The Loeb classical library,

Prudentius (born 348 CE) used allegory and classical Latin verse forms in the service of Christianity. His works include the Psychomachia, an allegorical description of the struggle between (Christian) virtues and (pagan) vices; lyric poetry; and--a valuable source on Christian iconography--poetic inscriptions for biblical scenes on the walls of a church.

In Astronomica (first century CE), the earliest extant treatise we have on astrology, Manilius provides an account of celestial phenomena and the signs of the Zodiac. He also gives witty character sketches of persons born under particular constellations.

In The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses, Lucian is on a business trip to Greece when his curiosity gets the best of him and he finds himself accidentally transformed into a donkey. He then narrates his provincial odyssey in a world where old gods rule, myth informs life, Fortune is fickle, Thessalian witches are puissant, and a curious man seeking to learn their craft might well lament making an ass of himself. Apuleius was a second-century speaker and writer born in present-day Algeria who authors, narrates, and is the subject of this bawdy, picaresque, quasi-autobiographical story. He himself traveled extensively, studied philosophy, was initiated into mystery cults, and became a priest. He was also tried for witchcraft, accused of having betrothed his wife Pudentilla by charms other than those of his personality. The novel was translated into “Tudor prose” by Adlington in 1566 during the “golden age of translation,” and it was this version that was read by Shakespeare and influenced his work. The novel contains many digression, mythological references, and inset stories, the most significant being the story of Cupid and Psyche. This is the only complete Latin novel from antiquity that has survived to the present day, and has been called “a beginning of modern literature.” The Latin original was the one read by Augustine of Hippo who adapted Apuleius’ confessional style in his own writing—he even responded to Apuleius directly in his own philosophy. In its theology, The Golden Ass embodies an inclusive monotheism. From Kafka, to Pinocchio, to the motion picture The Fly, the influence of Apuleius and his Metamorphoses continues to be felt.

"Performances of Greek epics customarily began with a hymn to a god or goddess - as Hesiod's Theogony and Words and Days do. A collection of thirty-three such poems has come down to us from antiquity under the title "Hymns of Homer." This new Loeb Classical Library volume contains, in addition to the Hymns, fragments of five comic poems that were connected with Homer's name in or just after the Classical period (but are not today believed to be by the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey). Here too is a collection of ancient accounts of the poet's life." "The Hymns range widely in length: two are over 500 lines long; several run only a half dozen lines. Among the longest are the hymn To Demeter, which tells the foundational story of the Eleusinian Mysteries; and To Hermes, distinctive in being amusing. The comic poems gathered as Homeric Apocrypha include Margites, the Battle of Frogs and Mice, and, for the first time in English, a fragment of a perhaps earlier poem of the same type called Battle of the Weasel and the Mice. The edition of Lives of Homer contains The Contest of Homer and Hesiod and nine other biographical accounts, translated into English for the first time."--Jacket.

Ausonius, the most famous of the learned poets active in the second half of the fourth century, was born at Bordeaux and taught school there for thirty years before being summoned to court to teach the future emperor Gratian. He subsequently held important public offices, returning to Bordeaux and private life after Gratian's death in 383. The subjects of many of his poems are typical of the academic world of the time. His Commemorations of the Professors of Bordeaux, a sequence of light verse obituaries of local teachers, in which people are honored - or gossiped about - in their daily occupations, has been called an illustrious poetic precedent to Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology. To a literary verse translation of the Commemorations, David Slavitt has added versions of Ausonius's Nuptial Cento, assembled from snippets of Shakespeare (Ausonius's original is a pastiche of Virgil) and selected epigrams.

Roman secondary education aimed principally at training future lawyers and politicians. Under the late Republic and the Empire, the main instrument was an import from Greece -- declamation, the making of practice-speeches on imaginary subjects. There were two types of such speeches: controversiae on law-court themes, suasoriae on delibertaive topics. On both types a prime source of our knowledge is the work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Spaniard from Cordoba, father of the distinguished philosopher and stylist. Towards the end of his long life (?55 B.C. -? A.D. 40) he collected together under the title (it would seem) Oratorum et rhetorum sententiae, divisiones, colores, ten books devoted to controversiae (some only preserved in excerpt) and at least one (surviving) to suasoriae. These books contained his memories of the famous rhetorical teachers and practitioners of his day: their lines of argument, their methods of approach, their idiosyncracies, and above all their epigrams. The extracts from the disclaimers, though scrappy, throw invaluable light on the influences that coloured the styles of most pagan (and many Christian) writers of the Empire. Unity is provided by Seneca's own contribution, the lively prefaces, engaging anecdote about speakers, writers and politicians, the brisk criticism of declamatory excess.

V.I. ANTIPHON of Athens, born in 480 B.C., spent his prime in the great period of Athens but, disliking democracy was himself an ardent oligarch who with others set up a violent short-lived oligarchy in 411. The restored democracy executed him for treason. He had been a writer of speeches for other people involved in litigation. Of the fifteen surviving works three concern real murder-cases, the others being exercises in speech-craft consisting of three 'tetralogies' whereof each tetralogy comprises four skeleton speeches: accuser's; defendant's; accuser's reply; defendant's counter-reply. ANDOCIDES of Athens, born c440 B.C., disliked the extremes of both democracy and oligarchy. Involved in religious scandal in 415 B.C., he went into a money-making exile. After at least two efforts to return, he did so under the amnesty of 403. In 399 he was acquitted on a charge of profaning the 'Mysteries' and in 391-390 took part in an abortive peace embassy to Sparta. Extand speeches are: 'On his Return' (a plea on his second attempt); "On the Mysteries' (a self-defence); 'On the Peace with Sparta'. The speech 'Against Alcibiades' (the notorious politician) is suspect. V.2. Four orators involved in the ill-fated resistance of Athens to the power of Philip and Alexander the Great of Macedon were: -- LYCURGUS of Athens, c.396-325 B.C., who concentrated on home affairs especially financial, which he managed for twelve years, and naval matters; and constructed and repaired important public buildings. Athens refused to surrender him to Alexander and honoured him until his death. DINARCHUS of Corinth. c.361-291, who as resident alien in Athens became a forensic speaker and also assailed Demosthenes and others. He was accused by Alexander's runaway treasurer Harpalus of corruption. He favoured oligarchic government under Macedonian control. He prospered under the regency of Demetrius Phalereus (317-307), but was exiled after the restoration of democracy, returning c.292. DEMADES of Athens, c.380-318, who was an able seaman, then unscrupulous politician, favoured Philip, but fought for Athens at Chaeronea (338). Captured there and released by Philip, he helped to make peace, and later influenced Alexander and then Antipater in Athens' favour. But acceptance of bribes and his tortuous policy ruined him and he was executed by Antipater. HYPERIDES of Athens, c.390-322, was a man of taste, and a forensic and political speaker who was hostile to Philip and led Athens' patriots after 325. For resistance to Antipater he ullltimately met death by violence. What survives today of his speeches was discovered in the nineteenth century.