The Complete Latin Course

408 Pages·2014·4.655 MB·English

by  G. D. A. Sharpley

The Complete Latin Course
The Complete Latin Course is a comprehensive introduction to Latin for students and armchair
enthusiasts alike. This modern, user-f riendly text offers a series of fascinating glimpses into
the world of ancient Rome, and sets the reader up to tackle Virgil, Cicero, Juvenal, Tacitus
and many other authors in the original Latin.
The story of Rome is told by the ancient authors themselves. Authentic texts help to guide
the student through the mechanics of Latin, whilst giving insights into the history of Rome,
her culture and society, her gods, her games, her power struggles and the eventual fall of
empire.
E xtensively revised and enlarged, this freshly recast second edition of Essential Latin
features:
• Reading passages from Latin prose authors, including Cicero, Petronius, Pliny, Sallust,
Suetonius and Tacitus, and from poets (Catullus, Horace, Juvenal, Martial, Ovid and
Virgil) with guidance on reading aloud and metre.
• A detailed step- by-step approach to Latin grammar, with engaging activities and
exercises.
• A companion website with a full answer key for exercises, translations, grammar
reference tables for the USA, the UK, Europe and elsewhere, additional exercises, word
lists and other supports: http://www.lingua.co.uk/latin/materials/complete-latin .
I deal for classroom use or independent study, The Complete Latin Course will prove an invaluable
resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, adult learners and anyone interested
in comprehensively developing their knowledge of Latin.
G. D. A. Sharpley taught all levels of Latin at the University of Bristol for over twenty
years. He is a director of Lingua, the UK language- training organization, where he is
responsible for the development of learning materials in several modern languages as well as
Latin, and he manages the Latin Qvarter which runs courses and creates texts, recordings
and short fi lms for students of Latin.
This page intentionally left blank
The Complete Latin Course
Second Edition
G. D. A. Sharpley
First published 1994 by Bristol Classical Press under the title “Latin: Better Read
than Dead”
First published as Essential Latin in 2000 by Routledge
This second edition published 2014 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2000, 2014 G. D. A. Sharpley
The right of G. D. A. Sharpley to be identifi ed as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Sharpley, G. D. A., author.
The complete Latin course / G.D.A. Sharpley. — Second edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
1. Latin language—Textbooks. 2. Latin language—Grammar. I. Title.
PA2087.5.S525 2014
478.2'421—dc23
2013044721
ISBN: 978–0–415–60389–8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978–0–415–59645–9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978–0–203–83445–9 (ebk)
Reprinted 2019 with corrections
Typeset in Baskerville
by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk.
Contents
Acknowledgements x
Introduction xi
The Latin alphabe t xiv
1 Myth, legend and history 1
Nouns and verbs 1
Nouns: subjects and objects 1
Verbs 3
The nominative case 4
The accusative case 4
Readings 6
2 The Republic 11
The genitive case 11
The dative case 11
The ablative case 12
Prepositions 13
The vocative case 14
est and sunt 14
Readings 16
3 Carthage 21
Singular and plural: nominative and accusative 21
Genitive, dative and ablative plural 22
Gender 23
Neuter nouns 23
Summary : puella, servus and vīnum 24
Readings 27
4 Greece 34
Questions 34
Adjectives:b onus, bona, bonum 34
Agreement of an adjective and noun 36
2nd declension nouns ending -er 37
Adjectives as nouns 38
Readings 40
vi Contents
5 New factions and old families 48
Genitive and dative expressing ownership 48
Past participles 49
Past participles with est or sunt 50
Translating past participles 51
sum, esse 52
Readings 54
6 The Republic under strain 60
Verbs 60
The present tense 60
The infi nitive 62
