Roman world

Roman culture, myth, and history

Roman culture in Latin Launchpad is a set of short cards: myth, daily life, history, values, authors, and places. Students read a card, connect it to Latin words they know, and can open the same material in the Roman world section of the app.

Open Roman world in the app

Myth

Jupiter

Iuppiter. Jupiter, called Zeus in Greek, rules the sky. His signs are the thunderbolt and the eagle.

Juno

Iuno. Juno, called Hera in Greek, is the goddess of marriage and the protector of women. A peacock is her bird.

Neptune

Neptunus. Neptune, called Poseidon in Greek, rules the sea and is drawn with a three-pronged spear, the trident.

Pluto

Pluto. Pluto, called Hades in Greek, rules the Underworld, the land of the dead. Romans also called him Dis.

Ceres

Ceres. Ceres, called Demeter in Greek, is the goddess of grain and the harvest. Her daughter is Proserpina.

Vesta

Vesta. Vesta, called Hestia in Greek, is the goddess of the hearth and the home fire. Her public flame was kept in Rome.

Minerva

Minerva. Minerva, called Athena in Greek, is the goddess of wisdom, crafts, and planned war. Her signs are the owl and the olive.

Apollo

Apollo. Apollo has the same name in Greek and Latin. He is connected with music, healing, the sun, and prophecy, and his instrument is the lyre.

Diana

Diana. Diana, called Artemis in Greek, is the goddess of the hunt and the moon. She is Apollo's twin.

Mars

Mars. Mars, called Ares in Greek, is the god of war. The month March is named for him, and the Romans claimed him as the father of Romulus.

Venus

Venus. Venus, called Aphrodite in Greek, is the goddess of love and beauty. Roman legend makes her the mother of Aeneas.

Vulcan

Vulcanus. Vulcan, called Hephaestus in Greek, is the smith of the gods. He works at a forge and is associated with fire.

Mercury

Mercurius. Mercury, called Hermes in Greek, is the messenger of the gods. He wears winged sandals and carries the caduceus, a staff with two snakes.

Bacchus

Bacchus. Bacchus, called Dionysus in Greek, is the god of the vine, festival, and the theater.

Echo and Narcissus

Echo et Narcissus. Echo could only repeat the last words she heard. Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection and wasted away beside the water.

Arachne

Arachne. Arachne boasted that she could weave better than Minerva. After the contest, the goddess changed her into a spider.

King Midas

Midas. Midas asked that everything he touched turn to gold, then learned that the gift was a curse when his food turned to metal too.

Daphne

Daphne. Daphne fled from Apollo and was changed into a laurel tree. Apollo made the laurel his sacred plant.

Baucis and Philemon

Baucis et Philemon. Baucis and Philemon were a poor couple who welcomed two strangers. The strangers were Jupiter and Mercury, and the couple was rewarded for their kindness.

Pygmalion

Pygmalion. Pygmalion carved a statue so fine that he loved it. Venus gave the statue life.

The Trojan War

Troia. Paris, a prince of Troy, took Helen from Sparta. The Greek kings sailed to bring her home, and the war lasted ten years.

Achilles

Achilles. Achilles was the greatest Greek fighter at Troy. His mother Thetis tried to protect him, and later stories say his heel was the one weak place.

The Trojan Horse

Equus Troianus. The Greeks pretended to sail away and left a huge wooden horse. Trojan soldiers brought it inside the walls, and Greek fighters hidden inside opened the city.

Aeneas Leaves Troy

Aeneas. Aeneas carried his father Anchises out of burning Troy and led the survivors toward Italy. Roman legend makes him the ancestor of Rome.

Dido

Dido. Dido was the queen who founded Carthage and welcomed Aeneas. In the Aeneid their meeting ends in sorrow when he sails on to Italy.

Theseus and the Labyrinth

Theseus. Theseus sailed to Crete to face the Minotaur, a monster kept in the labyrinth. Ariadne gave him a thread so he could find the way out.

Daedalus and Icarus

Daedalus et Icarus. Daedalus made wings so he and his son Icarus could leave Crete. Icarus flew too near the sun, the wax melted, and he fell.

Jason and the Fleece

Iason. Jason sailed with the Argonauts to Colchis to bring home the Golden Fleece. Medea, the king's daughter, helped him.

