In this course, students make the transition from the "engineered" Latin story of Quintus in the Oxford Latin Course to reading extensive selections of "real" Latin. Selections from Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War provide excellent practice in handling the grammar and syntax already mastered; they also shed light on a truly epochal figure in history. By way of contrast students will also dip into some of the memorably told tales of Ovid's Metamorphoses. You wouldn't want to myth it!

Students enrolled in Latin IV will behold the unmatched rhetoric of Cicero's First Catilinarian Oration. In addition to learning about the pivotal events of Cicero's consulship in 63 BCE, we shall develop a vocabulary of literary devices, e.g., aposiopesis (which is not, after all, abnormal swelling of the passive periphrastic). Striking counterpoint will be found in selected poems of Catullus, especially those that chronicle his mercurial relationship with the woman he calls Lesbia.

Those who wish to do so may sign on for Honors credit. To earn it, students will be expected to turn in several assignments over the course of the year above and beyond the basic expectations.

In this capstone course, students will undertake extensive readings in the undisputed masterpiece of Latin literature, Vergil's Aeneid. Though we never lose sight of the "nuts and bolts" of grammar, nevertheless we make time to consider the poem qua literature, with due attention given to rhetorical devices, epic similes, and Vergil's adaptation of his Greek (Homeric) models. Students who wish to sit the Advanced Placement test in Latin literature will be prepared to do so in May.

Those who wish to do so may sign on for Honors credit. To earn it, students will be expected to turn in several assignments over the course of the year above and beyond the basic expectations.