The Greatest Ancient Books of All Time
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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.
| Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 175 | Metamorphoses | Ovid | 8 | Roman | Latin | |
| 220 | The Republic | Plato | -379 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 285 | Oresteia | Aeschylus | -458 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 313 | Meditations | Marcus Aurelius | 161 | Roman | Greek | |
| 334 | Parallel Lives | Plutarch | 100 | Greek | Greek | |
| 402 | The Nicomachean Ethics | Aristotle | -334 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 405 | De Rerum Natura | Lucretius | 55 | Roman | Latin | |
| 518 | The Odes | Horace | 23 | Roman | Latin | |
| 596 | The History of the Peloponnesian War | Thucydides | -410 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 613 | The Persians | Aeschylus | -471 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 624 | The Histories of Herodotus | Herodotus | -450 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 783 | Anabasis | Xenophon | -390 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 835 | The Art of War | Sun Tzu | -500 | Chinese | Classical chinese | |
| 900 | The Poems of Sappho | Sappho | -569 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 932 | The Clouds | Aristophanes | -423 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 985 | Mythology | Edith Hamilton | 1942 | American | English | |
| 986 | Electra | Sophocles | -409 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1016 | Poems Of C. P. Cavafy | C. P. Cavafy | 1935 | Greek | Greek | |
| 1049 | Works and Days | Hesiod | -700 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1054 | Letters from a Stoic | Seneca | 64 | Roman | Latin | |
| 1123 | The Symposium | Plato | -385 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1124 | Ajax | Sophocles | -440 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1126 | Women of Trachis | Sophocles | -450 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1156 | Apology | Plato | -389 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1180 | Annals | Cornelius Tacitus | 109 | Roman | Latin | |
| 1192 | The Politics | Aristotle | -350 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1257 | Lives of the Caesars | Suetonius | 121 | Roman | Latin | |
| 1364 | Fragments | Heraclitus | -500 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1383 | The Birds | Aristophanes | -414 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1449 | Corpus Aristotelicum | Aristotle | -322 | Greek | Greek | |
| 1528 | The Consolation of Philosophy | Boethius | 524 | Roman | Latin | |
| 1543 | Eclogues | Virgil | -37 | Latin | Latin | |
| 1544 | The Poetic Edda | Unknown | 1270 | Multiple | Old norse | |
| 1647 | Phaedo | Plato | -379 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1843 | Euclid's Elements | Euclid | -300 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 1913 | Mencius | Mencius | -300 | Chinese | Classical chinese | |
| 1923 | The Conquest Of Gaul | Gaius Julius Caesar | -51 | Roman | Latin | |
| 2026 | Stanzas about the Death of his Father | Jorge Manrique | 1476 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 2030 | On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres | Nicolaus Copernicus | 1543 | Polish | Latin | |
| 2148 | The Book of Songs | China | -600 | Chinese | Classical chinese | |
| 2199 | Trojan Women | Euripides | -415 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 2421 | Phaedrus | Plato | -370 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 2501 | Popol Vuh | Dennis Tedlock | 1985 | Mayan | K'iche' | |
| 2508 | Metaphysics | Aristotle | -347 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 2565 | Poetry | Quintus Lutatius Catulus | -89 | Roman | Latin | |
| 2703 | Natural History | Pliny the Elder | 77 | Roman | Latin | |
| 2779 | Carmina Burana | Unknown | 1230 | Multiple | Latin | |
| 2800 | Collected Plays Of Euripides | Euripides | -405 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 2920 | Discourses Of Epictetus | Epictetus | -108 | Greek | Greek | |
| 3127 | Attis And Other Poems | Catullus | -53 | Roman | Latin | |
| 3255 | The Theogony | Hesiod | -700 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 3275 | The Complete Plays of Jean Racine | Jean Racine | 1677 | French | French | |
| 3295 | Cyropaedia | Xenophon | -370 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 3298 | The Gallic War And Other Writings | Gaius Julius Caesar | -58 | Roman | Latin | |
| 3297 | The Dead Sea Scrolls | Unknown | -150 | Multiple | Hebrew, aramaic, greek | |
| 3299 | The Works Of Philodemus | Philodemus | -50 | Greek | Greek | |
| 3546 | Daphnis and Chloe | Longus | -200 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 3638 | The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain | Han Shan | 600 | Chinese | Classical chinese | |