Hercules

Hercules. Hercules, called Heracles in Greek, was given twelve labors. School stories often name the Nemean lion, the Augean stables, and the apples of the Hesperides.

Perseus

Perseus. Perseus was sent for the head of Medusa, whose look turned a person to stone. He watched her in a polished shield and carried gifts from the gods, including winged sandals.

Odysseus

Ulixes. Odysseus, called Ulysses in Latin, spent ten years getting home from Troy to Ithaca. He passed the Cyclops, Circe, and the Sirens.

Atalanta

Atalanta. Atalanta was a famous runner who said she would marry only the man who could beat her in a race. Hippomenes won by dropping golden apples, which she stopped to pick up.

The Underworld

Inferi. The dead cross the river Styx with the ferryman Charon. Cerberus, a three-headed dog, guards the gate, and Pluto rules below.

Orpheus and Eurydice

Orpheus. Orpheus played the lyre so beautifully that he was allowed to lead Eurydice out of the Underworld. He looked back too soon, and she had to remain.

The Fates

Parcae. The three Fates spin, measure, and cut the thread of a life. Their Greek name is the Moirai, and their Latin name is the Parcae.

The Furies

Furiae. The Furies, called the Erinyes in Greek, pursue people who have broken a serious oath or harmed their own family. Later stories also call them the Kindly Ones.

The Muses

Musae. The nine Muses are goddesses of poetry, music, history, and the other arts. They live near Mount Helicon and the spring of inspiration.

Nymphs

Nymphae. Nymphs are spirits of particular places: springs, trees, mountains, and the sea. Daphne was a nymph before she became the laurel.

Satyrs

Satyri. Satyrs are woodland followers of Bacchus, part man and part goat, who love music and dancing. Silenus is the old one among them.

Centaurs

Centauri. Centaurs have a human upper body and a horse's body. Most are wild, but Chiron is the wise teacher of heroes such as Achilles.

Proserpina

Proserpina. Proserpina is the daughter of Ceres. Pluto took her to the Underworld to be his queen. Ceres grieved, and the fields would not grow. A bargain lets Proserpina spend part of the year above the earth and part below, and the growing season and the cold season follow her coming and going.

Phaethon

Phaethon. Phaethon asked to drive the chariot of the sun for one day. The horses ran wild, and the earth was in danger. Jupiter struck the chariot down to stop the fire. The story is a warning about a task that is too large.

Prometheus

Prometheus. Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to people. Jupiter punished him for the theft. The story tells how people came to have fire, and what that gift cost the one who brought it.

Pandora

Pandora. Pandora opened a jar that the gods had given her. Troubles flew out into the world, and hope stayed inside. The older telling uses a jar. A box is a later change to the story.

Pyramus and Thisbe

Pyramus et Thisbe. Pyramus and Thisbe lived next door and spoke through a crack in the wall, because their families would not let them meet. They agreed to meet outside the city. Thisbe ran from a lion, and Pyramus found her scarf and thought she had been killed. The story ends in sorrow, and the mulberry turns dark.

Cupid and Psyche

Cupido et Psyche. Psyche was admired so widely that Venus grew jealous. Cupid loved Psyche, but she was told not to look at him. She looked, and lost him. After hard tasks she was reunited with him, and the story ends with a wedding among the gods.

Europa and Cadmus

Europa et Cadmus. Europa was carried across the sea to Crete by Jupiter in the shape of a bull. Her brother Cadmus went looking for her. He followed a cow to the place where he founded Thebes, and there he sowed dragon teeth from which armed men sprang.

Niobe

Niobe. Niobe boasted that she had more children than Latona. Apollo and Diana, the children of Latona, answered that boast, and Niobe lost her children. She wept until she turned to stone. The story warns against setting oneself beside a god.

Daily life

The Atrium

Atrium. The atrium was the high front hall of a Roman house, with a pool, the impluvium, under an opening in the roof.

The Bedroom

Cubiculum. A cubiculum was a small bedroom. Roman houses kept the best space for the atrium and the garden, not for large private rooms.

The Kitchen

Culina. The culina was the kitchen, often small and smoky. Much of the cooking for a rich house was done by enslaved workers.

The Dining Room

Triclinium. In a triclinium, guests reclined on three couches around a low table. The main meal, cena, was eaten here.

