The Library
1693 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
500–401 BC
1 work
c. 430 BC
Greek
Herodotus of Halicarnassus · c. 484 – c. 425 BC
Nine books on how the Greeks and the Persians came to war, digressing constantly and to great profit: the whole of Egypt in book two, then Cyrus taking Babylon by diverting the river, Cambyses in Egypt, Darius organising the satrapies, and Xerxes at Thermopylae and Salamis.
200–101 BC
3 works
c. 158 BC; survives in fragments
Greek
Eupolemus
A history claiming Moses as the first wise man, the inventor of the alphabet, who gave it to the Phoenicians, who gave it to the Greeks — with a long invented correspondence between Solomon and the kings of Tyre and Egypt about building the temple.
c. 2nd century BC; survives in fragments
Greek
Artapanus
A retelling in which Abraham teaches astrology to the pharaoh, Joseph invents land measurement, and Moses — identified with Musaeus and with Hermes — organises Egypt into thirty-two districts, invents ships and weapons and philosophy, and is credited with the animal cults.
c. 110–100 BC
Hebrew
Anonymous
Forty years of revolt told soberly and in order: the desolating sacrilege in the temple, the old priest Mattathias killing a man at the altar, Judas and his brothers, the rededication that became Hanukkah, and the treaty with Rome that would outlast them all.
100–1 BC
1 work
c. 100 BC; found first in Cairo in 1896
Hebrew
CD
Anonymous
A history of the sect — a plant root springing up three hundred and ninety years after the exile, groping like blind men until God raised a Teacher of Righteousness — followed by laws for members who marry, hold property, and live in camps in the towns.
1–100
6 works
c. 41
Greek
Legatio ad Gaium
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50
Philo leads a delegation to Caligula to plead that Jews not be compelled to set up the emperor's statue, and is kept walking behind him through a villa's gardens while the emperor asks why they will not eat pork.
c. 41
Greek
In Flaccum
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20 BC – c. AD 50
The pogrom of AD 38 in Alexandria told by a witness: the mock-crowning of a beggar to insult the Jewish king, the houses looted, the elders flogged in the theatre, and the governor who allowed it dragged off to exile and killed.
c. 55; lost, one disputed fragment
Greek
Thallus
A universal history from the Trojan war to the writer's own day, lost entirely. Julius Africanus reports that Thallus explained the darkness at the crucifixion as an eclipse of the sun, and objects that an eclipse is impossible at full moon.
c. 75
Greek
Bellum Judaicum
Flavius Josephus · c. 37 – c. 100
Seven books on the revolt of 66–73 by a man who commanded in Galilee, surrendered, and then watched the siege of Jerusalem from the Roman side. It ends with the burning of the temple and the last stand at Masada.
93
Greek
Antiquitates Judaicae
Flavius Josephus · c. 37 – c. 100
Twenty books retelling the whole of Jewish history from creation to the eve of the revolt, for Greek and Roman readers. Along the way it mentions John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, and — in a passage every scholar since the Renaissance has argued over — Jesus himself.
c. 99
Greek
Vita
Flavius Josephus · c. 37 – c. 100
Josephus defends his conduct in Galilee against a rival historian who had accused him of starting the war, describing his priestly training, his three years with a desert ascetic, and his trial of each Jewish school before choosing the Pharisees.
101–200
3 works
c. 116
Latin
Annales
Tacitus · c. 56 – c. 120
Rome from Tiberius to Nero, told with contempt for nearly everyone in it. In the fifteenth book, Nero fastens the guilt for the fire on a class hated for their abominations, whose founder Christus was executed by Pontius Pilate — and the crowd's pity turns to the victims covered in skins and torn by dogs.
c. 121
Latin
De Vita Caesarum
Suetonius · c. 69 – c. 122
Twelve imperial lives assembled from rumour, archive, and gossip in roughly equal parts. Claudius expels the Jews from Rome for rioting at the instigation of one Chrestus; Nero punishes the Christians, a class given to a new and mischievous superstition.
c. 175–185; survives in fragments
Greek
Hypomnemata
Hegesippus · c. 110–c. 180
Five lost books of travel and enquiry into what the churches actually taught, preserved where Eusebius quotes them — including the account of the death of James the brother of Jesus.
201–300
1 work
c. 221; survives in fragments
Greek
Julius Africanus · c. 160–c. 240
A universal chronology in five books synchronising biblical history with Greek and Near Eastern records, dating creation and placing the incarnation within a scheme of world ages.
301–400
7 works
c. 311; revised later, survives in Armenian and in Jerome's Latin
Greek, surviving in Armenian and Latin
Chronicon
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260 – c. 340
A summary of world history followed by parallel columns — Hebrews, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans — ruled across the page so that any year can be read simultaneously in every kingdom that existed in it, from Abraham to the writer's own day.
c. 313–316
Latin
De Mortibus Persecutorum
Lactantius · c. 250–c. 325
A grimly satisfied account of how each emperor who persecuted the church came to a bad end, closing with Constantine's victory and the edict of toleration.
c. 313–325
Greek
Historia Ecclesiastica
Eusebius of Caesarea · c. 260–339
A history of the church from the apostles to Constantine, assembled from documents, letters, and now-lost sources that Eusebius quotes at length because he had them and knew others might not.
c. 358
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296–373
A partisan account of the persecution of Nicene bishops under Constantius, written in hiding, and among the earliest Christian arguments that an emperor has no authority over doctrine.
c. 390–395
Latin
Res Gestae
Ammianus Marcellinus · c. 330 – c. 395
The last great history written in Latin, by a pagan soldier who served under Julian, covering the years 353 to 378 and ending at Adrianople. He records the Christians tearing at each other over the see of Rome — a prize worth having, given what the city's matrons will give a bishop — and observes that no wild beasts are so hostile to men as Christians are to one another.
