Griffin's Virgil (Oxford 1986, in the Past Masters series) deals particularly with the poet's ideas. The
Cambridge History of Classical Literature ii (1982), 297-369 gives a generally reliable account of the
poet and his works (but it is not, as is there stated, certain that the Eclogues were published in 35 B.C.).
The poet's early life is well treated in the second chapter of L. P. Wilkinson, The Georgics of Virgil
(Cambridge, 1969: paperback); the historical and political background in R. Syme's classic The Roman
Revolution (Oxford, 1939: paperback).
The Introduction to Robert Coleman's edition of the Eclogues (Cambridge, 1977) is very helpful. L. P.
Wilkinson's book on the Georgics is the best on that poem. A useful approach to the Aeneid: W. A.
Camps, An Introduction to Virgil's Aeneid (Oxford, 1969: paperback). W. Y. Sellar, Virgil (Oxford,
1877) is a good example of solid Victorian criticism; Brooks Otis, Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry
(Oxford, 1963) is more subjective. A good collection of papers: Virgil, a Collection of Critical Essays,
edited by S. Commager (Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ, 1966; paperback). T. S. Eliot's essay 'What is a Classic?'
appears in his book On Poets and Poetry (London, 1951). Gordon Williams, Tradition and Originality in
Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968) illuminates many passages in Virgil, and in other authors. See also R. O.
A. M. Lyne, Further Voices in Virgil's Aeneid (Oxford, 1987).
Important commentaries have appeared recently: on Aeneid 1, 2, 4, and 6 by R. G. Austin; on 3 and 5 by
R. D. Williams; on 7 and 8 by C. J. Fordyce (all Oxford University Press); also on 8 by K. W. Gransden
(Cambridge, 1976). R. D. Williams has published a shorter commentary on the whole of the Aeneid
(London, 2 vols., 1972).
Two classic works of German scholarship: R. Heinze, Virgils epische Technik (3rd edn., 1914), repr.
1957), and E. Norden's Commentary on Aeneid 6 (Stuttgart, 1927, repr. 1957).
- Roman Historians (By Andrew Lintott)
English translations exist of most surviving historical works mentioned in this chapter; there is,
however, no translation of the fragments of Roman historians. Apart from the translations facing texts in
the Loeb Classical Library, the most complete range is now in the Penguin Classics. Especially good are
those of Tacitus' Annals (M. Grant) and Histories (K. Wellesley), Sallust, Caesar (S. A. Handford), and
Polybius (I. Scott-Kilvert), although this contains little of Polybius dealing with events after the Second
Punic War. The best translation of Polybius is by E. S. Shuckburgh (2 vols., 1889/1962). Major
translations of Tacitus include those of A.J. Church and J. Brodnbb (London, 1882) and W. Fyfe
(Oxford, 1912).
A general survey is provided by M. L. W. Laistner, The Greater Roman Historians (California, 1963).
There are also useful collections of essays, Latin Historians and Latin Biography (ed. T. A. Dorey,
London, 1966 and 1967), which contain chapters on Polybius and Plutarch respectively as well as on
writers in Latin. A. Momigliano, Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford, 1977),