This is the reading list that I assigned to myself several years ago – an introduction to the greatest thinkers of all time…

The Ancient Greeks

* Selections from The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer

* One or two tragedies by Aeschylus

* One or two tragedies by Sophocles

* One or two tragedies by Euripides

* A summary of The Histories by Herodotus

* A summary of History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

* A half-dozen of The Dialogues of Plato, including The Republic

And most importantly, the works of Aristotle – in particular, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics, Poetics, and Prior Analytics.

The Ancient Romans

* A summary of On the Nature of Things by Lucretius

* The Aeneid by Virgil

* Several of the works of Horace

* A summary of The History of Rome by Livy

* A bit of Metamorphoses by Ovid

* Selections from Parallel Lives by Plutarch

* Selections from Dialogue on Oratory by Tacitus

* The Enchiridion and The Discourses by Epictetus

* A half-dozen of Seneca’s Letters From a Stoic

And most importantly, as much as you can of the treatises of Cicero and the meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

For extra credit, read Aristotle as Poet and The Origins of Criticism by Andrew Ford. And check out two these lecture series by Dr. J. Rufus Fears: Famous Greeks and Famous Romans.