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Julius Caesar peaked as one of the most powerful generals in Roman history. In “The Life of Caesar", Plutarch attempts to capture the greatness of this man on paper. With stirring prose, he documents Caesar’s military might and rousing spirit. The biography ends with the details of Caesar’s assassination, but Plutarch assures us that the murderers eventually paid for the deed.

A Christian woman was mourning the death of her husband. John Chrysostom knew of her grief and wrote her a letter to direct her gaze to the Lord. In the letter (c. 380 AD), Chrysostom echoes the biblical teaching that “dying is gain” and that the glories of heaven outweigh the glitter of earth.

A young orphan seeks vengeance against the Yakuza man who killed her parents…. A jaded Ronin seeks out an old colleague before enacting a last ritual…. And an ancient demon taunts a former Knight of a holy order from the blade of her ancient samurai sword.

This moving treatise was composed when St. Chrysostom was in exile, probably shortly before his death. It was sent with a letter to his friend the deaconess Olympias in Constantinople. A portion of this treatise reflects the thoughts of Plato in the 10th book of The Republic to prove the immortality of the soul.

Arthur Machen’s novella explores the disturbing consequences of toying with the line between the earthly world and the spiritual realm. The Great God Pan centers around an ominous woman named Helen, who lives in the woods and invites morbid happenings. The book faced harsh censure upon its publication in 1894 for its explicit content, but today it is considered a hallmark of horror fiction. Stephen King himself called it “one of the best horror stories ever written”, making it essential reading for any dedicated fans of the genre.

The Shield of Heracles is an archaic Greek epic poem which was attributed to Hesiod in antiquity. The subject of the poem is the expedition of Hercules and his nephew Iolaus against Cycnus, who challenged Heracles to combat as they were passing through Thessaly on their way to the city of Trachis.

The Phaedrus by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. It was probably written around 370 BC, at about the same time as Plato's Republic and Symposium. Ostensibly about love, the discussion in the dialogue focuses on the art of rhetoric and how it ought to be practiced. The dialogue appears in the direct words of Socrates and Phaedrus, without an introduction.

An Enemy of the People is an 1882 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, who wrote it in response to the public outcry against his previous play, Ghosts, which challenged the hypocrisy of 19th-century morality. An Enemy of the People tells the story of a man who dares to speak an unpalatable truth and is punished for it. Ibsen uses the language of comic exaggeration through the mouth of his spokesman, the idealist Doctor Thomas Stockmann, who rejects all absolute principles of either wisdom or morality.

After Marathon, the Athenian government needed a new type of leader. That leader was politician and general Themistocles, whose life is well-attributed in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives series. From how he handled the Persian invasion to his time in Athens after the navy, Themistocles was known as the “Glory of the Law”. Though his later life was fraught with whisperings of treason, he went on to be remembered as one of the greatest navy leaders and politicians that Greece had.

De Vita Caesarum ("About the Life of the Caesars"), commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of 12 biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. The work was considered highly significant in antiquity and remains a primary source on Roman history. It examines the critical period of the Principate from the end of the Republic to the reign of Domitian.

The Enchiridion is a collection of the most profound teachings of Epictetus (c. 55-135 AD), who taught that philosophy is a way of life and not just a matter of theory. The Enchiridion is a canonical text of Stoic philosophy, and contains all the fundamentals. Among them is the principle of not being concerned with that which is out of one’s control. Misfortune should not disturb the individual at all, and should not be perceived negatively.

Inferno follows Dante through hell, with only an roman poet named Virgil to guide him. Dante loses his way in a forest and stumbles across Hell; but Virgil tells him that if he ventures through hell he can reach Heaven where his beloved awaits....

Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 to c. 120 AD) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire, and considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians. Five works ascribed to Tacitus have survived. The surviving portions of his two major works, the Annals and the Histories span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus, in 14 AD, to the years of the First Jewish-Roman War, in 70 AD.

The Nature of Things was written in the 1st century BC by Roman polymath Lucretius. It is written as a didactic poem, and explains Epicurean physics.

Henry Reginald Holland Hall (1873-1930) was an English Egyptologist and historian. His in-depth study of the ancient near east examines the region’s civilizations and history, starting with the early Bronze age civilizations such as that of the Minoans on Crete. He explores the history of ancient Egypt in detail, and the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Iran, like Babylonia, Assyria and Persia.

This letter of St. John Chrysostom to the Bishop of Rome, deals with Theophilus, the leader of the Church in Alexandria. Theophilus had been commanded to go to Constantinople, to answer to the Emperor for accusations against him. He arrived bringing with him a multitude of Egyptian Bishops, showing from the outset that he came for war and antagonism, argues Chrysostom.

Ancient Art and Ritual is a book by Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928), who was a student of anthropology and a classical scholar by training. The book shows how mankind has always used rituals to celebrate new life or rites of passage and examines the way that these rituals evolved into art forms. The author also shows how rituals and rites of passage developed into visual and dramatic art, dance, and sculpture as a way of expressing the religious urge. She identifies intense emotional energy as the driving force behind all artistic expression.

This sermon by St. John Chrysostom points out the error of scrutinizing the sins of others with great exactitude while we let our own pass. He argues that we ought to do the contrary, to keep our own faults unforgotten but never even to admit a thought of those of others. He argues that God would be more inclined to forgive their sins if people did that.

Emmeline Pankhurst was to women’s suffrage in England what Susan B. Anthony was for the same cause in America. She gave this memorable speech while campaigning in the US. In it, she explains the root trouble women face when campaigning for their rights: “We women, in trying to make our case clear, always have to make as part of our argument, and urge upon men in our audience the fact - a very simple fact - that women are human beings.” Though she faced harsh criticism for her “militant” means of advocacy, she never backed down, and as a result, gained suffrage in her lifetime.

Agatha Christie wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles during the midst of World War I. The book was published in 1920 and became extremely popular because of the well-grounded plot and interesting characters. The novel is set at Styles Court, a wealthy estate in England during the war. The estate's owner, Mrs. Cavendish, had inherited the estate as well as vast sums of money from her late husband.