The Study

Tablinum. The tablinum was the office between the atrium and the garden, where the master kept records and received visitors.

The Garden Court

Peristylium. The peristylium was an open garden surrounded by a covered walk. Family life gathered there, away from the street.

Apartment Houses

Insula. Most city people did not live in a courtyard house. They lived in an insula, a crowded apartment block of several floors.

The Toga

Toga. The toga was the formal outer garment of a Roman citizen, a large wool cloth wrapped around the body. It was for public life, not for work or sleep.

The Tunic

Tunica. The tunica was the everyday shirt worn under the toga or by itself at home and at work. A purple stripe could show a senator or a boy of a senatorial family.

The Stola

Stola. The stola was the long dress of a married Roman woman, worn over a tunic. It marked her status in public.

Roman Meals

Cena. A small breakfast was the ientaculum, a midday snack the prandium, and the main meal the cena. Dinner might last a long time and include several courses.

The Household

Familia. A Roman familia included the father, the mother, the children, and the enslaved people of the house. The paterfamilias was the head of that household.

The Forum

Forum Romanum. The Forum was the open center of Rome for speeches, courts, shops, and processions. Temples and the senate house stood around it.

The Palatine Hill

Mons Palatinus. The Palatine was the hill where tradition placed Romulus's first settlement, and later the emperors' palaces. English palace comes from this hill.

The Capitol

Capitolium. The Capitol was the citadel hill of Rome, with the great temple of Jupiter. Triumphs ended there.

The Amphitheater

Amphitheatrum. An amphitheater is an oval arena with seats all around. The Flavian Amphitheater in Rome is the building later called the Colosseum.

The Circus

Circus Maximus. The Circus Maximus was the long racecourse in the valley below the Palatine. Chariots raced around a central barrier, the spina.

The Baths

Thermae. Public baths were hot, warm, and cold rooms, plus exercise yards and gardens. People went to get clean, to meet friends, and to spend the afternoon.

School

Ludus. A Roman child practiced letters with a stilus on a wax tablet. A magister taught the early lessons, and a paedagogus, often an enslaved attendant, walked the child to school.

Kalends, Nones, and Ides

Kalendae. Romans counted days backward from three markers. The Kalends were the first of the month, the Ides fell on the 13th or 15th, and the Nones came eight days before the Ides.

Priests

Sacerdotes. A pontifex was a senior priest, a flamen served one god, and the Vestal Virgins kept Vesta's fire. The chief priest was the pontifex maximus.

A Wedding

Nuptiae. A bride wore a flame-colored veil and the couple joined hands. A sacrifice and a procession to the new home completed the day.

A Triumph

Triumphus. A triumph was a parade granted to a winning general. He rode to the Capitol while soldiers, captives, and spoils followed.

Magistrates

Consules. Two consuls were elected each year to lead the Republic. The senate advised them, and the people met in assemblies.

The Legion

Legio. A legion was the main unit of the Roman army, divided into cohorts and centuries. A centurio commanded about a hundred soldiers.

The Household Shrine

Lararium. The lararium was a small shrine in the house for the Lares, the spirits of the household, and often for the Penates, the spirits of the storeroom. The family paused there and left a little offering.

The Bulla

Bulla. A freeborn child wore a bulla, a small locket, on a cord around the neck. A boy set it aside when he put on the toga of a man. A girl set it aside when she married.

Saturnalia

Saturnalia. Saturnalia was a December festival of Saturn. Households gave gifts, played games, and shared a large meal. For those days the usual order of work in the house was loosened.

Other Festival Days

Feriae. The Roman year had more festival days than Saturnalia. The Lupercalia, in February, included a run around the Palatine. The Compitalia honored the spirits of the crossroads, where roads met.

A Funeral

Funus. A Roman funeral was a family procession through the streets. A noble family might carry wax masks of ancestors. The body was buried or burned, and the household kept the memory of the dead.

A Roman Name

Tria nomina. A Roman man often had three names. In Marcus Tullius Cicero, Marcus is the praenomen, the personal name. Tullius is the nomen, the name of the clan. Cicero is the cognomen, the branch of the family or a nickname. A daughter of that clan could be called Tullia.

