The End of a Wild Party
In a futile attempt to forget Cynthia, Propertius hires two prostitutes and has a party while Cynthia is away from Rome. Cum fieret nostro totiens iniuria lecto, mutato volui castra movere toro. Phyllis Aventinae quaedam est vicina Dianae, sobria grata parum cum bibit, omne decet. 30 altera Tarpeios est inter Teia lucos, candida, sed potae non satis unus erit. his ego constitu noctem lenire vocatis, et Venere ignota furta novare mea. text Propertius Elegies, ed. G. P. Goold (Loeb Classical...
The Favor of the Muse
Horaces early attempts at establishing himself as a lyric poet did not meet with universal approval, but in the latter part of his life, he came to be recognized as the leading exponent of the genre in Rome, as he testifies in the following ode. Quem tu, Melpomene, semel nascentem placido lumine videris, ilium non labor Isthmius clarabit pugilem, non equus impiger ornatum foliis ducem, quod regum tumidas contuderit minas, text Q. Horati Flacci Opera, ed. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Bibliotheca...
Word Order
Because poets were restricted by considerations of meter and rhythm, word order in Latin verse was much freer than in prose. The most striking differences are the following. ' Adjectives and the nouns with which they agree are sometimes sep-J arated to an extent that would be unusual in prose. Talibus Aeneas ardentem et torva tuentem lenlbat dictis animum. Vergil Aeneid 6.467f. With such words Aeneas tried to soothe her burning anger and grim looks. ' Adverbs in prose are usually placed...
Hie Golden
How well people used to live when Saturn was king, before the earth was cleared into long roads. A ship of pine had not yet scorned the blue waves and exposed its billowing sail to the winds, nor had a roving sailor, taking back profits from unknown lands, weighed down his ship with foreign merchandise. At that time, a strong bull did not go under (i.e., submit to) the yoke, a horse did not take a bit in its teeth with subdued mouth, no house had doors, a stone was not planted on land (lit,, in...
Hie Favor of the Muse
The one whom you, Melpomene, have once looked upon with a kindly eye at his birth (lit., being born), toil in the Isthmian games will not make him famous as a boxer, nor will a swift horse bring him in as winner with a Greek chariot, nor will the business of war display him to the Capitol as a leader decorated with Delian leaves because he has crushed the haughty threats of kings but the waters that flow past the fertile Tibur and the dense leaves of forests will make him famous in Aeolian...
Hie Dream of Ilia
And with trembling limbs, the old woman quickly brought a torch. Then she (Ilia), crying and frightened out of sleep, spoke thus, Daughter (lit., born) of Eurydica, whom our father loved, strength and life now abandon my whole body. For a handsome man seemed to carry me off through pleasant willow groves and river banks and strange places. And thus afterwards, sister of mine (lit., full sister), I seemed to wander alone and slowly search and look for you but not be able to grasp you in my...
Verse Epitaphs
A Lucius Cornelius Scipio, son of Gnaeus, grandson of Gnaeus. This tombstone holds great wisdom and many virtues with a short life. This man , whose life, not his own probity, ran short for gaining public office (lit., ran short with respect to public office), and who was never surpassed in virtue, is buried here. Twenty years of age (lit., born twenty years), he has been entrusted to the places (i.e., the Underworld). Do not ask why he was not entrusted with public office. b Stranger, what I...
Some Odd Characters
A Gellius is always building now he is laying thresholds, now he is fitting keys to doors and buying bars, now he is remodelling and changing these windows, now those. Provided only that he is building, that man does anything so that when a friend asks for money (lit., to a friend asking for money), he, Gellius, can say that single word, I'm building. b Bleary-eyed Hylas recently was willing to pay you three quarters of his debt , Quintus now that he is one-eyed, he is willing to give you half....
Seize the
T orace addresses many women in his odes, but whether they really existed outside his imagination we have no way of knowing. In the following clever seduction poem, which plays on the well-worn theme of life's shortness, he suggests to Leuconoe, who, like his other lovers, has a Greek name, that she should not postpone enjoying life, presumably under Horace's guidance. Among the many echoes of this poem in modern literature, perhaps the most famous is that of the sixteenth-century French poet...
Social Climber
Two differences between the spoken Latin of the lower classes in Rome and that of the educated were the former's disregard of an initial h (e.g., ortus for hortus) and the pronunciation of aspirated consonants as simple ones (e.g., triumpus or triumphus). Uneducated people who rose socially would naturally try to change their speech habits, but they were apt to overcorrect and apply an initial h where it had no place or wrongly aspirate a consonant. Such a person was Catullus' Arrius, who has...
Plural for Singular Singular for Plural
A common feature of Latin verse is the use of the plural form of a noun instead of the singular, with no difference in meaning. Iacuit languida d sertts Cn sia l toribus. Propertius Elegies 1.3.if. The Cnossian woman lay exhausted on the abandoned shore. Rumpit silentia voce Pyrrha prior. Ovid Metamorphoses i.384f. Pyrrha first broke the silence with her voice. Postis cardine vellit. Vergil Aeneid 2.480 He wrenched the rails from their hinge pins. Omnis et ins n s mita voce sonat. Propertius...
Hie Lessons of Homer
One of Horaces Epistuiae is a letter addressed to a young friend, Lollius Maximus, who was studying rhetoric in Rome. Horace tells how he is once again reading Homer, who in his opinion is a surer guide for correct conduct than any of the moral philosophers. Troiani belli scriptorem, Maxime Lolli, dum tu declamas Romae, Praeneste relegi qui, quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, planius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit. cur ita crediderim, nisi quid te distinet, audi, 5...
McGraw Hill
New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beginning Latin poetry reader compiled by Gavin Betts, Daniel Franklin. p. cm. ISBN 0-07-145885-9 English and Latin. 1. Latin language Readers Poetry. Copyright 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of...
