Ancient Greece

c. 800-300 BCE· 37 works

The scene that started it all. Epic poetry, philosophy, tragedy, comedy, history, all invented here. Homer to Aristotle, then carried west through Rome to become the literature everything since has been responding to.

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Ancient Greece, Ranked

According to

1Oedipus Rex Sophocles~429 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick799468TragedyAncient Greek
2Phaedo Plato~385 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick948940PhilosophyAncient Greek
3The Clouds Aristophanes423 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick89684ComedyAncient Greek
4Aesop’s Fables Aesop~560 BCAncient GreeceBreezyShort2626467Fable & ParableAncient Greek
5Poetics Aristotle~335 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick389238PhilosophyAncient Greek
6The Symposium Plato~385 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick1098840PhilosophyAncient Greek
7The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle~330 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick2139240PhilosophyAncient Greek
8The Oresteia Aeschylus458 BCAncient GreeceGruelingShort2869350TragedyAncient Greek
9The Republic Plato~375 BCAncient GreeceHardMedium3009672PhilosophyAncient Greek
10The Iliad Homer~750 BCAncient GreeceHardEpic7049992EpicAncient Greek
11Antigone Sophocles441 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick758668TragedyAncient Greek
12Phaedrus Plato~370 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick1763239PhilosophyAncient Greek
13The Odyssey Homer~725 BCAncient GreeceHardLong5419894EpicAncient Greek
14Sappho's Poems Sappho~600 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick443212LyricAncient Greek
15Medea Euripides431 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick966951TragedyAncient Greek
16Apology Plato~399 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick399041PhilosophyAncient Greek
17Wasps Aristophanes422 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick91252ComedyAncient Greek
18Lysistrata Aristophanes411 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick796652ComedyAncient Greek
19Theogony/Works and Days Hesiod~700 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick793312Didactic VerseAncient Greek
20The Frogs Aristophanes405 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick114684ComedyAncient Greek
21Plutarch's Lives Plutarch~110Ancient GreeceModerateLong4833628Biography & MemoirAncient Greek
22Prometheus Bound Aeschylus~460 BCAncient GreeceGruelingQuick64308TragedyAncient Greek
23Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles401 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick132307TragedyAncient Greek
24Philoctetes Sophocles409 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick94286TragedyAncient Greek
25Women of Trachis Sophocles~450 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick68285TragedyAncient Greek
26Ajax Sophocles~440 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick79296TragedyAncient Greek
27Alcestis Euripides438 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick64284TragedyAncient Greek
28The Seven Against Thebes Aeschylus467 BCAncient GreeceGruelingQuick58261TragedyAncient Greek
29The Acharnians Aristophanes425 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick75242ComedyAncient Greek
30The Bacchae Euripides405 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick866850TragedyAncient Greek
31The Histories Herodotus~430 BCAncient GreeceHardEpic8808129HistoryAncient Greek
32History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides~411 BCAncient GreeceGruelingEpic6488028HistoryAncient Greek
33Electra Sophocles~410 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick84306TragedyAncient Greek
34The Persians Aeschylus472 BCAncient GreeceGruelingQuick57271TragedyAncient Greek
35The Suppliants Aeschylus463 BCAncient GreeceGruelingQuick58261TragedyAncient Greek
36The Birds Aristophanes414 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick104263ComedyAncient Greek
37Peace Aristophanes421 BCAncient GreeceHardQuick80242ComedyAncient Greek

About Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is where Western literature gets loud. In a few hundred years a cluster of city-states invents the forms everyone after them argues with — the epic, tragedy and comedy on a stage, the philosophical dialogue, written history. Start with Homer and you are standing at the headwaters; almost everything downstream is, in some sense, a reply.

This is a placeholder. The real essay will trace the era's shape and point you at the handful of works that are the best way in — then hand you off to Rome, which spent centuries answering Greece back.