In a single year that assumes you have not studied Latin before, Latin 101 and 102 will teach you how to read major Latin works in their original language, substantially increase your English vocabulary (thousands of English words come ultimately from Latin), improve your writing skills in English, enhance your command of English grammar, and either build on your knowledge of Spanish, French, or Italian if you’ve already studied one of them or help you learn them if you haven’t (they are called “Romance” languages because they come from Latin, the language of the Romans).  You’ll learn how to pronounce Latin out loud so you know how it sounds and you’ll acquire a reading knowledge, but we will not converse in Latin.  Latin 101 covers roughly half of the year’s material, and by the end of the semester you’ll be able to read simple stories. 

Latin 102 builds on what you learned in Latin 101 in the fall (see the description of Latin 101 for details) and covers the rest of Latin.  In the last month or so, we’ll turn from the textbook to reading actual ancient and medieval Latin texts, such as love poems, letters, and myths.  Steady review throughout the term will reinforce what you learned in the fall at the same time you’re learning new material.  A single year can take you from knowing no Latin at all to being able to read texts that shaped the western literary, philosophical, and political traditions.  Studying Latin will also strengthen your English vocabulary, improve your command of English grammar, and enhance your writing skills.

In conjunction with a thorough review of Latin grammar, we will make the transition to Latin literature and Roman culture. Selections in Latin may include Catullus (poetry), Ovid and the other love elegists, the emperor Augustus' The Deeds of the Divine Augustus, Perpetua (one of the earliest known women Latin authors) and the anonymous novella, The Story of Apollonius King of Tyre. Topics to be studied might include social status and identity (What defined you? Might your status/identity change, whether for better or worse?); Rome's relation to Greece, which Rome conquered but which long dominated Roman culture; or the nature and function of literature in Roman life.

Vergil wrote his epic poem the Aeneid as the origin story for Rome, as Aeneas escapes the fall of Troy and eventually reaches Italy, where he establishes what will lead to Rome.  Vergil wrote this foundational story of Rome at a time of political upheaval and new beginnings, at the start of the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, who won the civil wars that ended the Roman Republic.  The epic responds to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, but also to Augustus and his new vision of Rome.  We'll study the Aeneid as what became the Roman national epic and as an exploration of Roman values and what it meant to be Roman.  Class sessions will focus on understanding both the Latin and broader questions of duty, love, patriotism, and responsibility through discussion, writing, recitation, Roman coins from Wellesley's collections, and even drawing. 

In this course, we will study three literary genres—Roman comedy, historiography, and elegy - each with its own characteristic view of women, from comedy’s scolding wives and young lovers, to history’s villains and heroines, to elegy’s mistresses. Taking into account authorial perspective, context, language, and style, we will identify how male authors in different genres construct woman as the imagined “other” in society. From Plautus to Ovid, we examine the ways a literary genre reflects cultural perceptions of women and gender in Roman society from Republic to Empire.

Latin literature flourished in the Imperial period, even though it is referred to as "Silver" instead of "Golden" Latin Literature. We'll explore various authors and genres, which may include Seneca (philosophy and drama), Tacitus (history), Pliny (letters), Juvenal (satire), and Martial (epigrams). We'll also examine the impact of rhetoric and the emperor himself on the writing of Latin prose and poetry.

Romans based their history in myth and made their history into myths. This course includes reading from major authors such as Livy, Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Propertius, and Tacitus, focusing on historical myths such as Romulus and Remus, the Rape of the Sabine Women, Tarquinius Superbus, and Hercules and Cacus. We will then examine how later Romans reworked those myths to serve current political purposes and how they transformed historical events into powerful myths.

Petronius' Satyricon and Apuleius' The Golden Ass are two novels from ancient Rome, filled with characters from all walks of life, from aristocrats to professors to poets to former slaves to robbers to ghosts and werewolves and even a human in a donkey's body who returns to his original form and becomes a priest of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Their wild and sometimes preposterous plots range from magic spells and love triangles to an outlandish dinner party to the tale of Cupid and Psyche, the ancestor of the Beauty and the Beast. We'll look at the novel as a literary genre and its relationship to satire, epic, and comedy; its potential audiences in the ancient world; the language of the characters; the real life behind the narratives; and the reception of the Roman novel in modern literature and film, such as Fellini Satyricon.

Ovid is among the most notorious and playful Roman poets, a figure who enjoyed literary success at a young age only to be later exiled by the emperor Augustus before finishing his epic poem The Metamorphoses. In this advanced Latin course, students will study Ovid in his cultural and literary context by reading selections from his works such as the Ars Amatoria, Amores, Met., and Fasti. Students will also learn about the metric conventions and stylistic features of Ovid's poetry. Possible course themes may include gender and sexuality, Roman and Greek myth, or Ovid’s Rome.