Italy
Jlgriculture is the subject of Vergil's Georgics, the second of whose four books is concerned with trees and shrubs. In his discussion of varieties from different parts of the then-known world, Vergil mentions the citron tree of Media, noted for its medicinal properties. This prompts him to digress on the superiority of Italy over Media and all other lands its climate and fertility, coupled with the absence of dangerous animals, suggest to the reader that the land still possessed something of...
The Capture of a Royal Palace
In front of the entrance hall itself and on the edge of the threshold, Pyrrhus swaggered, shining with the bronze gleam of his weapons just as when a snake, which, in a swollen state (lit,, swollen), the cold winter covered below the earth, having eaten harmful plants, now fresh after shedding its skin and shining with youth, raises its breast and rolls its slippery back toward the light, rearing up to the sun, and flashes with a three-forked tongue from its mouth. Together with Pyrrhtls , huge...
LLlOUMVlIVAMLlfiimiSlACIAlVSflALlO
ARMA VIRVMQVE CANO TROIAE QVI PRIMVS AB ORIS ITALIAM FATO PROFVGVS LAVINIAQVE VENIT LITORA MVLTVM ILLE ET TERRIS IACTATVS ET ALTO It is little wonder that ancient readers always read aloud. The act of articulation would have helped them recognize the divisions (words, clauses, and sentences) that had to be made before a text could be understood. The upper limit of what could be put on one roll was about 18,000 words (40 or so pages like this one) a longer roll would have been too cumbersome to...
An Insolent Slave
Like Plautus, Publius Terentius Afer (c. 195-159 b.c.), known in English as Terence, wrote comedies based on Greek originals but in a way that more faithfully reflected their spirit. His quieter humor is seen in the following selection, where a father (Simo), who has chosen a wife for his son, warns an insolent and cheeky slave (Davos) not to interfere in the arrangements he has made. da. Id populus curat scilicet. 185 iniqui patris est nam quod antehac fecit nil ad me attinet. dum tempus ad...
Hie Happy Peasant
Happy is he who has spent his life in ancestral fields, whom the very same house sees as a boy and sees as an old man, who, leaning on his staff on the sand on which he crawled as a child , counts the long generations of a single humble dwelling (lit., cottage). Fortune has not dragged him off with unstable turmoil, nor has he drunk unfamiliar waters as a resdess stranger. He has not trembled at seas as a merchant, he has not trembled at trumpet calls as a soldier, nor has he endured the...
Hie New Eroticism
From Quintus Lut tius Catulus (pronounced C tulus) (c. 150-87 b.c.), an aristocrat who was both a politician and a general, we have two poems that represent a new trend in Latin literature. Roman poets of this time looked for models to contemporary fashions in Greek poetry, which had begun a century and a half earlier with Callimachus and his contemporaries. One popular genre was the erotic epigram, as exemplified here. a Aufugit mi animus credo, ut solet, ad Hieotimum devenit. sic est,...
Pyramus and Thisbe
Pyramus and Thisbe the one the most handsome of young men, the other esteemed (lit., preferred) above the girls whom the East held lived in adjoining houses where Semiramis is said to have enclosed her lofty city with baked (i.e., brick) walls. Proximity brought about (lit, made) the first steps in their acquaintance in time, their love grew. They would have also been joined by right of marriage, but their fathers forbade it . They both however equally burned with hearts overcome, which (i.e.,...
Mythology
For the Greeks, myths were originally stories that had been passed down by word of mouth because they were regarded as having a particular significance, often of a religious or ritual nature. Many involved divinities and illustrated popular conceptions of their character. Others told of human adventures, and of bizarre situations in which men and women became entangled. Sometimes myths reflected real events, such as the capture of Troy, but with such changes that make it impossible to sort...
Pep Talk
Ualerius Flaccus was one of the many poets of the Silver Age who retold stories from Greek mythology. The only evidence for when he lived is a reference he makes to the eruption of Vesuvius in a.d. 79. His epic poem, the Argonautica, tells how fason sailed from Greece with a band of warriors to regain the Golden Fleece, which was in the possession of Aeetes, king of Colchis, on the east coast of the Black Sea. Valerius owed much to the Greek poet Apollonius Rhodius (fl. 250 b.c.), whose epic of...
Lores Miseries
Propertius Elegies 1.1.1-8,17-24,31-38 Cynthia first captured me, unhappy wretch (lit, miserable me), previously smitten by no desires, with her eyes. Then Love cast down my eyes in their resolute pride (lit, of resolute pride) and put his feet on my head and trampled it (lit, pressed my head with his feet having been put on it ), until the villain taught me to hate unresponsive (lit, chaste) girls and to live recklessly (lit., with no plan). Alas for me Now this madness has not abated over an...
Live How We Can Yet Die We Must
Alas the fleeting years, Postumus, Postumus, slip by, and piety will not bring a delay to wrinkles and impending old age and invincible death, not even if, my friend, you were to placate with three hundred bulls for each day that passes the pitiless Pluto, who confines three-bodied (lit., thrice huge) Geryones and Tityos with the gloomy water that must certainly be crossed by all of us who feed on earth's gift, whether we are (lit., will be) kings or poor farmers. In vain will we avoid bloody...
Hie Horse and the Wild Boar
Gaius Iulius Phaedrus (c. 15 b.c.-c. a.d. 50), afreedman of Augustus, wrote fables derived from Aesop and other Greek sources. He presents somewhat banal material in an elegant and concise style. Equus sedare solitus quo fuerat sitim, dum sese aper volutat turbavit vadum. hinc orta lis est. sonipes iratus fero auxilium petiit hominis, quem dorso levans rediit ad hostem laetus. hunc telis eques 5 postquam interfecit, sic locutus traditur Laetor tulisse auxilium me precibus tuis, nam praedam cepi...
