The begins with the History Of Writing , in Bronze Age Mesopotamia , although the oldest literary texts that have come down to us date to a full millennium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd Millennium BC . The earliest literary author known by name is Enheduanna , a moon priestess to whom are attributed 42 hymns in Sumerian dating to ca. the 23rd Century BC .
Texts handed down by Oral Tradition may predate their fixation in written form by several centuries, or, in extreme cases, even millennia. Classical Antiquity is usually considered to begin with Homer , in the 8th Century BC . Many older literary texts are known, but often difficult to date. This includes the texts in the Hebrew Bible , the Pentateuch being traditionally dated to the 15th century BC, while modern scholarship puts it to the 10th century BC at the very earliest.
A very early example is the so called '' Egyptian Book Of The Dead '' which was eventually written down in the '' Papyrus Of Ani '' in approximately 250 BC but probably dates from about the 18th Century BC .
There are various different possible answers to the question ''"Which was the first Novel ever written?"'' (See '' Candidates For The First Novel '').
- 8th Century BC :
- --- The '' Iliad '' by Homer ( Greek Mythology )
- ---The '' Odyssey '' by Homer ( Greek Mythology )
- ---The '' Theogony '' by Hesiod
- 6th Century BC
- --- Psalms
- --- Book Of Daniel
- --- Book Of Ezekiel
- 5th Century BC :
- ---The Ode s of Pindar
- ---'' The Histories Of Herodotus '' by Herodotus
- ---'' History Of The Peloponnesian War '' by Thucydides
- ---'' The Suppliants '', '' The Persians '', '' Seven Against Thebes '', '' Oresteia '' by Aeschylus
- --- '' Oedipus The King '', '' Oedipus At Colonus '', '' Antigone '', '' Electra '' by Sophocles
- --- '' Alcestis '', '' Medea '', '' Heracleidae '', '' Hippolytus '', '' Andromache '', '' Hecuba '', '' The Suppliants '', '' Electra '', '' Heracles '', '' Trojan Women '', '' Iphigeneia In Tauris '', '' Ion '', '' Helen '', '' Phoenician Women '', '' Orestes '', '' Bacchae '', '' Iphigeneia At Aulis '', '' Cyclops '', '' Rhesus '' by Euripides
- --- '' The Acharnians '', '' The Knights '', '' The Clouds '', '' The Wasps '', '' Peace '', '' The Birds '', '' Lysistrata '', '' Thesmophoriazusae '', '' The Frogs '', '' Ecclesiazousae '', '' Plutus '' by Aristophanes
- ---The '' Five Classics '' ('' Classic Of Poetry '', '' Classic Of History '', '' Book Of Changes '', '' Classic Of Rites '', and '' Annals Of Spring And Autumn '', traditionally by Confucius )
- 4th Century BC :
- ---'' Anabasis '', '' Cyropaedia '' by Xenophon
- ---'' Nicomachean Ethics '', '' Metaphysics '' by Aristotle
- ---'' Euthyphro '', '' Apology '', '' Crito '', '' Theaetetus '', '' Parmenides '', '' Symposium '', '' Phaedrus '', '' Protagoras '', '' Gorgias '', '' Meno '', '' Menexenus '', '' Republic '', '' Timaeus '' by Plato
- ---'' Elements '' by Euclid
- --- Book Of Job
- 3rd Century BC :
- ---'' Liber Linteus ''
- 2nd Century BC :
- ---'' Poenulus '', '' Miles Gloriosus '' by Plautus
- ---'' Records Of The Grand Historian '' by Sima Qian
- 1st Century BC :
- ---'' Catiline Orations '', '' Pro Caelio '', '' Dream Of Scipio '' by Cicero
- ---'' Gallic Wars '' by Julius Caesar
- ---'' Eclogues '', '' Georgics '' and '' Aeneid '' by Virgil
- ---'' On The Nature Of Things '' by Lucretius
- 1st Century :
- ---The books of the New Testament
- ---'' Germania '' by Tacitus
- ---'' Lives Of The Noble Greeks And Romans '' by Plutarch
- ---'' Metamorphoses '' by Ovid
- ---'' Natural History '' by Pliny The Elder
- ---'' Satyricon '' by Petronius Arbiter
- ---'' Jewish War '', '' Jewish Antiquities '', '' Against Apion '' by Josephus
- ---'' Book Of Han '' by Ban Gu
- 2nd Century :
- ---'' Anabasis Alexandri '' by Arrian
- ---'' Almagest '' by Ptolemy
- ---'' Deipnosophistae '' by Athenaeus
- ---'' Enchiridion '' by Epictetus
- ---'' The Golden Ass '' by Apuleius
- ---'' Liber Memorialis '' by Lucius Ampelius
- ---''Description of Greece'' by Pausanias
- ---''Lives of the Twelve Caesars'' by Suetonius
- 3rd Century :
- ---'' De Re Coquinaria '' by Apicius
- ---'' Enneads '' by Plotinus
- ---'' Pervigilium Veneris ''
- ---'' Chronicle Of The Three Kingdoms '' by Chen Shou
- --- Distichs Of Cato
- 4th Century :
- ---'' De Re Militari '' by Flavius Vegetius Renatus
- ---'' Confessions by Augustine Of Hippo
- 5th Century :
- ---'' The City Of God '' by Augustine Of Hippo
- ---'' Vulgate '' of St. Jerome
- ---'' Psychomachia '' by Prudentius
- ---'' Hou Hanshu '' compiled by Fan Yeh
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