NEW ELEMENTARY LATIN

LESSON I

1. You are beginning the study of a new language. Perhaps you are a little curious and eager about it
because it is something new, different from anything you have studied; or perhaps you are a little afraid it
because you think of it is something strange and difficult. Let us see what we know about it already.
Twenty-five hundred years ago Rome was one of many small towns in Italy. Its language, Latin, got its
name from the district of Latium in which the town was situated. As the power of Rome spread, first over Italy
and then over most of the civilized world of that day, its language came to be used everywhere. On the map
opposite page 92 you can trace the growth of the great Roman Empire. You will note how it became a sort of
United State of the Mediterranean.
The modern civilization of Europe and America is largely the outgrowth of the Roman. American boys
and girls play many games that Roman children played; American students read literature that was greatly
influenced by the Roman; American citizens deal with political and legal ideas that are largely a Roman
inheritance. To get acquainted with this Roman civilization is an important reason for studying Latin.
The Romans, however, have handed down not only their ideas but also their language. The Romance
languages are the various forms which the Roman (Latin) language has taken in the course of centuries in the
various parts of the Roman Empire. They are Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian, and even, to a
large extent, English, since about sixty per cent of our English words are derived from Latin. French, Spanish,
and Italian become very easy after a study of Latin. But the chief reason why you are going to study Latin is to
get a better knowledge of English. The study of Latin will make English grammar much easier to understand.
Then again, there are Latin words, phrases, and mottoes used in English, such as radius, per annum, and e
pluribus unum. Many Latin phrases are used in law, such as habeas corpus; therefore lawyers must know
Latin. Many abbreviations used in English are Latin, such as i.e. for id est.
You see then that this Latin of the Romans is not so remote a thing after all and that a knowledge of it
will be very useful to you.

2. Exercise

1. How many events of Roman history can you think of?

2. What famous Romans do you remember?
3. What Roman gods can you recall?
4. What do you know about Rome as it is today?
5. How many Latin words, phrases, legal terms, scientific terms, mottoes, proverbs, and abbreviations can
you give?

3. GLIMPSES OF ROMAN LIFE Childrens Games

Roman children has good times as our children have in playing games. Even the babies had their rattles.
Girls had their dolls; boys played various kinds of marbles games with nuts. The phrase relinquere nucs (to
give up nuts) meant to grow up, but grown-ups, even the Emperor Augustus, sometimes played such games.
Vacation was the time for marble games. The poet Martial says: Sadly the boy leaves his marbles and is called
back to school by the teacher the Saturnalia [Christmas] vacation is all over.
Other amusements were spinning tops, walking on stilts, flying kites, rolling hoops, playing with toy
wagons, toy soldiers, etc. Among their games were blind mans buff, hide and seek, leapfrog, jacks. Ball
games, some like our tennis and handball, were favorites, especially for men.
For indoor amusement the Romans had a board game which was something like chess or checkers, and
another like the many games we have in which as many moves are made on a board as are shown by the
throwing of dice.
Roman boys and men had their sports not only swimming, fishing, hunting, etc., but also athletic
contests: running, jumping, throwing the discus, boxing, wrestling, fencing.