If you enjoyed The Odyssey, try some of these other classics:
Aeschylus - Agamemnon - This tale depicts the assassination of the title character by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover. Agamemnon is returning from his victory at Troy, which has been besieged for ten years by Greek armies attempting to recover Helen, Agamemnon's brother's wife, who was stolen by the treacherous Trojan Prince, Paris. The tragedies of the play occur as a result of the crimes committed by Agamemnon's family who cannot escape the cursed cycle of bloodshed propagated by its past.
The Epic of Gilgamesh - Many hundreds of years before Homer wrote his Iliad and Odyssey, and before the Old Testament scriptures were written, poets and scribes in ancient Mesopotamia were composing and transcribing different retellings of a still-more-ancient story, The Epic of Gilgamesh. This story of Gilgamesh’s struggle with himself--of a lonely king in the dawning years of civilization learning how to conduct himself as a man in society, limited by mortality and responsibility--is possibly the world's first literary masterpiece. Gilgamesh speaks to enduring themes, among them fate, responsibility, maturation, and friendship, that continue to be relevant today.
Homer - The Iliad - The epic story of the ten-year Trojan War between the Greeks (or Achaeans) and the Trojans. The war is caused by the irresponsible action of Paris, who is called upon to judge a beauty contest between the goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena. All three of the goddesses offer bribes in order to tilt Paris' decision in their favor, but Paris declares the winner to be Aphrodite, who has promised him the hand of the beautiful Helen. Helen is the wife of Menelaus, an Achaean chieftain, and the Achaean expedition to recover her escalates into a full-fledged war against the city of Troy. The heroic rage of Achilles, the impact of women on society, and the futility of war are featured in this epic.
Vergil - The Aeneid - Vergil's Aeneas is a paragon of Roman virtues--familial devotion, loyalty to the state, and piety. The Aeneid follows Aeneas from Troy’s fall through his affair with the Carthaginian queen, Dido, to the founding of the Roman state. Left unfinished at Vergil’s death, The Aeneid was to be destroyed but was published posthumously by Augustus.
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