The Consolation of Philosophy (Penguin Classics)

An eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, Boethius was also an exceptional Greek scholar, and it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned when he fell from favor and was imprisoned in Pavia. Written in the period leading up to his brutal execution, The Consolation of Philosophy is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his "nurse," Philosophy, whose instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restore his health and bring him to enlightenment.