The perfect tense 62
Perfect stems 63
Principal parts 64
Principal parts: 1st conjugation 64
Missing words or words ‘understood’ 65
More adjectives acting as nouns 66
Readings 68
7 Friends and enemies 75
Verbs: 2nd conjugation 75
3rd declension nouns 76
Him, her and them 77
His and her 78
Readings 80
8 Civil war 88
3rd declension nouns (neuter) 88
‘3rd declension’ adjectives 89
Possessive adjectives 90
Readings 93
9 The Ides of March 99
Verbs: revision 99
3rd conjugation verbs 100
4th conjugation verbs 101
Mixed conjugation verbs 102
Summary: all fi ve conjugations 103
Readings 106
10 A woman in politics 112
Nouns: 4th declension 112
Irregular verbs : sum, possum, volō, eō, ferō 114
Verbs followed by an infi nitive 115
Readings 117
Contents vii
11 Politics and marriage 125
Verbs: the imperfect tense 125
The pluperfect tense 127
Numbers 128
Readings 131
12 The sweetness of peace 139
Nouns: 5th declension 139
The future tense 140
The future tense of irregular verbs 141
Imperatives 142
Uses of the accusative 143
Uses of the ablative 143
Readings 145
13 Dissenting voices 154
The future perfect tense 154
Tenses review 155
Principal parts review 156
Compound verbs 157
Readings 159
14 Songs and suppers 168
The passive voice 168
Personal pronouns: 1st and 2nd persons 169
Personal pronouns: 3rd person 170
hic, haec, hoc 171
ille, illa, illud 171
is, ea, id 172
Refl exive pronoun : sē 173
ipse, ipsa, ipsum 174
Readings 176
15 Tales of love 185
Introducing the subjunctive 185
The present subjunctive 186
Deponent verbs 188
Readings 191
16 Women: warriors, drunks and literary critics 199
The imperfect subjunctive 199
ut o r nē to express purpose 200
Sequence of tenses: primary and historic 200
ut or nē with an indirect command 201
ut to express a consquence or result 202
ut with the indicative 203
The perfect subjunctive 203
viii Contents
The pluperfect subjunctive 204
The subjunctive after cum 204
The subjunctive after a verb expressing fear 205
The subjunctive in an indirect question 206
Summary : ut and nē 206
Readings 208
17 Family ties 216
Interrogative :who, what or which asking a question 216
Relative :who, which giving information 217
Indefi nite :any, anyone, anything 220
Summary : quis/quī 221
More adjectives : alius, tōtus, nūllus, ūllus and sōlus 221
Readings 223
18 Slavery 231
quod 231
quam 232
aliquis, aliqua, aliquid 232
alter, altera, alterum 233
quisquis, quidquid 233
quisquam, quidquam 234
quisque, quaeque, quodque 234
quīdam 234
quō and quā 234
Readings 237
19 Education 245
Adjectives 245
Adverbs 245
Comparison 246
Comparative adverbs 248
The superlative 249
Superlative adverbs 249
Readings 252
20 Life at work 259
Past participles 259
The ablative absolute 260
Present participles 261
Participles with dependent nouns 263
Future participles 263
Summary: participles 265
Translating participles 265
Readings 267
21 Life at leisure 273
Conditional clauses 273
The partitive genitive 275
Contents ix
Irregular verbs : volō, nōlō, mālō 276
Irregular verb : fīō 276
Readings 278
22 Fugit irreparabile tempus 285
Infi nitives 285
Reported speech, thoughts and feelings 285
The accusative and infi nitive 286
Infi nitives: present, past and future 287
The ‘other party’ subjunctive 289
More on the relexive pronoun and adjective : sē and suus 289
Readings 291
23 On the edge of the world 299
Gerunds 299
Gerundives 300
Readings 303
24 Gods and spirits 312
Impersonal verbs 312
Transitive and intransitive verbs 313
Revision of the uses of the subjunctive 314
Readings 316
25 Rough justice 325
Words working in pairs 325
The nominative case reviewed 326
The accusative case reviewed 326
The genitive case reviewed 328
Readings 330
26 Christianity 338
The dative case reviewed 338
The ablative case reviewed 340
Readings 343
The pronunciation of classical Latin 352
Timeline of Latin writers 355
Grammar summary 356
Index of examples 364
Index of grammar 367
Abbreviations 368
Latin to English vocabulary 369
English to Latin vocabulary 389
Additional online suppor t 393