Patricians and Plebeians

Patricii et plebeii. Patricians were the old noble families. Plebeians were the other free citizens. In the early Republic the split was sharp, and later plebeians won the right to hold the high offices too.

Patron and Client

Patronus et cliens. A patron was a more powerful friend. A client came to him for help and advice, and stood by him in public. The Romans called that tie clientela. It ran through politics as well as through private life.

Freed People

Liberti. A libertus was a person who had been enslaved and then freed. He was not a slave any longer. His former master became his patron, and the freedman took the clan name of that family.

The Seven Hills

Septem montes. Rome sat on seven hills: the Palatine, the Capitoline, the Aventine, the Caelian, the Esquiline, the Viminal, and the Quirinal. Stories place the first settlement of Romulus on the Palatine. The great temple of Jupiter stood on the Capitol.

History

Romulus Founds Rome

Romulus. Tradition says Romulus founded Rome in 753 BCE and became its first king. He and his twin Remus were said to have been nursed by a she-wolf.

The Seven Kings

Reges. Stories give Rome seven kings, from Romulus to Tarquin the Proud. Some, such as Numa, were remembered as lawgivers, and others as builders.

Why the Monarchy Ended

Lucretia. Romans told the story of Lucretia when they explained why they drove out their last king. The classroom point is the change of government, not the harm done to her.

The Republic Begins

Res Publica. In 509 BCE the Romans replaced the last king with two elected consuls. They called the state the res publica, the public affair.

Horatius at the Bridge

Horatius. Horatius Cocles held the bridge against Lars Porsenna's army while other Romans cut it down behind him. He then swam to safety.

Cloelia

Cloelia. Cloelia was a hostage who led a group of girls in a swim across the Tiber to Rome. The Romans honored her with an equestrian statue.

Mucius

Mucius. Mucius Scaevola was caught in Porsenna's camp and, in the story, burned his own right hand to show that he did not fear pain. Porsenna made peace.

Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus, a Greek king, won battles against Rome that cost him so many soldiers that a costly win is still called a Pyrrhic victory.

The First Punic War

Bellum Punicum. Rome and Carthage fought the First Punic War mainly at sea, from 264 to 241 BCE. Rome won Sicily.

Hannibal

Hannibal. Hannibal led a Carthaginian army, with elephants, from Spain across the Alps into Italy in the Second Punic War. He won at Cannae and never took Rome.

The Fall of Carthage

Carthago. In the Third Punic War, 149 to 146 BCE, Rome destroyed Carthage. The same year, Rome destroyed Corinth in Greece.

Marius and Sulla

Marius et Sulla. Marius and then Sulla led armies into Roman politics at the end of the Republic. Their civil wars showed that a general could threaten the city itself.

Cicero and Catiline

Cicero. Cicero was consul in 63 BCE and accused Catiline of plotting to overthrow the Republic. His speeches against Catiline are famous reading later on.

Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus

Caesar. Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus formed an unofficial alliance now called the First Triumvirate. It broke down into civil war between Caesar and Pompey.

The Rubicon

Rubico. In 49 BCE Caesar led his army across the Rubicon, the stream that marked the edge of his province. That march began the civil war.

Antony and Cleopatra

Actium. Antony and Cleopatra were defeated by Octavian at the sea battle of Actium in 31 BCE. Their defeat left Octavian the master of the Roman world.

Augustus

Augustus. Octavian took the name Augustus in 27 BCE. He kept the old offices in name and became the first emperor, beginning the Empire.

The Julio-Claudians

Iulii Claudii. The first dynasty ran from Augustus through Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Nero was the last of that family line to rule.

The Flavians

Flavii. After a year of four emperors in 69 CE, Vespasian founded the Flavian dynasty. His sons were Titus and Domitian, and the Colosseum is their amphitheater.

Five Good Emperors

Optimi Principes. Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius ruled in turn from 96 to 180 CE. Writers later remembered their reigns as a stable high point.

The Sabine Women

Sabinae. Romulus needed wives for the new city. He invited the neighboring Sabines to a festival, and the Roman men carried the young women home to be their wives. War followed. The women then stepped between the two armies and made peace, and the Romans and the Sabines became one people.

Numa

Numa. Numa was remembered as the second king of Rome, after Romulus. The stories give him a peaceful reign. He set religious rites in order and shaped the calendar, so the months and the early priests are linked with his name.

