Source books
Books
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18 books of 336 · oldest first
Greek and Roman mysteries 18
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fifth century BCE
On Nature
A cosmological poem explaining the four roots, cosmic cycles, perception and natural phenomena.
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fifth century BCE
Purifications
Traditionally treated as a separate religious poem on reincarnation, pollution, divine exile and purification. Scholars debate whether it and On Nature originally belonged to...
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2nd century
The Golden Ass
Ancient Roman novel by Apuleius
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c. 175–180 CE
The True Doctrine
Celsus's anti-Christian treatise survives through Origen's third-century refutation. Book VI preserves a report of a seven-gated Mithraic ladder whose gates are assigned both...
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c. 211–229 CE
Roman History
Cassius Dio's history includes an early explanation of the seven-day planetary week and the planetary-hour order used to derive it.
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late third century
Life of Pythagoras
A religious-philosophical biography that helped turn Pythagoras into an archetypal sacred philosopher.
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early fourth century
On the Pythagorean Life
Transforms Pythagoras into an exemplary initiatory philosopher, and preserves a great deal of Pythagorean tradition.
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1890
The Golden Bough
1890 non-fiction work by James George Frazer
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1891
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1903
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1911
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1912
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undated
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undated
The Golden Verses
literary work
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undated
The Life of Apollonius of Tyana
work by Philostratus
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undated
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undated
The Orphic Hymns
collection of 87 short religious poems composed in either the late Hellenistic or early Roman era
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undated
The Sibylline Oracles
collection of oracular utterances in Greek hexameter, containing Hellenistic/Roman mythology with Jewish, Gnostic and Christian stories