Time Line Of Latin Literature
The names of authors included in the selections are in boldface. The exact date of birth and death of many authors is uncertain in some cases, an approximate year is given, but for others, only the time of writing can be given (indicated by_fL, i.e., floruit (flourished)). Livius Andronicus (ft. 240-207 B.C.) epic, drama Naevius (JL 235-204 B.C.) epic, drama epic, drama, didactic, satire Plautus (fl. 220-184 B.C.) cotfiedy t Terence (c. 195-159 B.c ) comeciy Cato (234-149 B.C.) speeches,...
Hie Necessity of Writing Satire
Will I always be only a listener Will I never retaliate after being harassed so often by the Theseid of hoarse Cordus So, then with impunity will that person have recited comedies to me, this person elegies Will a huge poem about Telephus have taken up a day with impunity, or a poem about Orestes, which, after the margin at the end of the book was already full, was written also on the back and is not yet finished (lit., Orestes, the margin of the end of the book being already full, written also...
The Emptiness of Military Glory
The spoils of wars, a breastplate fastened to lopped-off trophies and a cheek-piece hanging from a broken helmet and a yoke stripped of its pole and the sternpost of a captured trireme and a sad captive on the top of a triumphal arch are believed to be glories greater than human (lit., greater than human glories). To this have Roman and Greek and foreign general aspired, and from this they had incentives for enduring danger and toil so much greater is the thirst for fame than that for virtue....
An Adventurous Woman
Eppia, married to a senator, accompanied a gladiatorial troupe to Pharos and the Nile and the infamous walls of Lagus, with even Canopus condemning the monstrosities and morals of the city (i.e., Rome). She, forgetful of her home and her husband and sister, had no regard at all for her country, and shamefully abandoned her weeping children and, to amaze you more, the public games and Paris (a popular mime in Rome). But although as a tiny child , she had slept amid great wealth and on her...
Stoicism Embraced
Stoicism was developed in Greece from the end of the fourth century b.c. While the philosophical doctrine encompassed intellectual fields such as logic and physics, it was the ethical teaching of Stoicism that had the most appeal in Rome, where its influence continued to grow under the Empire. Central to the Stoic position was fate, which was identified with Jupiter. Everything in our lives is predestined, and a good Stoic accepted this with good grace. This attitude is aptly described in a...
An Invitation to Dinner
You will dine well, my Fabullus, at my house within a few days if the gods are favorable to you, if you bring with you a good and large dinner, not forgetting (lit., not without) a pretty girl and wine and wit and all manner of laughter. If, I say, you bring these things, my charming friend , you will dine well, for the purse of your Catullus is full of cobwebs. But in return you will receive pure affection or if there is anything more pleasant or graceful for I will give you an unguent that...
Hie Effect of Love
That man seems to me to be equal to a god, that man, if it is right to say so , seems to me to surpass the gods, who, sitting opposite (i.e., facing you ), looks at you continually and hears you laughing sweetly, something that snatches every sense (lit., all senses) from wretched me for as soon as I have looked at you, Lesbia, no voice remains in my mouth (lit., for me in the mouth), but my tongue is paralyzed, a subtle flame runs down into my limbs, my ears ring with their own sound, my eyes...
Pleasant Retirement
While you perhaps are restlessly wandering in noisy Subura, Juvenal, or you are treading the hill of mistress Diana, while your sweaty toga fans you across the thresholds of the more powerful, and the greater and lesser peaks of the Cae-lian Hill weary you as you wander (lit., wandering), my Bilbilis, proud with its gold and iron, which I have returned to after many Decembers, has received me and made me a rustic. Here with pleasant toil, I idly visit Boterdum and Platea these are rather...
Hie Vigil of Venus
Let him who has never loved love tomorrow, and let him who has loved love tomorrow Spring is new, spring is now full of song, the world has been born in spring. In spring love brings hearts together, in spring the birds mate and the forest releases its foliage (i.e., the trees leaf out) because of the connubial rains. Tomorrow she who unites lovers weaves green arbors from myrtle shoots amid the shades of trees. Tomorrow Dione (i.e., Venus) delivers (lit., says) her judgments, seated on her...
Forma Urbis Romae
The Severan Marble Plan of the City of Rome was created between a,d. 203 and 211. Carved on 150 slabs of marble and measuring 60 feet wide by 43 feet high, the map was mounted on a wall in the Temple of Peace (No. 5 on the map opposite). The map shows amazing detail, from monuments and aqueducts to small shops and stairwells. Southeast was placed at the top of Roman urban maps. About 10 percent of the map survives, in 1,186 pieces. Shown here are the pieces that remain of the area of the Circus...
Love and Rejection
Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84-c. 54 b.c.) was born at Verona in northern Italy and, as a young man, came to Rome. His private means were apparently sufficient to allow him to enjoy the pleasures of city life and to follow his literary interests. As a poet, he belonged to the group of writers (sometimes called the poetae novi) who, following the lead ofQuintus Lutatius Catulus and others, were introducing contemporary Greek literary traditions and practices of the time to Roman audiences....
Cato at the Oracle of Jupiter Amnion
What do you bid me ask, Labienus Whether I would prefer to fall in arms as a free man rather than witness (lit., see) a tyranny Whether it makes no difference if a life is short or a life is long Whether no violence harms a virtuous man and fortune wastes its threats when opposed by virtue, and whether to desire what is praiseworthy is sufficient and whether what is honorable never increases through success I know the answer , and Ammon will not fix this more deeply in me. We are all closely...
Therefore Is Love Said to Be a Child
Whoever it was who painted Love as a boy, don't you think that he had skillful hands He first saw that lovers live (i.e., behave) without judgment and that great advantages are lost through their trivial cares. Not without good reason, the same person added quivering wings and made the god fly in the human heart, since in fact we are tossed on the wave's ebb and flow (lit., on alternating wave) and the breeze that drives us (lit., our breeze) does not remain in one place. And rightly is his...