Camillus

Camillus. Camillus was called back from exile when a Gallic army had taken Rome. He drove the Gauls out and argued that the Romans should rebuild the city rather than move away to another town. Later writers called him a second founder of Rome.

Coriolanus

Coriolanus. Coriolanus was a Roman soldier who quarreled with the people and then led a Volscian army against Rome. His mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia met him on the road and persuaded him to turn back.

Scipio Africanus

Scipio Africanus. Scipio Africanus carried the war with Hannibal from Italy to Africa. He defeated Hannibal at Zama in 202 BCE. The name Africanus remembers that victory on African soil.

The Gracchi

Gracchi. Tiberius Gracchus and his brother Gaius tried to share public land with poorer citizens. Many senators opposed those laws. Both brothers were killed in the political struggle. The story is about land, the people, and the strain on the Republic.

Spartacus

Spartacus. Spartacus was a gladiator who led enslaved people in a rising in Italy from 73 to 71 BCE. The rising grew into a large force. Marcus Crassus defeated it. The story is remembered as a rising of people who had been enslaved.

The Etruscans

Etrusci. The Etruscans lived north of the Tiber, in Etruria. Early stories give Rome Etruscan kings and Etruscan builders. Their cities stood in the region the map labels Etruria.

The Gauls

Galli. The Gauls lived in Gallia, north and west of Italy, and also in the plain south of the Alps. A Gallic army took Rome in the time of Camillus. Much later, Caesar fought a long war in Gaul.

The Carthaginians

Poeni. The Carthaginians lived at Carthage on the coast of Africa. Latin calls them Poeni. They were sailors and traders, and Rome fought them in three Punic wars. Punic means Carthaginian.

The Greeks

Graeci. The Greeks lived in Greece, and also in cities of southern Italy and Sicily. Romans called that western Greek world Magna Graecia, Great Greece. Greek stories and gods were already old when Rome was young.

Roman values

Pietas

Pietas. Pietas is duty to family, the gods, and the city. English "pious" is only part of the idea. Aeneas is called pius because he carries his father from Troy and keeps faith with the gods.

Gravitas

Gravitas. Gravitas is steady seriousness. A person with gravitas does not rush, boast, or treat a hard choice as a joke. The idea is calm weight, not gloom.

Virtus

Virtus. Virtus is excellence and courage. The word is related to vir, a man, but the example is a father teaching a child. Later writers also praise virtus in a mother and in her sons.

Fides

Fides. Fides is keeping your word. A promise, a treaty, and a friendship all rest on it. Cicero says good faith is the foundation of justice.

Dignitas

Dignitas. Dignitas is respect a person earns by service and character. It is not bossiness, and it is not something you can demand. Cicero joins a quiet life with that earned respect.

Auctoritas

Auctoritas. Auctoritas is influence that other people grant. It is not an extra legal power you can seize. Augustus wrote that he stood above others in influence, while his colleagues held the same offices.

Mos maiorum

Mos maiorum. Mos maiorum means the customs of the ancestors. Romans treated old ways of family, worship, and public life as a guide. The customs are many. They are not one new law.

Humanitas

Humanitas. Humanitas is kindness and learning that treat another person as human. The sample line comes from a comedy. Later Romans used it as a motto. Terence was not teaching a philosophy in that scene.

Stoic thought

Stoici. Stoic thinkers, named for the Stoa in Athens, taught that a person can stay steady when life is hard. They valued courage, fairness, self-control, and wisdom. Seneca's line is about effort: the road upward is not an easy one.

Epicurean thought

Epicurei. Epicurean thought, named for Epicurus, says a good life is simple, friendly, and free from fear. It is not a license to grab every pleasure. Lucretius, a Roman poet, explained the idea in a long poem.

Authors and genres

Caesar

Caesar. Julius Caesar wrote the Commentaries on the Gallic War in a plain, fast style. He is both a general and a prose author.

Cicero

Cicero. Cicero was Rome's most famous orator. His speeches against Catiline and his letters are the usual doorway into his Latin.

Livy

Livius. Livy wrote a history of Rome from the founding, Ab urbe condita. Much of it is lost, and the early books keep the old legends.

