Healy, John F., Mining and Metallurgy in the Greek and Roman World. This is the first large-scale survey devoted exclusively to Greek and Roman mining and metallurgy set against a background of economic geology and petrology. The general period covered extends from the Greek Bronze Age to the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, with its main emphasis on the classical Greek and imperial Rome eras. Professor Healy examines all phases of mining operations from placer mining to deep vein underground working, discussing the techniques, tools, and machinery employed in the concentration and processing of ore minerals through the various stages leading to the refined metals. The evidence is derived from literary and epigraphical sources, mining sites and associated archaeological remains, and extant metal objects.

Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Aubrey de Selincourt. This is the first great prose work in European literature. Its main theme is the heroic and successful struggle of a small and divided Greece against the mighty empire of Persia--with its underlying conflict between the absolutism of the East and the free institutions of the West. Herodotus has been called the Father of Lies as well as the Father of History; but it was a feature of his method, when evidence was lacking, to record popular belief, and the result is one of the most entertaining books in the world. I lived with this work for several years while I wrote The Mysteries. As a cultural work, it is unparalleled. Without it, the Persian invasion of Greece would be but a faint memory. Herodotus is a great storyteller.

Herodotus, The Histories. Herodotus is not only the father of art and the science of historical writing but also one of the Western tradition's most compelling storytellers. In tales such as that of Gyges--who murders Candaulers, the king of Lydia, and usurps his throne and his marriage bed, thereby bringing on, generations later, war with the Persians--he laid bare the intricate human entanglements at the core of great historical events. In his love for the stranger, more marvelous facts of the world, he infused his magnificent history with a continuous awareness of the mythic and the wonderful. This version of Herodotus, The Histories, is translated by George Rawlinson and contains indispensable notes that the translation by Selincourt does not. 

Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, Shield. With careful scholarship and characteristic literary felicity, Richard Lattimore, translator of The Homeric Hymns, here presents the surviving works of another of ancient Greece's most familiar poets. Hesiod's two major works, Theogony and Works and Days, compose most of the volume, along with accompanying introductions and detailed notes. The Theogony traces the origins and genealogy of the Greek gods and recounts the events surrounding the crowning of Zeus as their king. Works and Days is a didactic poem offering advice on living a life of honest work. Included also is a rare translation of the Shield, a work generally attributed to Hesiod but probably not written by him.

Hillman, James and Karl Kerenyi, Oedipus Variations, Studies in Literature and Psychoanalysis. Here is a deeper, richer protrait of the most famous of all Greek tragedies and the basic myth of psychoanalysis. First, Karl Kerenyi, the twentieth-century's genius mythographer, widens the myth's cultural context by introducing dramatic versions that played in Rome, Paris, Vienna, and London. Then, James Hillman takes on Father Freud and his Oedipus complex: every son wants to kill his father and marry Mom. Hillman inverts the emphasis: Why do fathers kill their sons? Further, what has this myth to do with gay men, since Oedipus's father was said to be the first pederast? Hillman also dreams the myth onward to the second Oedipus play where, int eh smiling anima landscape of Colonus, the blind old king, helped by his daughter, dies. 

 Homer, The Iliad, translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Robert Fitzgerald, a poet himself, and professor at Harvard, translated many great classics into modern English. His Iliad and Odyssey are the versions that come closest to matching Homer in both rhythm and epic scope. The Iliad and the Odyssey are the foundation of all Western poetry and every poet since, owes much to Homer. The story of Achilles' moral turnaround in the tenth year of the Trojan war remains one of the most moving and endearing tales, millenniums after it was written. Each of the twenty-four books of the Iliad in sparkling, modern (with a hint of archaic) English, make this the clear choice for English readers today. Quite possibly forever.

Homer, The Iliad, tr. by Robert Fitzgerald.

Homer, The Odyssey. For many who read the Iliad and the Odyssey for the first time, Homer is a tough read, but the translation of Robert Fitzgerald is overcomes through sheer emotional intensity. The clarity of the narrative voice never falters. Rex Warner,New York Times Book Review: "The best translation there is of a great, perhaps, the greatest poet." Times Literary Supplement (London): "A landmark in the history of modern translation....Lattimore has reanimated Homer for this generaton, and perhaps for other generations to come." Paul Engle: "Lattimore's translation of Homer'sOdyssey is the most eloquent, persuasive and imaginative I have seen. It reads as if the poem had originally been written in English." Gilbert Highet: "This is the best Odyssey in modern English."

Homer, The Odyssey, tr. by Robert Fitzgerald.

The Homeric Hymns, tr. by Apostolos N. Athanassakis. Classical and even Hellenistic antiquity treated the Homeric Hymns with a considerable measure of indifference, yet the tradition to which the thirty-three Homeric Hymns belong may not be less pristine than that of the two great Homeric epics, which have so completely overshadowed them to the present day. In modern times scholars have recognized the importance of the hymns, but students of the classics frequently bypass them for the study of the Homeric epics, and the educated public is hardly aware of their existence. These Hymns are among the most important works of antiquity. No library is complete without them.