Face Thats Best by Its Own Beauty Blest
How does it now benefit you to adorn your soft hair and to arrange your altered locks often, how does it benefit you to beautify your cheeks with shining pigment (lit., dye), how does it benefit you to have your fingernails trimmed by the skilled hand of an artist To no purpose now your clothes are changed , to no purpose your shawls are changed, and a tight loop binds your constricted feet. That other woman is pleasing even though she has come with her face not made up (lit., unadorned) and...
The Effect of Love
JL poem that appears to have been written by Catullus in the first stages of his affair with Lesbia is a translation from the early Greek poetess Sappho (fi. 600 b.c.). It was from Sappho's home (the Greek island of Lesbos) that Catullus gave his lover the name Lesbia (lit., the lady of Lesbos), which evoked the romantic past of Greek lyric poetry. Ille mi par esse deo videtur, ille, si fas est, superare divos, qui sedens adversus identidem te spectat et audit dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis...
Worldly Wisdom
22 To be in love and to be wise is scarcely granted to a god (and so a mortal cannot expect to combine the two). 26 What trouble would you wish for a greedy person except May he live long 41 Misfortune reveals whether you have a friend or just a name (i.e., a real friend or one in name only). 92 Life itself is short, but it is made longer by troubles. 186 Even a single (lit., even one) hair has its own shadow (i.e., a shadow of its own). 222 Fortune is of more value to a person than...
The Emperor Augustus
'When Aeneas finally meets his father, Anchises, in the Underworld, the latter explains how the souls of the dead are purified and how some are subsequently reborn into the world. He then shows his son the souls of those who are destined to make Rome great. Prominent among these is the future Augustus, who will restore the prosperity of the Golden Age and extend the empire. (The idea of the transmigration of souls came from Greek sources and was not part of normal Roman belief (see page 78).)...
The New Eroticism
It has gone off, I think, to Theotimus, as it is accustomed to do . So it is, my heart avails itself of (lit., has) that refuge. But didn't I tell Theotimus not to admit that runaway into his house, but, on the contrary, to throw it out I will go to look for it . But I am afraid lest I myself may be caught. What am I to do Venus, give me advice. b By chance I had stood addressing the dawn when suddenly Roscius came into view on the left. May I be allowed, O heavenly...
Hie Folly of Human Desires
Why do we spend our lives in such anxious years and torture ourselves with fear and blind desire for possessions and, made old (lit., old men) by ceaseless worries, lose life while we are seeking it and, satisfied with no end of our desires, always play the part of those who are going to live but we never really live, and why is each person poorer through his possessions because he wants more and does not count up what he has, but only desires what he does not have, and'although nature demands...
The Lessons of Homer
While you are making speeches in Rome, Lollius Maximus, I, in Praeneste, have read again the writer of the Trojan War. He tells more clearly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor what is good, what is bad, what is useful, what is not useful . Unless something distracts you, listen to why I am of this opinion (lit., have believed thus). The story, in which is told the collision of Greece with the foreign world in a prolonged war on account of Paris' love, encompasses the passions of foolish...
Caught by a Bore
I was going by chance on the Sacred Way, as is my habit, thinking about some trifle or other and entirely absorbed in it. Somebody known to me only by name ran up and, having seized my hand, said , How are you, my dear fellow Very well, as things are, I said, and I hope everything's well with you. When he followed, I put him off with There isn't something you want But he said, Yes, that you should be acquainted with me. I'm a scholar. At this point I said, I'll value you all the more because of...
Ovicls Early Life
This selection is from the account of his life that Ovid wrote in exile. Sulmo mihi patria est, gelidis uberrimus undis, 3 milia qui noviens distat ab urbe decern. editus hie ego sum, nec non, ut tempora noris, 5 cum cecidit fato consul uterque pari. nec stirps prima fui genito sum fratre creatus, 9 qui tribus ante quater mensibus ortus erat. 10 Lucifer amborum natalibus adfuit idem una celebrata est per duo liba dies. text P. Ovidii Nasonis Tristia, ed. J. B. Hall (Bibliotheca Teubneriana,...
The Immortality of Verse
Why, biting Envy, do you reproach me with idle years and call poetry the work of a lazy mind, saying that, while vigorous age supports me, I do not, according to the custom of our fathers, pursue the dusty rewards of military service, and that I do not memorize wordy laws, and that I have not put my voice to unworthy use in the thankless forum The work you ask of me is mortal. I seek everlasting fame (lit., everlasting fame is sought by me) so that I may be sung forever in the whole world....
An Old Love Revived
While I was pleasing to you and no more (lit., nor did any more) favored youth put his arms around your white neck, I flourished in greater happiness (lit., more happy) than the king of the Persians. While you did not burn more because of another woman (i.e., than because of me), and Lydia (i.e., I myself) was not behind Chloe, I, Lydia of much renown, flourished in greater fame (lit., more famous) than Roman Ilia. Thracian Chloe now rules me, skilled in sweet melodies and versed in the lyre...
Deucalion and Pyrrha
When they reached the steps of the temple, each fell down prone on the ground and, being afraid, gave kisses to the cold stone, and they spoke thus, If the divinities relent, won over (lit., conquered) by just prayers (i.e., by the prayers of the righteous), if the anger of the gods is turned aside, tell, Themis, how the loss of our race can be made good (lit., restored), and bring help, O gentlest one , to the submerged world. The goddess was moved and gave them an oracle, Go out from my...
