Plautus and Terence, in the second and third century BC, create a Roman drama based on Greek originals

The Roman statesman Cato the Elder writes Origines ('Origins'), a history of Rome which survives only in fragments

Sima Qian undertakes (and carries through against unusual odds) a major survey of Chinese history

Cicero, whose speeches become models of oratory, makes his first appearance in a Roman court

In his winter quarters Julius Caesar writes The Gallic War, an account of his own achievements in suppressing the Gauls

Virgil's reputation is established by his ten Eclogues, influenced by the Italian countryside in the region of his birth near Mantua

Maecenas buys a farm for Horace, in the Sabine hills near Tivoli - the most fruitful of his many acts of patronage

Livy begins writing and publishing his History of Rome, a task which will occupy him for forty years

The first three books of Horace's Odes are published, written on his Sabine farm

The excellence of the arts, particularly literature, during the reign of Augustus Caesar causes it to be remembered as a golden age of culture

A collection of witty love poems, entitled Amores, brings Ovid an early success

Virgil dies just after completing the Aeneid, and imperial command from Augustus Caesar prevents his executor from destroying the epic

Josephus is in Jerusalem at the start of the rebellion against the Romans, and will later describe its suppression in his Jewish War

Tacitus begins his career with two specialized but influential works of history, one on Britain and the other on Germany

Suetonius, librarian to Trajan and personal secretary to Hadrian, is well placed to research his racy Lives of the Caesars

Marcus Aurelius is rare among emperors in writing twelve books of philosophical Meditations

Plotinus, moving from Alexandria to Rome, teaches the influential philosophy later known as Neo-Platonism

Kalidasa, the most distinguished of India's authors in classical Sanskrit, is at the Gupta court in Patna

Prompted by the fall of Rome to the Visigoths, St Augustine undertakes a great work of Christian philosophy, the City of God

Dionysius Exiguus, commissioned by the pope to improve chronology, makes an error of at least four years in his selected event for AD 1

Boethius, in prison in Pavia and awaiting execution, writes the Consolation of Philosophy

Justinian closes down the schools of Athens, famous for their tradition of pagan philosophy

Gregory, bishop of Tours, brings his 'History of the Franks' up to this year

The classic form of Arabic poetry, predating Islam, evolves as the qasidah

Three of China's most famous poets - Wang Wei, Li Po and Tu Fu - are contemporaries during the T'ang dynasty