Wheelock’s Latin Reader
Selections from Latin Literature Frederic M. Wheelock
Revised by Richard A. LaFleur
2nd Edition
Epigraph
DOROTHEAE CONIVGI
MARTHAE DEBORAEQUE FILIABVS
CARISSIMIS PATERFAMILIAS
FREDERICVS
D.D.
Contents
Epigraph
Preface
Maps
Cicero’s Orations against Verres
Cicero’s Letters
Cicero’s Philosophica
On Moral Responsibilities
On Friendship
Livy’s History of Rome
Legends of Early Rome
Hannibal and the Second Punic War
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Pliny’s Letters
The Vulgate
Medieval Latin
Bibliography
Abbreviations
Latin-English Vocabulary
About the Authors
The Wheelock’s Latin Series
Copyright
About the Publisher
Preface
The genesis of this book derives from the demand for an intermediate Latin reader that could be readily employed as a sequel to Wheelock’s Latin and other beginning texts. The volume’s purpose is to provide, not a survey of all Latin literature, but an interesting and stimulating selection from a variety of important authors, together with notes that assume and enlarge upon the student’s knowledge of basic Latin grammar. Students who complete the readings in this text, or a generous sampling of them, will be well prepared to move on to more advanced work in Latin prose and verse; at the same time, those who do not continue with the language can with this book enjoy the rewards of reading selections from some of the most interesting and influential works of Latin literature, ranging from the late republic and the empire to the late Middle Ages, and including Cicero, Livy, Ovid, Pliny the Younger, St. Jerome’s translation of the Latin Bible (the so-called Vulgate edition), and a variety of medieval writers.
In deciding upon the passages for this volume, preference was given to including longer selections from fewer authors rather than brief snippets from a wider array of works (the only exception being the sampling from medieval texts presented at the end of the book). Whenever a student comes to a new Latin author, some time is required to become familiar and comfortable with the characteristics of that author’s style, and it is easy to imagine the compounding of those challenges in a text that ranges through numerous authors, works, and subjects in a multitude of short passages. Moreover, a very positive advantage in an anthology of longer readings is that each excerpt can provide a better sense of the character of the work as a whole.
All the readings included in this volume, unlike those in some intermediate textbooks, are authentic, unadapted Latin. The only liberty taken with the original texts is the use of classical spelling in the medieval Latin selections and the occasional omission of passages that are either too difficult or digressive or of too little interest. The majority of the passages, including most of Cicero’s and Pliny’s letters and the selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and the several medieval texts, are in fact unexcerpted, and those that have been excerpted are identified as such and provided with references to the full original text.