Hie Capture of a Royal Palace
CWben Aeneas, in his wanderings after leaving Troy, arrives at Carthage in north Africa, a banquet is held in his honor by Dido, the beautiful queen of the newly founded city. At her request, Aeneas tells of the capture of Troy by the Greeks and of his subsequent adventures. The following is his description of how Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, breaks into the palace of Priam, the Trojan king. Vestibulum ante ipsum primoque in limine Pyrrhus exsultat telis et luce coruscus aena 470 qualis ubi in...
Hie End of a Wild Party
Since wrong was being done to my bed so often, I wanted to change my partner (lit, with my bed having been changed) and move camp. There is a certain Phyllis, a neighbor of Aventine Diana, possessing few charms (lit., too little charming) when sober, but when she drinks, she adorns everything. There is another, Teia, from among the Tarpeian groves, fair, but one man will not be enough for her when drunk. I decided to pass the night pleasantly by inviting these (lit, by these having been...
G89
Verbs of fearing are followed by ne and the subjunctive. Ne ipsi teneamur formldo. Catulus a.5f. I am afraid lest I myself may be caught. Verbs of hindering, preventing, and forbidding can be followed by a noun clause introduced by quln, quominus, or ne and the subjunctive. Si sensero hodie quicquam in his te nuptiis fallaciae conarl qudfiant minus (quo minus quominus) If I perceive today that you are trying any deceit in this marriage to prevent it from happening (lit., so that it does not...
Ariadne on Naxos
For Ariadne, looking out from the resounding shore of Dia (Naxos), watches Theseus going with his swift fleet, bearing unbridled passions in her heart, and not even yet does she believe that she is seeing what she sees no wonder, since she, then first awakened from treacherous sleep, sees herself abandoned and miserable on the lonely sand. But the forgetful youth strikes the waters with oars in his flight (lit., fleeing), leaving his empty promises to the windy storm. Him (lit., whom) the...
The Inevitability of Death
Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 94 c. 55 b.c.) lived in troubled times, during which the Roman state was disrupted by internal strife and civil war. In his poem De rerum natura (On the nature of the universe), he expounds the doctrines of the Greek philosopher Epicurus on the physical nature of the universe and the consequences of these doctrines for suffering humanity. A fundamental tenet of Epicurean philosophy was that, because there is no afterlife, we have no reason to fear death. In the...
Storm at
Ovid describes a storm he experienced on his way to Tomis, where he would spend the final ten years of his life in exile. Me miserum, quanti montes volvuntur aquarum iam iam tacturos sidera summa putes. 20 quantae diducto subsidunt aequore valles iam iam facturas Tartara nigra putes, quocumque aspicio, nihil est, nisi pontus et aer, fluctibus hie tumidus, nubibus ille minax. inter utrumque fremunt immani murmure venti 25 nescit, cui domino pareat, unda maris text P. Ovidii Nasonis Tristia,...
G93
IG94-l A conditional sentence consists of an if clause and a main clause. V- There are two types. Category 1 Conditional sentences that have the subjunctive in both clauses in Latin and that have would or should in the main clause in English. S urb nus ess s tamen renid re usque qu que t nolletn. Catullus Carmina jg.ioff. If you were a city man, nevertheless I would not want you to smile everywhere, (the reference is to the present) Quis hoc cr dat, nisi sit pro teste vetust si Ovid...
Hie Death of a Friend
Consolatory literature had a long history in antiquity, and all possible themes had been explored long before Horace. This poem, addressed to Vergil on the death of their friend Quintilius, stands in the tradition. Its finely balanced phrasing, its mythology and abstractions (Pudor, Iustitia, Fides, Veritas) give it a formality that seems strange to us today, but that illustrates how an ancient author worked within a framework developed by his predecessors. Horace tells us elsewhere (Ars...
Quarrel Between Slaves
Come out into the open from the kitchen, if you please, you rascal, you who are displaying your verbal wit to me amid your dishes. Come out of the house, you ruin of our master. By Pollux, if I'm alive (lit., will live), I will take vengeance on you thoroughly in the country. Come out of the kitchen, I'm telling you , you smell-lover. Why are you hiding tranio. Why are you shouting, damn it, here in front of the house Do you think you are still in the country Go away from the house Go...
Ovids Last Night in Rome
When there comes to my mind the very sad picture of that night that was my last time in the city, when I recall the night on which I left so many things dear to me, now too a tear drop falls from my eyes. Already the day (lit., light) had almost come, on which Caesar had ordered me to depart from the farthest boundaries of Ausonia. Neither the time nor my frame of mind had been sufficiently favorable for preparing my brain had become numb through long delay. I was not concerned with choosing...
You Are My Hearts Desire
Nothing is known about Lygdamus, apart from what can be gleaned from the few poems of his that have survived under the name of his contemporary Tibullus. In the following elegy, Lygdamus laments that his prayers have been unable to secure a reunion with his lover, Neaera. Quid prodest caelum votis implesse, Neaera, blandaque cum multa tura dedisse prece, non, ut marmorei prodirem e limine tecti, insignis clara conspicuusque domo, aut ut multa mei renovarent iugera tauri 5 et magnas messes terra...
An Intoxicated Lover
Sextus Propertius (fi. 25 b.c.) is one of the three elegiac poets of the Augustan age whose work survives, the others being his contemporary, Tibullus, and Ovid, who was slightly younger. These poets wrote in elegiac couplets, which very often had a love theme. Propertius and Tibullus wrote elegiac verse exclusively, but Ovid used other meters. Many of Propertius' elegies are concerned with his love for a woman he calls Cynthia. (Apuleius gives her real name as Hostia. Propertius was observing...
Unrequited Love
Rise (lit., be born), Morning Star, and precede and bring on the life-giving day, while I, deceived by the unworthy love of my partner, Nysa, complain and, although I achieved nothing with them (i.e., the gods) as witnesses, nevertheless, as I die (lit., dying), I address the gods in my final hour. (Begin, my flute, Maenalian verses with me.) Maenalus always has both rustling forest and whispering pines it is always hearing the loves of herdsmen and Pan, who first did not allow reeds to be...