Nepos

Nepos. Cornelius Nepos wrote short lives of famous commanders. The sentences are simpler than Livy or Tacitus, so he is often a first biographer.

Pliny the Younger

Plinius. Pliny the Younger wrote letters, including the one that describes the eruption of Vesuvius. His uncle, Pliny the Elder, compiled a huge encyclopedia of nature.

Tacitus

Tacitus. Tacitus wrote sharp history of the early Empire, including the Annals and the Histories. He is harder, and darker in tone, than Livy.

Suetonius

Suetonius. Suetonius wrote the Lives of the Caesars, biography arranged by topics such as family, habits, and death.

Vergil

Vergilius. Vergil wrote the Aeneid, Rome's epic of Aeneas, and also the Eclogues and the Georgics. The Aeneid is dactylic hexameter.

Ovid

Ovidius. Ovid wrote the Metamorphoses, a hexameter poem of transformations, and love poetry in elegiac couplets. He is lighter in tone than Vergil.

Catullus

Catullus. Catullus wrote short personal poems: love, insult, and grief. Many are in lyric meters or elegiac couplets, not in epic hexameter.

Horace

Horatius Flaccus. Horace wrote odes, satires, and the letter that says a poem should mix the useful and the sweet. He is not the Horatius who held the bridge.

Elegiac Poets

Elegia. Tibullus and Propertius wrote elegies, poems of love in couplets. An elegiac couplet is a hexameter line followed by a pentameter line.

Plautus and Terence

Plautus. Plautus and Terence wrote comedies for the stage. The plots are Greek-style households, mistaken identity, and clever enslaved characters who save the day.

Juvenal and Martial

Iuvenalis. Juvenal wrote satires, angry poems about city life. Martial wrote epigrams, very short pointed poems.

Homer

Homerus. Homer is the Greek poet of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Roman students met Troy and Ulysses through him, and Vergil answers him in the Aeneid.

Sappho

Sappho. Sappho was a Greek poet from Lesbos. Her lyric poems survive mostly in fragments, and later Romans treated her as the great woman poet.

Places and stories

The Appian Way

Via Appia. Roman roads carried messages, trade, and armies across the empire. The Appian Way connected Rome with Brundisium, a port facing Greece and the eastern Mediterranean.

Janus and Beginnings

Ianus. Romans pictured Janus with two faces, looking toward both beginnings and endings. He was associated with gates and doors, and January takes its name from him.

Hannibal at the Gates

Hannibal ad portas. Hannibal of Carthage became one of Rome's most feared opponents. The warning Hannibal ad portas came to mean that serious danger was very near.

An Altar for Peace

Ara Pacis. The Ara Pacis was dedicated during the reign of Augustus. Its carved scenes connected peace, prosperity, family, and Rome's public life.

Livy Writes Rome's History

Ab Urbe Condita. The historian Livy wrote a huge account of Rome from its legendary founding through his own time. Only part of that work survives today.

The Arch of Constantine

Arcus Constantini. This triumphal arch commemorated Constantine's victory near the Milvian Bridge. Its decoration reused reliefs from monuments honoring earlier emperors.

The Vatican Field

Ager Vaticanus. In antiquity the Vatican area stood outside Rome and included burial grounds. Constantine built an early basilica there, centuries before the present St. Peter's Basilica took shape.

Water Across a Bridge

Pont du Gard. Roman aqueducts carried water toward towns and cities using a carefully controlled slope. The Pont du Gard in southern France is one of the best-known surviving aqueduct bridges.

Hadrian's Wall

Vallum Hadriani. Hadrian's Wall crossed northern Britain and marked a defended frontier of the Roman Empire. Forts and milecastles helped soldiers control movement along it.

A Frontier Farther North

Vallum Antonini. The Antonine Wall was built across central Scotland after Roman forces moved north of Hadrian's Wall. Rome held it only briefly before returning to the older frontier.

A Story Carved in Stone

Columna Traiani. Trajan's Column commemorated Roman campaigns in Dacia. A long spiral band of relief sculpture winds upward, showing soldiers, camps, travel, and battle scenes.

Cincinnatus Returns to His Field

Cincinnatus et Fasces. Roman tradition praised Cincinnatus for accepting emergency authority, completing his task, and then returning power to resume work on his farm.

