Customer Reviews

Aeneas to Augustus: A Beginning Latin Reader for College Students, Second Edition

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I read about a quarter of this book for a college Latin class and enjoyed it immensely. The notes at the end of passages really helped me understand the material better in many diverse ways. I also liked the format of the book, with the preparatory "watered down" Latin at the first part and then the more challenging, undiluted classical Latin at the end. It was challenging and I often knobbled over this book for more than two hours sitting at various stations (in my Dad's office at home, on my bed, at my desk, in the cafeteria, around the university library, etc.) but it was certainly worthwhile. I also got an A in the class.

The selected passages of Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid and their explanatory notes are particularly exceptional.

For students who have absorbed basic grammar, this text is an outstanding basic reader. The early passages are simple enough to read with pleasure. The vocabulary is thorough but the strength of the book is in the notes. Every grammatical point is carefully explained so each passage is packed with painless instruction. The passages chronicle the history of the Roman republic. A better bridge between the inevitable conjugations and declensions and reading fluency is impossible to imagine.

Actually, this book doesn't go that far ahead in history. The selections in this text are largely of the Roman Republic, i.e., the pre-imperial times (hence the '...to Augustus' part in the title). It does not start in Trojan times, however -- the idea of Aeneas is more a nod to historical idea that Aeneas was a founding personality for Rome (not always resting easily with the other founders, Romulus and Remus).

This book is divided into two sections -- part one is prose, part two is prose and poetry. The first section consists of 48 entries of progressively longer and more difficulty language. The first passage, dealing with Aeneas, is a mere 50 words on the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, taken from a fourth-century account 'Origio Gentis Romanae'. Many of the 'big names' of Roman history in letters are here -- Cicero, Livy, Seneca, Suetonius, Tacitus, and even a passage from Augustus himself, near the end of the section. The longest passage, appropriately, comes from Cicero, weighing in at 330 words. Most passages, however, are between 100 and 200 words.

In the second section, a similar weighty collection of writers is included, with many poets in the ranks. Again Cicero features prominently, together with Ovid, Juvenal, Sallust, Quintilian, Catullus, Lucan, Vergil and Horace. This section does have some passages from the Vulgate Bible at the end (taken from Isaiah, Micah and Luke) -- while the Vulgate is dated far beyond the end of the Republic, the source texts are dated much earlier.

The texts here match the Loeb Classical Library editions for the most part -- the clever student will use these to aid in translation, unless a clever instructor has checked out the relevant volumes for the duration of the semester.

There is a vocabulary glossary at the end of the book (some 60 pages long), but it is expected that the reader will use a dictionary in aid. Notes for the text are designed with this in mind. The notes also contain grammar and historical pieces of information, but it is assumed that the reader will have had a preliminary course in Latin, perhaps using Wheelock; additional grammar aids are also recommended (the authors here recommend Allen & Greenough; Henle was the book I used).

This is a fun book to use for the learning of Latin -- it incorporates stories from the actual history and personalities of Rome in an interesting, progressive way. One gets a feel for the language at the same time as learning about the poetry, politics, difficulties and pleasures of being alive during the Roman Republican times.

This is not just a great Latin reader, it's one of the best anthologies I've seen in any language. Actually, it's two readers in one: the first half amounts to a digest of Roman history down to Augustus, based entirely on original texts, while the second offers a literary history of the same period, mixing prose and verse. Both halves proceed at approximately the same pace, beginning with very simple Latin and ending with selections of moderate to advanced difficulty. Passages average a page long, or just long enough to fill a single period of class discussion. The notes are amazingly good. Besides clarifying difficult points of grammar or syntax, they call attention to many cultural and political details which otherwise might fly right past the tyro.

Appropriate for students who have completed Wheelock or the equivalent. (And superior, in my opinion, to the Wheelock reader, even though this one seems drier.) Every Latin student should have a course in this before going on to study individual authors.

Aeneas to Augustus, my favorite and first latin reader is a challenge for every basic latin reader. I've been following Latin for 4 years and I'm now a sophomore attenting Staples High School in Westport. This book offers you tons of information about Roman history and at the same time it uses the most complex sentences a high schooler can ever expect to translate. Reading this book is a garanteed plus to your latin background.

Try it...

This is an excellent Latin reader. If anyone is looking for a selection of Latin texts that have plenty of variety, this is the one to get!

I agree that this reader is very helpful for those learning Latin or (in my case) brushing up their knowledge after many years of disuse. The brevity of the passages, as well as their stylistic variety, give it something of an edge over Wheelock's reader (excessively front-loaded with Cicero), in my view. However, I feel called upon to point out that vowel quantity is not marked (as it is not in Wheelock, either, at least in the editions I have seen), and this may be a problem for some readers; after all, vowel length is phonemic in Latin, is the prosodic feature operating in (most of) the verse, and has some considerable bearing on the development of the daughter languages. If a new edition is contemplated, I hope the editors consider adding this feature.

This is a soft cover book published in 1967; The back cover tore off by the 3rd day I could have gotten a new book for a few more $'s,took too long to send, I usually get books with in 2-3 days; thanks though