The Emperor Augustas
This, this is the man whom you very often hear promised to you Augustus Caesar, offspring of a god, who will again establish golden generations in La-tium through fields once ruled over by Saturn, and will extend the empire beyond the Garamantes and Indians the land at its boundaries lies beyond the constellations of the zodiac , beyond the yearly path of the sun (lit., the paths of the year and the sun), where, on his shoulder, sky-bearing Atlas turns the sky, furnished with blazing stars. In...
Marginalia
Llttera scripta manet i 5 Proverbia de proscaenio I 17 Proverbia de proscaenio II 26 Horatiana I 28 Hadrian's Last Verse 33 Proverbia de proscaenio III 36 LlTTERA scripta manet II 39 Catullus and Caesar 41 Hie Wild Life 43 Sortes Virgilianae 45 Vergiliana I 56 The Queen and the Schoolboy 65 Propertius on the Aeneid 76 Horatiana II 86 Horatiana III 89 Graffiti in Pompeii 94 Horatiana IV 97 Horatiana V 100 A Classics Revival 103 Vergiliana II 109 Hadrians Horse 112 A Divine Injunction Observed...
Hope Not for Immortality
Quintus Hor tius Flaccus (65-8 b.c.), known in English as Horace, was a contemporary of Vergil. In his lyric poetry, he looked to early Greek poets such as Alcaeus (fl. 600 b.c.) rather than the tradition of contemporary Greek poetry as the generation of Catullus had done. The following poem illustrates the meticulous aptness of expression, the c ri sa felicit s that Petronius, a later Roman author, ascribes to Horace. Difiugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis arboribusque comae mutat terra...
Of Arms and the
Uergil's epic, the Aeneid, tells how the Trojan hero Aeneas leaves Troy after its capture by the Greeks and, after many trials, arrives in Italy to begin a settlement that is destined to develop into the Roman nation. Vergil's primary objectives in writing the Aeneid were to establish a foundation myth for Rome and to extol Augustus and the contemporary state, whose fortunes, after decades of civil war, Augustus had restored. However, the complex interplay between the poem's ostensible aims and...
Arion and the Dolphin
The name of Arion had filled the cities of Sicily, and the Ausonian shore had been captivated by the sounds of his lyre. Returning from there to his home, Arion boarded a ship and took the wealth won in this way by his skill. Perhaps, unfortunate man , you feared the winds and the waves, but for you the sea was safer than your ship for the helmsman took a stand with drawn sword, together with (lit., and) the rest of the guilty band with armed hands. What business do you have with a sword (lit,,...
Lesbias Sparrow
Catullus Carmina 2 (with omission of 1.7) and 3 a Sparrow, my girl's darling, with whom she is accustomed to play, whom she is accustomed to hold in her bosom, to whom, when pecking at it , she is accustomed to give the tip of her finger and provoke sharp bites when my radiant sweetheart is pleased to play some sweet game, I believe, so that her burning (lit., heavy) passion may then subside. I wish I could play with you as she herself does and lighten the gloomy cares of my mind. b Lament, O...
True Piety
0 genus infelix humanum, talia divis cum tribuit facta atque iras adiunxit acerbas 1195 quantos turn gemitus ipsi sibi, quantaque nobis vulnera, quas lacrimas peperere minoribus nostris nec pietas ulla est velatum saepe videri vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras nec procumbere humi prostratum et pandere palmas 1200 text Tit Lucreti Cari De Rerum Natura, ed. C. Bailey (Oxford University Press, 1947) meter hexameter mi g n s I inf lix h m n m talla divis c m trib t f c t(a) tqu(e) jr...
Wisecracks
A Philo swears that he has never dined at home, and this is so whenever no one has invited him, he does not dine (i.e., he goes without dinner). b A cunning innkeeper recently tricked me at Ravenna when I asked for mixed wine , he gave (lit., sold) me neat (i.e., straight). c Papylus, you always serve Serine or Massic wine, but gossip forbids us such good wines. You are said to have been made a bachelor four times with this wine bottle of yours . I don't think this nor do I believe this ,...
Insomnia
Through what misdeed or through what mistake, O Sleep, kindest of the gods, did I, unhappy youth, deserve that I alone should lack your gifts All cattle and birds and wild beasts are silent, and bent tree tops imitate weary sleep, and raging rivers do not have the same sound (lit., nor is there the same sound for raging rivers) the turbulence of the sea drops and its waters (lit., the seas), resting on the lands, become quiet. Phoebe, now returning for the seventh time, sees my staring weary...
Scipio and Syphax
The P nica of Silius Italicus (c. a.d. 26-c. 102), the longest surviving poem in Latin (more than 12,000 lines), is a verse account of the Second Carthaginian War (218-201 b.c.). It describes how Hannibal, after many years of successful campaigning in Italy, was forced to return to defend Carthage and was finally defeated by Scipio Africanus (see note to Lucretius D r rum n t r 3.1034-, page 23). Silius faced problems similar to those of a modern poet writing a conventional epic on the...
Hie Shade of Dido
Hefore Aeneas reaches his final destination in Italy, he visits the Underworld to see the shade of his father, Anchises, who had died on the voyage from Troy to Italy, Soon after entering the realm of the dead, Aeneas comes to the Fields of Lamentation (lugentes campl), the region assigned to those who died for love. There he chances to see Dido, the beautiful Carthaginian queen, who killed herself after he had loved and then abandoned her. Inter quas Phoenissa recens a vulnere Dido 450 errabat...
Hie Happy Life
In a poem addressed to a friend with the same name as his own, Martial details the ingredients of a happy life. The list agrees with what one might draw up today, except that it contains nothing that we might interpret as job satisfaction. The puritan work ethic was more than a thousand years in the future, and a Roman saw no virtue in having to earn a living. Certain careers (advocate, politician, soldier, farmer) were held in esteem, but to work with one's hands was considered degrading, and...
