Latin
(For descriptions of majors and minors, see Classics.)
Courses
101. Elementary Latin
A two-semester course that covers the essential grammar of classical Latin and introduces students to the reading of simple Latin prose. Resources in the audio lab and the computer lab will assist students in proper pronunciation and in drill and review.
(Keeley C. Schell)
150. Review of Latin
A one-semester review of Latin forms and syntax for students who have had some high-school Latin but not enough to be ready for intermediate-level, author-based courses; this course is designed to prepare students for Intermediate Latin in the spring. Offered every fall; students must first take the Department's placement test.
(Joel C. Relihan)
Intermediate courses
The following 200-level courses are open to students who have successfully completed Latin 101; students who have previously studied Latin must take the department's placement test. These courses do not form sequences. Each course combines grammatical study and review with practice in close reading and textual analysis. Students will learn how to study and do research in specific disciplines in both primary and secondary materials. Readings in the original are supplemented by readings in English; critical writing in English is stressed. These courses will frequently be offered as connections courses.
211/311. From Romulus to Rome
The legendary history of Rome. Selections from the Roman historians, primarily Livy; the relationship between myth and history in the Romans' view of their origins.
213/313. Latin Epistolography
The study of Roman letters and the development of the edited collection of letters as a Roman literary genre. Readings will be from Cicero, Fronto, Pliny and Augustine.
(Keeley C. Schell)
215/315. The Crisis of the Roman Republic
Social, political and military factors leading to the crisis of the end of the Roman Republic. Readings will be from Caesar, Sallust, Cicero and Velleius Paterculus.
217/317. Roman Satire
The origins and development of Roman prose and verse satire. Texts will include Horace's Satires, Petronius's Satyricon and Seneca's Apocolocyntosis.
(Joel C. Relihan)
222/322. Roman Comedy
Selections from Plautus and Terence and a consideration of the origins and development of comic drama in the ancient world.
224/324. Poetry in Motion: Didactic Poetry and Roman Science
An introduction to classical poetry through the study of the poetics of observational astronomy. Selections from Vergil's Georgics, Manilius's Astronomica and other lyric and epic poets who describe the constellations and the Zodiac.
(Joel C. Relihan)
226/326. Eros and Erato: Love Poetry in the Roman World
The study of the conventions of love and of poetry. Selections from the lyric Horace and Catullus and the elegiac Ovid; love poetry from late antiquity and the Latin Middle Ages will also be read.
228/328. Epics and Heroes
Selections primarily from Vergil's Aeneid. Heroic and anti-heroic conventions in Ovid's Metamorphoses and in the Silver Latin epic will also be addressed.
Advanced courses
The department's 300-level courses concentrate exclusively on the improvement of Latin language skills. Students in the 300-level versions of the above intermediate courses read the Latin texts covered in the courses with which they meet and other, related texts. Latin and Classics majors are strongly urged to take 351 and 352 in sequence.