| 3638 | Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial | Sir Thomas Browne | 1658 | British | English | |
| 3638 | The Tomb Of Tutankhamun | Howard Carter | 1954 | British | English | |
| 3638 | Gods, Graves, And Scholars | C. W. Ceram | 1949 | German | German | |
| 3638 | Report On The Excavations At Troy | Heinrich Schliemann | 1875 | German | German | |
| 3638 | Ich Suchte Adam | Herbert Wendt | 1954 | German | German | |
| 3638 | History Of The Art Of Antiquity | Johann Joachim Winckelmann | 1762 | German | German | |
| 3953 | Odes | Andreas Kalvos | 1824 | Greek | Greek | |
| 4530 | Der Naturen Bloeme | Jacob van Maerlant | 1270 | Dutch | Middle dutch | |
| 4731 | The Making of Homeric Verse | Milman Parry | 1971 | American | English | |
| 4780 | Pharsalia | Lucan | 61 | Roman | Latin | |
| 4898 | The Teachings Of Ptahhotep | Ptahhotep | -2400 | Unknown | Ancient egyptian | |
| 4898 | Enūma Eliš | Unknown | -1100 | Unknown | Akkadian | |
| 4898 | The Poetry Of Enheduanna | Enheduanna | -2300 | Unknown | Sumerian | |
| 5135 | Kebra Nagast | Unknown | 1350 | Multiple | Ge'ez | |
| 5135 | The Eloquent Peasant | Unknown | -1850 | Egyptian | Ancient egyptian | |
| 5823 | Moralia | Plutarch | -100 | Greek | Greek | |
| 5825 | On The Gods | Marcus Tullius Cicero | 45 | Roman | Latin | |
| 5852 | Works | Empedocles | -439 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 5913 | Egyptian Book Of The Dead | Unknown | -1550 | Egyptian | Egyptian (hieroglyphic) | |
| 6097 | The History of Rome | Livy | -27 | Roman | Latin | |
| 6136 | Poems Of Du Fu | Du Fu | 759 | Chinese | Classical chinese | |
| 6245 | Claudius The God | Robert Graves | 1935 | British | English | |
| 6808 | The Queen Of The Damned | Anne Rice | 1988 | American | English | |
| 7022 | Crito | Plato | -389 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 7633 | The Golden Road | William Dalrymple | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 7998 | The Great Transformation | Karen Armstrong | 2006 | British | English | |
| 8026 | The Class Struggle In The Ancient Greek World | G. E. M. de Ste. Croix | 1981 | British | English | |
| 8031 | The Lycian Shore | Freya Stark | 1956 | British | English | |
| 8332 | The Last Days Of Socrates | Plato | -399 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 8640 | Catiline Orations | Marcus Tullius Cicero | -63 | Roman | Latin | |
| 9656 | The Silk Road | Sven Hedin | 2012 | Swedish | Swedish | |
| 9656 | De Architectura | Vitruvius | 2016 | Roman | Latin | |
| 9715 | Laxdæla Saga | Unknown | 1245 | Icelandic | Old norse | |
| 9856 | Meghadūta | Kālidāsa | -400 | Indian | Sanskrit | |
| 9918 | The Greek Commonwealth | Alfred Eckhard Zimmern | 1911 | British | English | |
| 10047 | Poems Of Wang Wei | Wei Wang | 700 | Chinese | Chinese | |
| 11517 | Enchiridion Of Epictetus | Epictetus | 135 | Greek | Greek | |
| 11523 | Memorabilia | Xenophon | -371 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 11524 | On The Crown | Demosthenes | -330 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 11526 | Selected Speeches | Demosthenes, Robin Waterfield | -322 | Greek | Greek | |
| 11535 | Timaeus | Plato | -360 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 13033 | Those Who Are About To Die | Harry Sidebottom | 2025 | British | English | |
| 13094 | Dinner With King Tut | Sam Kean | 2025 | American | English | |
| 13178 | Proto | Laura Spinney | 2025 | British | English | |
| 13359 | History Of Greece | George Grote | 1846 | British | English | |
| 13590 | Papyrus | Irene Vallejo | 2019 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 13702 | Collapse | Jared Diamond | 2005 | American | English | |
| 13711 | The Greek Way | Edith Hamilton | 1930 | American | English | |
| 14110 | Enneads | Plotinus | -270 | Greek | Greek | |
| 14112 | Geography | Ptolemy | 150 | Greek | Greek | |
| 14430 | The Greatness And Decline Of Rome | Guglielmo Ferrero | 1907 | Italian | Italian | |
| 14676 | Men Of The Old Stone Age | Henry Fairfield Osborn | 1915 | American | English | |
| 14722 | Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws | Philo of Alexandria | 50 | Jewish | Greek | |
| 14724 | Catiline's War, The Jugurthine War, Histories | Sallust | -40 | Roman | Latin | |
| 14725 | De Anima | Aristotle | -350 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 14723 | Apocolocyntosis | Seneca | 54 | Roman | Latin | |
| 14751 | On The Ends Of Good And Evil | Marcus Tullius Cicero | 45 | Roman | Latin | |
| 14749 | On Behalf Of Caelius | Cicero | -56 | Roman | Latin | |
| 14761 | The Histories | Polybius | -150 | Greek | Greek | |
| 14769 | The Symposium | Xenophon | 361 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 14787 | The Wonder That Was India | Arthur Llewellyn Basham | 1954 | British | English | |
| 14983 | Imperial Caesar | Rex Warner | 1960 | British | English |