Sophistication
Publius Ovidius Naso (43 b.c.-a.d. 17), known in English as Ovid, was the third of the Augustan elegiac poets whose works survive. When he started to write, Rome was enjoying the stability and prosperity brought by Augustus, and his earlier poetry reflects the satisfaction he felt with the life and society of his day. In his later years, he had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of the emperor and was sentenced to exile in a.d. 8. The full reasons for this are not known, but it is certain...
Poetry Selections
Easy* Somewhat difficult** Rather difficult*** Ennius The Dream of Ilia** 3 Annales 1 fr. xxix Plautus A Quarrel Between Slaves* 6 Mostellaria 1-39 Terence An Insolent Slave* 10 Andria 185-202 Lucretius The Inevitability of Death*** 22 De rerum natura 3.1024-1044 True Piety*** 25 Catullus Love and Rejection* 27 Carmina 5,7, 8, and 85 The Effect of Love+ 32 Carmina 51.1-12 Lesbia's Sparrow* 34 Carmina 2 and 3 Carmina 84 An Invitation to Dinner* 42 Carmina 101 Ariadne on Naxos*** 46 Carmina...
Loves Miseries
The theme of love's miseries is more frequently and more thoroughly explored in Latin and Greek poetry than in English. Propertius describes here how his love for Cynthia first affected him. Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis, contactum nullis ante cupidinibus. tum mihi constantis deiecit lumina fastus et caput impositis pressit Amor pedibus, donee me docuit castas odisse puellas 5 improbus, et nullo vivere consilio. ei mihi, iam toto furor hie non deficit anno, cum tamen adversos...
Ultroque Ferebant Obvia English
The idea that there was a time when humanity lived happily in a state of primitive simplicity goes back to the early Greek poet Hesiod and was taken up by Roman poets. The Golden Age, the aurea aetas, was the period when Jupiter's father and predecessor, Saturn, was king of the gods and presided over a world where the ready availability of simple food made work unnecessary animals were not exploited no inventions, even of the simplest kind, such as the plow, existed justice reigned supreme and...
Brothers Tears
'During a journey to Bithynia in what is now northwest Turkey, Catullus visited the grave of a brother who was buried in the nearby Troad. There he made the traditional gift to the dead (inferiae), which consisted of wine, milk, honey, and flowers. Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, ut te postremo donarem munere mortis et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem. quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum, 5 heu miser indigne frater adempte...
Roman Beliefs About an Afterlife
Itrong distinction must be drawn between the traditional Greek no tions of an afterlife often presented in Roman poetry as in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice see page 60 and those that were actually current in Rome and were reflected in rituals and regular ceremonies. The former were taken over by Roman authors, together with much of the paraphernalia of Greek poetry. The latter represent genuine Roman tradition and also appear in verse, although they did not lend themselves to the same...
Dental Hygiene in the Provinces
Egnatius, because he has white teeth, smiles everywhere. If he has come to a defendant's bench, when the speaker is provoking tears lit., weeping , that fellow smiles if there is mourning at the funeral pyre of a dutiful son, when a bereaved mother bewails her only boy, that fellow smiles. Whatever it is, wherever he is, whatever he is doing, he smiles he has this disease, neither refined, in my opinion lit., as I think , nor polite. So lit., wherefore I must warn you, my good Egnatius. If you...
Lost Latin Poetry
A fter the collapse of Rome in the fifth century a.d., the survival of many Ix. Latin authors was largely a matter of chance see page xv . Many quotations from lost poetic works were preserved in prose writers. Cicero, for example, was fond of quoting from Ennius and other early poets in his letters and philosophical treatises. Still, the main source of information on what has been lost is grammarians and writers on antiquities, who quote from earlier literature to illustrate the meaning of a...
Figures Of Speech
A figure of speech is an expression in which the normal use of words is varied for some rhetorical effect. Some figures, such as simile and metaphor, occur often and require no explanation of the many others, three are common in Latin poetry. G l Hendiadys is the use of two words connected by a conjunction in v_J English, and to express a single complex idea. Often, two substantives are so joined instead of one substantive and an adjective or attributive genitive, for example, by length of time...
Quiet Drink
In keeping with his preference for a simple life, Horace tells his slave that he requires no frills or elaborate preparations when he is enjoying a drink alfresco. Persicos odi, puer, apparatus, displicent nexae philyra coronae, mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum sera moretur, simplici myrto nihil adlabores 5 sedulus euro neque te ministrum dedecet myrtus neque me sub arta vite bibentem. text Q. Horati Flacci Opera, ed. D. R. Shackleton Bailey Bibliotheca Teubneriana, 2001 meter Sapphic stanza m5...
The Dream of Ilia
Tfcere were Roman poets before Quintus Ennius 239-169 b.c. , but he was the one responsible for setting Roman poetry firmly in the Greek tradition. Of his many works, the most significant was the Annales, an account in epic style of Roman history from its mythical beginnings up to his own day. The following fragment, one of the few longer passages that survive from the Annales, comes from early in the poem where Ennius tells the story of Rome's foundation. After Aeneas escaped from Troy to...
Archaic And Poetic Forms
Early Latin writers used older forms of words that subsequently underwent one or more changes. These were sometimes retained in poetic diction, partly to give a poet's language a certain remoteness from that of everyday speech, and partly because these forms were often metrically convenient. An example of the latter is the use of induper tor general in Juvenal Satires 10.138, which would have been replaced long before his time by the shorter form imper tor. The former, which scans as induper...
