《古典文学里程碑》是以西方文学从古代到20世纪早期的作家与作品为内容的三卷本系列丛书的*后一本。在本册里,菲利普?盖斯凯尔对古希腊和罗马文学大师们的英译作品进行了介绍。
该书首先介绍了荷马史诗《伊利亚特》和《奥德赛》之前的历史及作品产生的时代,回顾了稍后的抒情诗人,如萨福和品达。接着介绍了希腊古典作品、神奇的艺术以及早期民主的辉煌时代评介了索福克勒斯以及他的剧作家同行、历史学家希罗多德和修西得底斯以及柏拉图引人入胜的苏格拉底对话录。在简要描述了下一个时代,即希腊文化的希腊化时期后——田园诗人忒奥克里托斯的作品属于这个时期——该书紧接着介绍了罗马文学的黄金时代。这部分介绍了生活于共和国晚期和充满了战争与辉煌的动荡不安的罗马帝国早期的诗人和思想家们,其中包括集战士、历史学家和独裁者于一身的尤利乌斯?恺撒,集政治家、律师和作家于一身的西赛罗,诗人维吉尔(《埃涅伊德》的作者)、贺拉斯、奥维德以及罗马*伟大的历史学家塔西佗。
还有一些章节讨论了政治与社会、宗教、文化和艺术、语言、战争、经济、技术及哲学,俾使读者能够理解与欣赏不同背景下的文学。从一开始,该书就对英译古典作品的阅读、古代人名

Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Reading the classics today - the classical canon - the classics in translation - the form
and pronunciation of Greek and Latin names- metre in classical verse - dates - Roman numerals - maps
I The Homeric age
1 The spread of civilisation: the past in the present - from neolithic tribalism to the first cities - the Minoans
2 The Greeks: the Mycenaeans - Dark-Age Greece - the Greek language - the Greek alphabet - Bronze-Age society and culture- Mycenaean religion
3 Homer and epic poetry: the background- the Iliad - the Odyssey - Hesiod
II Greece in the fifth century BC From Archaic to early-Classical Greece: Athens - Sparta - the Persian Wars - women,resident foreigners, and slaves - colonisation
5 Religion, the arts, education, and books: religious beliefs and practices - architecture - painting - sculpture - music - education, literacy, and books
6 Lyric poetry: Pindar and his predecessors: the lyric - Sappho and Anacreon - Pindar
7 Sophocles and Athenian drama: tragedy - the three tragedians - Aeschylus - Sophocles - Euripides - Aristophanes and comedy
8 Herodotus and Greek history: Greek historians- Herodotus and the Persian Wars - Thucydides
and the Peloponnesian War - Xenophon and the Persian Expedition
9 Plato and philosophy: the pre-Socratics - Socrates - Plato - Aristotle Interchapter: the Hellenistic age Alexander's empire and its successors- language and society - the visual arts - literature - history - philosophy and science - scholarship and libraries
III Late-Republican and early-Imperial Rome
10 The expansion of Rome: from city-state to superstate - the Latin languag- Roman names
11 Republic and Empire: conquest abroad, strife at home - politics and society - religion
12 Maintaining the state: economics and technology - the Roman army
13 The arts: painting, sculpture, and architecture - drama: Plautus, Terence, Seneca -education,books, and libraries
14 Cicero: rhetoric and philosophy - the legacy of Greece: rhetoric, philosophy - Cicero - Seneca
15 Virgil: from pastoral to epic - Theocritus and pastoral poetry - Virgil - the Eclogues -
the Georgics - the Aeneid - Virgil's reputation and influence
16 Horace: epigram, lyric, and satire - Catullus- Horace - Juvenal
17 Ovid: love poetry and the novel - Ovid - the novel - Longus - Petronius - Apuleius
18 Tacitus and Roman history: Roman historians- Caesar and the Gallic War - SaUust - Livy - Tacitus - Plutarch - Suetonius Afterword
Appendix: Classical studies
The survival of ancient texts - the transmission of texts - textual scholarship - history and archaeology
Reference bibliography
Index and guide to pronunciation