The four volumes of Greek Lyric contain the surviving fragments of solo song and choral song. This poetry was not preserved in medieval manuscripts and few complete poems remain. Later writers quoted from the poets, but only so much as suited their needs; these book-quotations are supplemented by papyrus texts found in Egypt, most of them badly damaged. The high quality of what remains makes us realize the enormity of our loss. Volume One contains...

APULEIUS, Lucius, religious philosopher and rhetorician, was born c. A.D. 125 at Madaura in N. Africa. Educated at Carthage and Athens, he travelled in Greece and Asia Minor, became an advocate in Rome, and later returned to Africa. When he married Pudentilla he vindicated himself against her parents' accusation that he practiced magic. The rest of his life he spent at Carthage writing and lecturing and performing priestly duties. Of his extant genuine...

"The Fasti" was believed to have been left incomplete when Ovid was exiled to Tomis by the emperor Augustus in 8 AD. The work, which is structured based on the Roman calendar, is a series of elegiac couplets which present the first-hand accounts of vates, or "poet-prophets" with Roman deities regarding the origin of various Roman holidays and associated customs. The first six months of the year are all that is included in the work and it is unclear...