philo - What's his main work? And translation? I'm keen to see what the philosophy of a first-century Jewish Platonist looked like.
Diogenes Laërtius - Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (trans?)
Seneca - I'm on the fence. I don't want to get too distracted by non-philosophers during this run I'm on. What would you recommend, specifically? And trans?
Plutarch - I feel the same way as I do about Seneca
Clement of Alexandria - Any recommendations?
Augustine - Confessions and City of God (trans?)


(Already own and plan to read Virgil's Aeneid and Gibbon's Rise and Fall... Vol 1)

Thanks for all of the help thus far guys and gals! 

[Pyrrho]

I am particularly fond of Seneca's Letters 70 & 77:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_lett.../Letter_70

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_lett.../Letter_77

I have not compared translations, so I have no specific advice, but I have no objections to the translation used in the links, by Richard Mott Gummere.

[Mudhammam]

I am particularly fond of Seneca's Letters 70 & 77:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_lett.../Letter_70

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_lett.../Letter_77

I have not compared translations, so I have no specific advice, but I have no objections to the translation used in the links, by Richard Mott Gummere.

So I looked up the chronology of the authors I listed (adding Tertullian and Plotinus) and came up with my reading order:
B.C.E
*Epicurus 341 - 270 
Cicero 106 - 43
*Lucretius 99 - 55  
Catullus 84 - 54 
Virgil 70 - 19
Ovid 43 - 17-18 C.E.
Philo 25 B.C.E. - 50 C.E.
Seneca 4 B.C.E. - 65 C.E.
C.E.
Pliny the Elder 23 - 79
Plutarch 46 - 127
*Epictetus 55 - 135
*Marcus Aurelius 121 - 180
Clement of Alexandria 150 - 215
Tertullian 155 - 240
Plotinus 204 -270
Diogenes Laertius (first half of third century)
Augustine of Hippo 354 - 430

*Included in the Oates' compilation

By that time I should be done with the Greeks and Romans and will begin moving into the Medieval Philosophers, which I'll make a fresh thread (this will be months from now, obviously). All that being said, I just ordered 6 books off Amazon to get things going:
Cicero - The Nature of the Gods (Oxford World's Classics) 
Cicero - Selected Letters (Oxford World's Classics) 
Catullus - The Complete Poems (Oxford World's Classics) 
Ovid - The Metamorphoses
Philo - The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged, New Updated Edition
Seneca - Letters from a Stoic (The Epistles of Seneca)

There's almost no better feeling than that which accompanies the knowledge that 6 separate packages will arrive in the mail at random intervals throughout the next 3 weeks!

[Rev. Rye]

Cicero - Would prefer to read his letters, not so much his treatise on rhetoric. What's "An Old Age," as Rev. Rye suggested, about? What's a good translation (for either/both)?
Catullus - Natachan said he was fun. What specifically?
Seneca - I'm on the fence. I don't want to get too distracted by non-philosophers during this run I'm on. What would you recommend, specifically? And trans?

Cicero: On Old Age is a treatise on aging. One of my Latin teachers listed it as her all-time favourite book. That said, I don't know enough about most specific translations for most ancient authors (The Stoics excepted) to recommend a specific translation; this is compounded by the fact that, for whatever reason neither Oxford nor Penguin have complete translations, so I'll recommend the Loeb Classical edition.
Catullus: His collected works (in a bilingual edition with both the original Latin and English) are about 150 pages, not including notes. I remember accidentally mentioning Poem 16 in class, and the next day, most of the students came in, shaken by what they read in their spare time.
Seneca: Letters to a Young Stoic, Penguin Classics Edition. Boom.

[Mudhammam]

Cicero - Would prefer to read his letters, not so much his treatise on rhetoric. What's "An Old Age," as Rev. Rye suggested, about? What's a good translation (for either/both)?
Catullus - Natachan said he was fun. What specifically?
Seneca - I'm on the fence. I don't want to get too distracted by non-philosophers during this run I'm on. What would you recommend, specifically? And trans?

Cicero: On Old Age is a treatise on aging. One of my Latin teachers listed it as her all-time favourite book. That said, I don't know enough about most specific translations for most ancient authors (The Stoics excepted) to recommend a specific translation; this is compounded by the fact that, for whatever reason neither Oxford nor Penguin have complete translations, so I'll recommend the Loeb Classical edition.
Catullus: His collected works (in a bilingual edition with both the original Latin and English) are about 150 pages, not including notes. I remember accidentally mentioning Poem 16 in class, and the next day, most of the students came in, shaken by what they read in their spare time.
Seneca: Letters to a Young Stoic, Penguin Classics Edition. Boom.

Dope. Just ordered this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674991...dp_summary

Man, Cicero has become a major stop in my journey!

---

"I will sodomize you and face-fuck you."

LOL.

[bennyboy]

Catullus: His collected works (in a bilingual edition with both the original Latin and English) are about 150 pages, not including notes. I remember accidentally mentioning Poem 16 in class, and the next day, most of the students came in, shaken by what they read in their spare time.

Haha, colorful guy!

Ended up with a link to this:
http://pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/G...ompeii.htm

[Mudhammam]

Catullus: His collected works (in a bilingual edition with both the original Latin and English) are about 150 pages, not including notes. I remember accidentally mentioning Poem 16 in class, and the next day, most of the students came in, shaken by what they read in their spare time.

Haha, colorful guy!

Ended up with a link to this:
http://pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/G...ompeii.htm

"I screwed the barmaid."