393
Latin
De Viris Illustribus
Jerome · c. 347–420
Short notices of a hundred and thirty-five Christian writers and their books, from Peter to Jerome himself, compiled to show pagans that Christianity had a literature.
c. 390–410
Greek
Theodore of Mopsuestia · c. 350–428
A historically grounded reading of the minor prophets that refuses to find Christ under every verse, insisting each oracle first meant something to its own hearers.
401–500
10 works
c. 402
Latin
Rufinus of Aquileia · c. 344–411
A Latin translation of Eusebius with two further books carrying the story to the death of Theodosius, made as the Goths moved into Italy.
c. 403
Latin
Chronicorum Libri Duo
Sulpicius Severus · c. 363 – c. 425
Sacred history from creation to the year 400, written in a deliberately plain style. It closes with the execution of Priscillian at Trier and Sulpicius's flat verdict that the affair was a disgrace, since the bishops who pressed for it were worse than the man they killed.
417–418
Latin
Orosius · c. 375–c. 420
A world history commissioned by Augustine to prove that the pre-Christian past was at least as full of catastrophe as the present.
c. 419–420
Greek
Palladius of Galatia · c. 363–c. 430
Portraits of the monks and nuns of Egypt and Palestine by someone who lived among them, including a good deal of frank material about failure, madness, and vanity.
413–426
Latin
De Civitate Dei
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
Begun after Rome fell in 410 and pagans blamed the Christians. Augustine answers with a history of two cities founded on two loves — one on love of God to the contempt of self, the other on love of self to the contempt of God — running intermingled to the end of the age.
c. 439
Greek
Socrates Scholasticus · c. 380–c. 439
A continuation of Eusebius from Constantine to 439 by a Constantinopolitan lawyer, unusually willing to quote documents and to criticise bishops.
c. 443–450
Greek
Sozomen · c. 400–c. 450
A parallel history covering much the same period as Socrates, with far more attention to monasticism and to the conversion of peoples beyond the empire.
c. 449–450
Greek
Theodoret of Cyrus · c. 393–c. 460
A history from Arius to 428 written from the Antiochene side, preserving many letters and conciliar documents in full.
c. 460–470
Armenian
Agathangelos
The conversion of Armenia: Gregory the Illuminator kept thirteen years in a pit, the king Trdat driven mad and turned into a boar, the martyrdom of Hripsime and her companions, and the king healed and baptised with his whole nation.
c. 498–518
Greek
Zosimus
The decline of the empire from Augustus to 410, written by a pagan civil servant who says outright why it happened: Rome prospered while it kept the ancestral rites and collapsed once Constantine abolished them.
501–600
12 works
c. 530–545
Latin
De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae
Gildas · c. 500–c. 570
A furious sermon on the Saxon conquest as divine judgement, naming five British kings and denouncing them and the clergy in scriptural language.
c. 550–569
Syriac
Pseudo-Zachariah of Mytilene
A Syriac compilation covering the fifth and sixth centuries from a Miaphysite standpoint, incorporating an earlier Greek history now lost.
551
Latin
Getica
Jordanes · 6th century
A condensed version of Cassiodorus's lost Gothic history, tracing the Goths from Scandinavia to Italy and describing the battle against Attila.
c. 545–553
Greek
Procopius of Caesarea · c. 500 – c. 565
Eight books on Justinian's campaigns in Persia, Africa, and Italy, by the secretary who accompanied Belisarius through most of them — including the fullest ancient description of a pandemic, the plague that reached Constantinople in 542.
c. 550–558; unpublished in his lifetime
Greek
Anecdota
Procopius of Caesarea · c. 500 – c. 565
The same author on the same reign, written for a drawer: Justinian as a demon who walked the palace at night without a head, Theodora's career before the throne recounted in detail no other ancient text matches, and a body count in the millions.
c. 550–560
Latin
Historia Ecclesiastica Tripartita
Cassiodorus and Epiphanius Scholasticus
Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret translated and woven into a single Latin narrative for readers who could no longer manage Greek.
c. 555–559
Greek
Cyril of Scythopolis · c. 525–c. 559
Seven lives of the founders of the Judean desert monasteries, written by a monk who interviewed survivors and consulted archives, with dates given precisely.
c. 565
Greek
Chronographia
John Malalas · c. 491 – c. 578
World history from Adam to Justinian in eighteen books, written in the spoken Greek of the streets rather than the literary language, and cheerfully mixing myth, scripture, chariot-racing factions, and what people were wearing.
1–40 of 93 matching · 1693 in the Library