Rome Is Captured

Capitur Urbs. Alaric's forces entered Rome in A.D. 410, a shock across the Roman world. Jerome lamented that the city which had captured the world was itself captured.

Latin Letters and English Words

Litterae Latinae. The English alphabet comes from the Latin alphabet, though later writing added letters and habits such as J and the separate vowel U. Older Roman inscriptions often used V for both vowel and consonant sounds.

The Roman World Around the Sea

Mare Internum. Roman geography centered on the Mediterranean, with roads and sea routes linking Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Greece, Asia, Syria, and Egypt. Rome called this sea Mare Nostrum, "Our Sea."

Early Latin Writers and Carthage

Ennius et Cato. Ennius was remembered as an early father of Latin literature, while Cato the Elder wrote old Latin prose and pressed for Carthage to be destroyed after Rome's long conflict with that rival city.

Romulus and Remus

Romulus et Remus. The traditional founding story tells of Rhea Silvia, Mars, the twins Romulus and Remus, the river, the she-wolf, and the building of Rome. It is legend, not Scripture, but it helps students understand Roman identity.

A Walk Through Rome

Urbs Roma. A city map places the Forum, Capitoline Hill, Palatine Hill, Circus Maximus, Colosseum, Via Sacra, temples, and the Tiber in relation to one another.

War, Peace, and Roman Power

Arma et Pax. Roman authors left sharp phrases about war and peace, from weapons yielding to the toga to Tacitus' warning that conquerors can make a desert and call it peace.

Dinner in the Triclinium

Cena Romana. Romans commonly named three meals: ientaculum, prandium, and cena. Dinner was the chief meal and could be eaten reclining in a triclinium, with handwashing, bread, fruit, vegetables, wine, knives, spoons, and napkins.

A Library Across the Centuries

Auctores Romani. The reading timeline runs from Plautus and Terence through Cicero, Caesar, Vergil, Livy, Seneca, Augustine, and Boethius. It shows Latin changing from the language of the Republic into a language of Christian theology and medieval learning.

Senate, People, and Magistrates

Senatus Populusque Romanus. Roman government changed from kingship to republic and later to imperial rule. In the Republic, assemblies elected magistrates, consuls led the state and armies, and the Senate supplied experienced counsel, though citizenship and political power remained unequal.

From Republic to Mediterranean Power

Res Publica Crescit. After the traditional founding date of 753 BC and the beginning of the Republic in 509 BC, Rome gradually controlled Italy. The Punic Wars brought victory over Carthage, but conquest also increased wealth, slavery, military ambition, and political conflict.

Augustus and the Roman Empire

Imperium Romanum. Civil wars and Julius Caesar's death ended the old republican order. Octavian became Augustus in 27 BC and established a durable imperial system that kept republican titles while concentrating authority in one ruler.

Christians in the Later Roman World

Ecclesia et Imperium. Christians endured periods of Roman persecution before Constantine and Licinius granted toleration in AD 313. Augustine wrote as the western empire weakened; the western imperial office ended in AD 476, while Roman law and the eastern empire continued.

Roman Gods as Myth and Language

Dei Romanorum. Roman stories named Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Apollo, Vesta, Cupid, and Fortuna. Their tales explained civic rituals, family customs, nature, love, war, poetry, and the household hearth within Roman pagan culture.

Roman Dress and Public Identity

Vestimenta Romana. A tunic was ordinary clothing for men, women, and children. Adult male citizens could wear the toga for formal public life, while women commonly wore longer garments; clothing, borders, and jewelry could communicate age, office, wealth, and status.

Latin Hidden in Everyday Writing

Latine Cotidie. Common forms such as AD, e.g., etc., P.S., ex libris, verbatim, and vade mecum preserve Latin in calendars, notes, books, and careful writing. Medieval scribes also helped shape the modern at-sign from forms related to apud.

The Twelve Tables and Written Law

Leges Duodecim Tabularum. Tradition dates the Twelve Tables to 451-450 BC. Publishing basic laws made legal expectations more visible, though Roman law still reflected an unequal society and developed greatly over later centuries.

Civil War and the End of the Republic

Bella Civilia. Conflict involving Marius, Sulla, Spartacus, Catiline, Caesar, Pompey, Antony, and Octavian weakened republican government. Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC and was assassinated in 44 BC; Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC.