Volume I. On the Characteristics of Animals
Books 1-5

Aelian's Characteristics of Animals is an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal kingdom that invites the reader to ponder contrasts between human and animal behavior.

Series No. 446 / 390 pages / ISBN 0-674-99491-4
  Volume II. On the Characteristics of Animals
Books 6-11

Aelian's Characteristics of Animals is an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal kingdom that invites the reader to ponder contrasts between human and animal behavior.

Series No. 448 / 420 pages / ISBN 0-674-99493-0

  Volume III. On the Characteristics of Animals
Books 12-17

Aelian's Characteristics of Animals is an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal kingdom that invites the reader to ponder contrasts between human and animal behavior.

Series No. 449 / 452 pages / ISBN 0-674-99494-9

  Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus: The Letters

Aelian offers us entertaining vignettes of rural life in twenty letters that portray the country ways of their imagined writers. This volume also contains invented letters--mostly to fictitious characters--by Alciphron and, in the same genre, the Erotic Epistles of Philostratus (probably Flavius Philostratus, author of Apollonius of Tyana).

Series No. 383 / 600 pages / ISBN 0-674-99421-3
 

  Historical Miscellany

Aelian's Historical Miscellany (Varia Historia) is a pleasurable example of light reading for Romans of the early third century. Offering engaging anecdotes about historical figures, retellings of legendary events, and enjoyable descriptive pieces, Aelian's collection of nuggets and narratives appealed to a wide reading public.

Here are anecdotes about the famous Greek philosophers, poets, historians, and playwrights; myths instructively retold; moralizing tales about heroes and rulers, athletes and wise men; reports about food and drink, styles in dress, religious belief, and death customs. Underlying it all are Aelian's Stoic ideals as well as this Roman's great admiration for the culture of the Greeks (whose language he borrowed for his writings).

Series No. 486 / 520 pages / ISBN 0-674-99535-X