As Euclid’s Geometry begins with definitions, axioms, and postulates that found all that comes after, so this course is foundational for the rest of Latin study. The seven parts of speech are distinguished, their endings are learned by heart, their grammar is understood and is expressed in sentence diagrams. Nouns and verbs get the most attention, with pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs relating to them. But prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections are short and spare. This first semester course is for students who have little or no rigorous knowledge of Latin.

This course is a continuation of LA3051 Latin Elements I and is necessary for a solid foundation for any further Latin study.

This course is a rigorous transition to the study of original ancient Latin literature, which contains much complex grammar and basic vocabulary, and so demands rigorous training. Infinitives, participles, gerunds, gerundives, ablative absolutes, deponents, locatives, subjunctives—the forms, various uses, their translations, the ways in which each is diagrammed—present daily challenges, that, once overcome, bring the student to a new level of understanding, perception, and appreciation of literature.

This upper-level course is first of all a study of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, book I, 1-29, in which Caesar tells how he prevents the Helvetians and several other tribes from migrating to southern Gaul and how he has his army kill 258,000 of them. The simple grammar in the book's beginning becomes more complex as the fighting increases; rhetorical devices of style are evident. This true story of human suffering arouses compassion and fear, as Aristotle said tragic accounts must do in educating and transforming their audience, and comparison is made with current events. This course ends with a study of parts of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, book 4, 1-33, in which Caesar states that his lack of knowledge about Britannia spurs him to invade its coast, though it turns out afterwards that, as he wrote about himself, “This one thing was lacking to his pristine fortune."

This upper-level course is part one of studies of Sallust’s history and Cicero’s orations on the conspiracy of Catiline, when a local uprising in Rome was stifled but led to a war outside of Rome. Sallust’s original and concise style is marked with antique flavor, while Cicero’s speeches flourish in both rhetorical and poetic devices of style. Cicero, a novus homo or man who had no aristocratic ancestors, was consul at the time of this emergency in Rome, and his duplicity is analyzed by later critics. Yet both Sallust and Cicero came to be standard authors studied in schools for subsequent centuries, for both their historical and their literary content. LA4651 and LA4652 may each be taken independently of the other.

This upper-level course is part two of studies of Sallust’s history and Cicero’s orations on the conspiracy of Catiline, when a local uprising in Rome was stifled but led to a war outside of Rome. Sallust’s original and concise style is marked with antique flavor, while Cicero’s speeches flourish in both rhetorical and poetic devices of style. Cicero, a novus homo or man who had no aristocratic ancestors, was consul at the time of this emergency in Rome, and his duplicity is analyzed by later critics. Yet both Sallust and Cicero came to be standard authors studied in schools for subsequent centuries, for both their historical and their literary content. LA4651 and LA4652 may each be taken independently of the other.

This upper-level course is part one of studies of selections from Ovid’s Amores, poems of love and war, and his Metamorphoses, ancient tales made into poetic stories, including Apollo and Daphne, Pyramus and Thisbe, Orpheus and Eurydice, Daedalus and Icarus, Baucis and Philemon, Atalanta and Hippomenes, Narcissus and Echo, Pentheus and Bacchus. Ovid’s artistic genius and psychological insight made him a fruitful source for artists, playwrights, musicians, poets, and story tellers for the subsequent two millennia. We note connections to Ovid in current culture, especially in two films. LA4661 and LA4662 may each be taken independently of the other.

This upper-level course is part two of studies of selections from Ovid’s Amores, poems of love and war, and his Metamorphoses, ancient tales made into poetic stories, including Apollo and Daphne, Pyramus and Thisbe, Orpheus and Eurydice, Daedalus and Icarus, Baucis and Philemon, Atalanta and Hippomenes, Narcissus and Echo, Pentheus and Bacchus. Ovid’s artistic genius and psychological insight made him a fruitful source for artists, playwrights, musicians, poets, and story tellers for the subsequent two millennia. We note connections to Ovid in current culture, especially in two films. LA4661 and LA4662 may each be taken independently of the other.