Editing a Latin Text
The advent of printing had an unprecedented, immense effect on editing Latin and other texts. Its invention in the middle of the fifteenth century enabled scholars to achieve a standard of accuracy that had previously been impossible. Printers were able to produce identical copies of a book in whatever quantity was required. As a result, readers could be certain that the printed text of a Latin author was, barring the odd typographical error, exactly as the editor had intended. Subsequent...
Live HowWe Can Yet Die We Must
CWhether the Postumus addressed in this ode was a friend of Horace or simply a convenient name we do not know, hut the warninggiven on the inevitability of death is in keeping with attitudes expressed elsewhere by the poet. Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni nec pietas moram rugis et instanti senectae adferet indomitaeque morti non si trecenis quotquot eunt dies, 5 amice, places inlacrimabilem Plutona tauris, qui ter amplum Geryonen Tityonque tristi text Q. Horati Flacci Opera, ed....
Deucalion and Pyrrlia
''Before his exile, Ovid wrote a longpoem in hexameters, the Metamorphoses Transformations , which consists of a large number of stories from mythology and legend involving a change of form or shape as, for example, humans changed into birds or trees . In the story from which the following selection is taken, Jupiter, exasperated by humanity's wickedness, has ordered a universal flood. Only Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha, because of their piety, are allowed to survive. When the flood subsides,...
Orpheus and Eurydice
Orpheus, the legendary singer and musician, and his beloved Eurydice had not been together long before she was bitten by a snake and died. In his despair, Orpheus went down to the Underworld in order to gain her release from the land of the dead. His venture, however, ended in failure Vergil tells the story in the Georgics, but as it was well known, he does not give the full narrative. Instead, he describes the main scenes the grieving Orpheus, his descent into the Underworld, the effect of his...
Hadrians Last Verse
After the assassination of Domitian in a.d. 96, Rome enjoyed a succession of rulers who both maintained the Empire and allowed much greater freedom for the individual than had been known in the previous one hundred years. The third of these emperors was Hadrian, who ruled from a.d. 117 to 138. A scholar and poet as well as a competent general and administrator, he spent much of his tirrie as emperor on expeditions to expand arid consolidate Roman rule, as is attested by the wall that he...
Is Hiere Life After Death
TBJe possess a large body of philosophical writings by Lucius Annaeus Seneca c. 2 b.c.-a.d. 6 . In addition, ten plays have come down under his name, of which eight all tragedies are probably genuine. They were likely intended to be read aloud at recitationes cf. Juvenal Satires 1.1-18, page 202 rather than to be performed on stage. Though modeled on Greek tragedy, the plays exemplify the rhetorical style in vogue at Rome in the first century a.d. Seneca's plays were extremely popular in...
G6
I_ The nominative is used for the subject of a finite verb. Ipse Epicurus obit. Lucretius D r rum n t r 3.1042 It is also used for the predicate of a finite copulative verb, that is, a verb such as to be, seem, appear, or be called that is followed by a description or definition of the subject. Sum pius Aen s. Vergil Aeneid 1.378 Quod nisi conc das, habe re insu vis Horace Serm n s 1.3 85 If you were not to concede this, you would be considered harsh. _J The vocative is used to address another...
G15
Accusative of respect is the term used for a noun that qualifies an adjective or verb and defines the sphere in which the adjective or verb is to be applied. For a literal translation, with respect to is prefixed to the noun so used, but some change is needed for an idiomatic English translation. Nondum etiam sensiis deperditus omnts. Propertius Elegies 1.3.11 Not even yet deprived of all my senses. lit., Not even yet lost with respect to all my senses. non teretl strophio lactentes...
Adjectives And Adverbs
The comparative and superlative of adjectives can be used without any idea of comparison but to express a high or very high degree for example, instead of meaning more beautiful and most beautiful, pulchrior and pulcherrimus can mean rather beautiful and very beautiful, respectively. Sometimes the translation very can also be used for the comparative. Sulmo mihi patria est, gelidis uberrimus undis. Ovid Tristia 4.10.3 My native place is Sulmo, very rich in cold waters. Hie vir, hie est, tibi...
An Atypical Poet
Aulus Persius Flaccus a.d. 34-62 wrote six satires in the manner of Horace hut in a much sharper vein. The following short poem is generally regarded as a prologue to them. memini, ut repente sic poeta prodirem. illis remitto quorum imagines lambunt 5 ad sacra vatum carmen adfero nostrum. text A. Persi Flacci et D Iuni Iuvenalis Saturae, ed. W. V. Clausen Oxford Classical Texts, 1992 meter limping iambic m 10 nec fon te lab ra pro lui cabal lino nec In bicipl ti s6m nias se Par naso iff....
Romans
Jlartial hints to Euphemus, Domitian's dining-room steward, that the emperor might enjoy the poet's works over dinner. By way of tactfully introducing this suggestion, he describes, hour by hour, the daily activities of a person such as himself. Mechanical clocks were unknown to the Romans, and their system of timekeeping, based on the sundial, differed from ours the sunlight hours of each day were divided into twelve equal horae, and consequently a hora varied in length through the year. The...
Dulci Amore Adfatus Est Ablative
The dative expressing motion toward is often used by poets where classical prose writers would use ad or in plus the accusative. dum conderet urbem inferretque deos Latid. Vergil Aeneid l.si. until he would establish a city and bring his gods to Latium. A few intransitive verbs take the dative this use is indicated in the Glossary. an noceat vis nulla bono Luc an Bellum civile 9.569 whether no violence harms a virtuous man noce -ere dat. harm Two impersonal verbs, libet lubet it is pleasing and...
G68
The potential subjunctive negated by non expresses an action or state that has or had the potentiality of happening. In English, this is normally expressed by the auxiliary would or sometimes should, could can . The tense is determined by the following rules. lt t The present or perfect subjunctive is used with a present or future reference. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis What restraint or limit could there be to longing for so dear a head i.e., a person Non tibi Massylae...