Here is a collection of some of the finest and most important writing of the Roman period. An introduction precedes each selection, identifying the author and providing information that allows modern readers to consider these texts in a new light. What we discover might be surprising. For instance, in Cicero's orations and Marcus Aurelius' meditations, we hear echoes of today's political forums and popular-psychology talk-show hosts.

Virgil's ironic dramatization of the founding myth in the Aeneid prepared the way for America's deeply embedded ambivalence toward the presidency. The Roman preference for practicality over philosophy, leading to a network of superhighways that joined Europe, Asia, Asia Minor, and Africa, literally paved the way for the "global village" of the contemporary world.

From Plautus' wildly comic plays (models for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) to Cato's instructions on farming, and from Catullus' erotic poems to Petronius' descriptions of the decadent splendor of the declining empire, The Classical Roman Reader gives the general reader firsthand access to literary, artistic, social, religious, political, scientific, and philosophical texts that shaped Roman thinking and subsequently helped form the backbone of Western culture.