Latin Set Book

Our Latin Set Book short course offers you the unique opportunity to study a Classical Latin text in depth with the guidance of specialist tutors who are active in research in that area. You will learn to translate complex Latin with confidence and attention to linguistic nuance. You will also be encouraged to relate your reading to understanding broader questions about ancient culture, society and thought. The texts we study each year change in response to student needs and preferences. 

This year's course focuses on Book 4 of Tacitus’ Annals. The Annals, an account of the history of imperial Rome from the death of Augustus to the reign of Nero (though not all of it has survived), is a work of extraordinary power and dark brilliance composed in the early second century CE. Its author has been enormously influential as a writer of history, as a political thinker - and as a literary stylist. Book 4 of the Annals forms a crucial part of Tacitus’ account of the reign of Tiberius. But we shall also consider the Annals more generally and compare aspects of this work with Tacitus’ earlier writings (particularly the Histories).

How do particular stylistic features work to generate an interpretation of the politics of the imperial court in the early first century? We shall explore Tacitus’ distinctive and oblique literary style, his devastating approach to characterisation, his masterly deployment of ambiguity. His prose scintillates with allusions to earlier historians, such as Sallust, but also to poetic works such as Virgil’s Aeneid. What role does intertextuality play in a work of history? 

Teaching on this course is varied and interactive. It includes in-class translation and discussion of language, context and interpretation. 

By the end of the Latin Set Book course you will be able to: 

• read complex Classical Latin texts in the original with confidence 
• analyse the wider implications of your reading for the study of Classical literature, ancient history and ancient philosophy 
• understand how the set text has been transmitted within the modern world and make use of the apparatus criticus to further your understanding 
• enrich your knowledge of the ancient world through close engagement with original evidence.

The course will be taught jointly by Professor Catharine Edwards and Dr Benjamin Gray. 

Please note: this course also includes a Saturday workshop, date to be confirmed shortly.