Noble and Greenough School Course Catalog

Students in this course learn all of the fundamentals of Latin grammar, acquire a basic vocabulary, and develop translation skills. Students are introduced to key topics such as the case system, verb conjugations, and a variety of tenses. Cultural topics range from Roman dress and houses to gods and chariot racing.

Students in this course continue their study of Latin grammar and vocabulary. Following a thorough review of Latin I, we will use thematic readings set in first-century Rome to encounter and learn more grammatical concepts, including participles, indirect discourse, and ablative absolute. In addition to grammar, students study the culture and history of Rome, as well as various contrasts between the ancient and modern worlds.

Latin III is an opportunity for students to consolidate their understanding of grammar and syntax while also developing their ability to read Latin literature. Students learn to observe, abstract, and analyze information, paying due regard to linguistic evidence. The objective of the course is to develop an appropriate competence in the language in order to transition to the study of unadapted texts in the higher levels of the program. Students begin the year with a thorough and intensive review of the key aspects of Latin I and II before tackling more advanced grammatical constructions. They begin to read, understand, and make a personal response to some of the literature in the original language. The course also helps students develop knowledge and understanding of the historical context of classical writers and offers a short survey of Latin literature. Students will read selections in prose and poetry from various authors, which include but are not limited to Petronius, Vergil, Catullus, Horace, and some modern Latin novellas.

Students in this course will continue to strengthen their understanding of grammar, syntax, and rhetorical devices. In addition, they will further expand their vocabulary as they become more proficient readers of Latin. Offered every other year, this course is devoted to the study and analysis of advanced Latin poetry. Authors to be studied can include Roman writers such as Livy and Apuleius.

Offered every other school yr: 24-25, 26-27, 28-29, 30-31.

Students in this course will continue to strengthen their understanding of grammar, syntax, and rhetorical devices. In addition, they will further expand their vocabulary as they become more proficient readers of Latin. Offered every other year, this course is primarily devoted to Latin prose. Authors to be studied can include the historian Livy and the orator Cicero, both of whose works may be enhanced by the study of related poets.

Offered every other school yr: 25-26, 27-28, 29-30.

In this intensive, fast-paced course, students begin with a comprehensive review of Latin morphology and syntax. The focus of the course then turns to literature, first with Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The common threads of this text are myth, love, and transformation. From there, students take on the more personal, emotional genre of elegiac poetry by examining Ovid’s Amores and then the poetry of Sulpicia. In the spring, students begin the first stages of the AP syllabus, starting with Vergil's timeless epic, The Aeneid. As they tackle questions of leadership, competing obligations, and love, they will further their skills as proficient readers of Latin and hone their habits of literary analysis.

In this intensive, fast-paced course students read the Latin of two of the most famous and influential Roman authors, Gaius Julius Caesar and Publius Vergilius Maro. One is a general and a politician, the other, a poet. One writes about his own ordeals, the other about a legendary hero. Both confront ideas of leadership, imperialism, duty, and views of the “other.” Readings in The Aeneid and the Gallic Wars follow the AP syllabus and push students to hone their knowledge of and facility with the language, to increase their reading proficiency, and to add sophistication and depth to their analysis.

After years of studying prose and poetry, students can now use their linguistic skills to tackle new and exciting forms of Latin. Students will finally study the works of female Latin authors, from diary excerpts to poems. They will translate the recipes as well as try cooking some of their own. They will learn to read inscriptions on tombs and monuments, curses written on shards of pottery, and even some ancient graffiti. Students will also learn the art of epigrams, pithy two-line poems often given as gifts. Finally, students will dig into some more modern Latin: reading novellas, intermediate-level stories written by modern Latinists and speaking and writing in Latin, Some projects include writing ghost stories, songs, and poems in Latin.

Homer’s Odyssey sings of a famous journey home and inspired one of the most familiar tropes in literature. Herodotus’ Histories is one of the first forays into the crafting of history. Together, they represent monumental treatments of the Aegean world and continue to speak to us today as we endeavor to understand the world around us. As classicists, we aim to piece together plausible understandings of the ancient world from careful consideration and combinations of imperfect sources. In this course, we examine various sources that evoke the ancient world–literature, history, topography, and the treasures of the archaeological record, including pottery, statues, coins, and architecture. In addition to close readings of Homer and Herodotus, we also engage archaeological questions with hands-on activities. How do we appreciate the words of the authors within the world around them? What can we still learn about the natural world, human interactions, and a life well lived? And, as we use the technology of today to connect with the past, we also have to ask: are we growing closer to the world of the Ancient Greeks with every passing year?

O tempora, O mores! So opined Cicero in the First Catilinarian–a call of distress and moral decline as the Roman Republic teetered on the brink.

Rome had enjoyed a storied past, and for centuries after Cicero, Rome would continue to inspire the world with its military sophistication, engineering feats, and ability to govern vast swaths of territory. Forward progress was often tempered with a backward glance, as we will see in Vergil’s Aeneid, Livy’s Early History of Rome, and many other selections of history, literature, art and architecture. Rome was a city founded by Aeneas, a vanquished Trojan in exile; a city first ruled by Romulus, abandoned as an infant, raised by a wolf, who killed his brother, and set a dangerous precedent for fratricide and civil strife from the outset. Beautiful and bellicose, we will chart the course of Rome, from Troy to today. Along the way, we will come to understand the aims of our historians, who invite contemplation of our human condition thus: “in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.” In this course we will examine how we perceive vestiges of the Romans in our current society, as well as how the Romans themselves perceived vestiges of their own past. What were the customs that formed the “original” Roman mindset? What caused later Romans to stray from those ideals? Was the past truly more ideal, or was this simply a fanciful trope of Roman rhetoric?