[Gutenberg 44975] • A History of Roman Literature

Excerpt from A History of Roman Literature

This book is intended primarily for use as a text-book in schools and colleges. I have therefore given more dates and more details about the lives of authors than are in themselves important, because dates are convenient aids to memory, as they enable the learner to connect his new knowledge with historical facts he may have learned before, while biographical details help to endow authors with something of concrete personality, to which the learner can attach what he learns of their literary and intellectual activity.

Extracts from Latin authors are given, with few exceptions, in English translation. I considered the advisability of giving them in Latin, but concluded that extracts in Latin would probably not be read by most young readers, and would therefore do less good than even imperfect translations. Moreover, the texts of the most important works are sure to be at hand in the schools, and books of selections, such as Cruttwell and Banton's Specimens of Roman Literature, Tyrrell's Anthology of Latin Poetry, and Gudeman's Latin Literature of the Empire, are readily accessible. I am responsible for all translations not accredited to some other translator. In making my translations, I have employed blank verse to represent Latin hexameters; but the selections from the AEneid are given in Conington's rhymed version, and in some other cases I have used translations of hexameters into metres other than blank verse.