Books I have read till now which could be said to meet the expectations I set above:
1. Iliad and The Odyssey
2. The Epic of Gilgamesh
3. The Aeneid
4. Bhagavad Gita
5. History of the Peloponnesian War
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Books which could definitely be considered Epics but not enough time has passed for them to reach that revered stratosphere of national epics. (NOT LOOKING FOR THESE)
1. War and Peace
2. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edward Gibbons
3. The Second World War. Winston Churchill
4. Wolf Hall
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I have narrowed it down to 4 choices
Before you say Beowulf I say to you "ROPE AND COPE"
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!bookworms need help with finding Japanese/Chinese/Korean Ancient epics. Suggestions?
I'm seeing there's a trend that most of the greatest historical epics stretch from Mediterranean to present day Afghanistan and North West India. The same region which was said to be the land of the Aryans. !nooticers
!bharatiya should have consulted you guys before doing this but I just express ordered the Vivek DevRoy translation (I would trust an Indian translator more than a non Indian one) but I don't know if there are better ones. Do you think it's a good enough translation?
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I dont think
ovid metamorpheases counts ij yoyr criteria. Its a classic 
but its not a national 
origin story 
like the homerics or the aeneid.
Also if you are gonna
read Thucydides then read Herodotus Histories before 
hand. The order is Histories (Persian war), the history 
of the Peloponnesian, and then the hellenica by Xenophon (this covers the rest of the Peloponnesian war and picks up exactly where 
Thucydides left off). Thucydides died before 
he finished 
his book and Xenophon was continuing right 
from his notes 
for the first 
few books. My ancient 
greek 
culture prof who could read ancient 
greek 
said the style of xenophon is the exact same as Thucydides for the first 
few books.
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Herodotus's Histories I have read
Xenophon i haven't read
Then jump to Roman history, I haven't read Livy Tacitus or Arrian
Then Plutarch's Parallel Lives I have read
I have Cicero's Orations but I haven't read it, seems more of a philosophical read.
Same with Seneca and Epictetus although I have read them because I was really into stoicism for a while
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