Select readings from The Complete Latin Course

read by George Sharpley

Be quiet, Lucretia. I am Sextus Tarquinius; there is a knife in my hand.

These days I hear too many people praising and admiring the ornaments of Corinth and Athens.

Clodius is hostile to us. Pompey reassures (me) that Clodius will do nothing against me. It is dangerous for me to believe (it). I am preparing myself for resistance.
CICERO (Ch. 7, 4)

But still, if we have all the tribunes of the people, if we have Lentulus as supportive as he seems, if indeed we also have Pompey and Caesar, not all hope has gone.

He (the robber) stands opposite and orders a halt. Obedience is the only option; for what do you do when a madman confronts you—and at the same time he is stronger? (He says:) ‘Where do you come from? Either say or take a kicking.’

When after being summoned does the server of warm and cold water turn up? To be sure he thinks it demeaning to obey an old client and (is resentful) because you ask for something and because you recline while he stands.

There is not any force able to restrain Evander, but he comes into the middle of the throng. The bier is put down and he sinks over Pallas, and clings to him, weeping and groaning.

By chance the lad (Narcissus) had become separated from his faithful band of comrades and had said: ‘Who is here?’ and ‘Is here’ had replied Echo.

Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia, that Lesbia, the one woman Catullus loved more than himself and all his people, nowadays picks off descendants of highminded Remus at crossroads and in alleys.

Why do I not send you my books, Pontilianus? In case, Pontilianus, you send me yours.

Did you suppose, Etruscan, you were hunting wild beasts in the woods?

Yet more troublesome is that woman who once she has begun to recline at table gushes over Virgil and finds excuses for doomed Dido. The teachers duck, the professors are seen off, and not one of the lot of them can get a word in.

Why does your personal grief disturb you so? Look at what has been taken from us – things which ought to be no less dear to people than their children – the state, our honour, prestige and all public offices. But for sure it is bad to lose children. Bad, yes; except suffering and enduring these (losses) is worse.

What help is it to yield so much to your demented grief, sweet husband? These things do not happen without the will of the gods; it is not right for you to take Creusa from here as your companion, nor does that ruler of Olympus on high allow it.

‘Set up the cross for the slave.’ (She says)
‘On what charge has the slave deserved punishment. Who is present as witness? Who accused him? Hear him. No delay is ever long when it comes to the death of a human being.’
‘You fool, is a slave thus a human being? He has done nothing? So be it. This I want and thus I command. My whim may serve as procedure.’ And so she bosses her husband.

‘Why,’ he said, ‘do you think I am a pack-animal or a ship that transports stone? I have contracted the duties of a man, not of a horse. I am no less a free man than yourselves, even if my father did leave me a pauper.’ And not content with his abuse he then lifted one foot higher (than the other) and simultaneously filled the road with an obscene noise and smell.

Now if an enterprise is small it should be considered demeaning; but if large and expansive, it is not to be disparaged. Of all things, however, from which a living is made, nothing is better than agriculture, nothing more fruitful, nothing sweeter, nothing more worthy of a free man.

‘Raising livestock well.’
‘What second?’
‘Raising livestock well enough.’
‘What third?’
‘Raising livestock badly.’
‘And fourth?’
‘Arable farming.’

And when his questioner had asked ‘What of money-lending?’ then Cato replied ‘What about killing a man?’

I was unwell: but in no time you made a visit to me, Symmachus, with a hundred students in tow. A hundred hands chilled by the north wind fingered me: I did not have a fever, Symmachus. I do now.

What good has that man done for us? He produced gladiators worth tuppence, already decrepit, who, had you blown on them, would have collapsed; I have seen better animal-fighters before now.

But time is escaping meanwhile, irretrievable time is escaping.

Happy is he who, like the ancient race of mortals, is far from (the world of) business and works his father’s land with his oxen, free from all mortgage payments; it pleases him to lie down, now under an old oak tree, now on the clinging grass.

Decency and truth and trust fled. In their place crept deceit, trickery and treachery, and violence, and the pernicious desire for gain.

For a while the deadly superstition was checked, but then broke out again, not only in Judaea, the source of this evil, but also in Rome where from every corner all things sleaze-ridden or shameful ooze together and come into vogue.

I had horses, men, arms, wealth: why is it surprising if I was unwilling to lose these things? Just because you want to rule over everyone does it follow that everyone should welcome their slavery?

Those who recently rejected the Roman language wanted to be fluent. There was a gradual decline to the allurements of vices, to colonnades, baths and the sophistication of dinner-parties. That was called civilization by the foolish, when in fact it was part of their enslavement.

Immediately the Lemnian god opened the ivory doors and let in the gods: there those (two) lay in their shaming bondage – and one of the gods, who were much tickled, wished he could be so ashamed. The gods burst out laughing, and for a long time this story was best known in all heaven.

While Proserpina was playing in the grove and picking either violets or white lilies, and while with girlish eagerness she was filling her baskets and her bosom and striving to outdo her companions in picking (the flowers), almost in the same instant she was seen and fancied and snatched by Dis.

The descent to Avernus is easy. Night and day the door of gloomy Dis lies open; but to retrace your step and escape to the air above, this is the task, this the struggle.

For if that last day brings not exstinction but a change of abode, what is more desirable? But if it brings the end, completely and utterly, what is better than to fall asleep in the middle of life’s toils?

You should not inquire – it’s not right to know – what end the gods have given to me or to you, Leuconoë, nor should you dabble in Babylonian astrology. How much better it is to take whatever comes, whether Jupiter has granted more winters or this is the last, which now wears out the Etruscan sea on opposing rocks. Be wise, decant the wine and trim your long-term ambition to a brief span. Even as we speak, the unkind hour has slipped away: enjoy the moment, and trust as little as possible in tomorrow.