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About the Course
Explore ancient Roman history and culture as you learn to read and analyze Latin literature. In AP Latin, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of this long-lived language from which all the modern Romance languages (such as French, Spanish, and Italian) arose, while reading the original works of Vergil, Pliny the Younger, and more.
Skills You'll Learn
Reading and comprehending Latin poetry and prose
Describing the style and context of Latin poetry and prose
Analyzing Latin poetry and prose
Equivalency and Prerequisites
College Course Equivalent
An intermediate level (typically third- and fourth-semester) college or university Latin course.
Recommended Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites, but students are typically in their fourth year of high-school-level study.
Exam Date
About the Units
The course content outlined below is organized into commonly taught units of study that provide one possible sequence for the course. Your teacher may choose to organize the course content differently based on local priorities and preferences.
Course Content
Unit 1: Teacher’s Choice—Latin Prose
You’ll review the fundamentals of reading Latin as you begin the transition to reading longer passages of Latin prose. Your teacher will choose the texts for this unit.
You’ll focus on:
- Reviewing and building your knowledge of Latin vocabulary
- Reviewing and solidifying your knowledge of Latin morphology
- Reviewing and practicing your knowledge of Latin grammar
- Comprehending and translating Latin texts
- Beginning to develop your analytical skills
Unit 2: Pliny’s Letters: Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
You’ll read two of Pliny the Younger’s letters about the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE.
You’ll focus on:
- Continuing to build on your Latin reading and comprehension skills
- Using context to aid in your literal translation of Latin
- Beginning to engage with stylistic elements and contextual facts relevant to Latin prose and Pliny the Younger’s life and works
- Continuing to develop your analytical skills of Latin texts
- Beginning to develop your own interpretations of Latin texts
- Developing sight-reading skills
Unit 3: Pliny’s Letters: Ghosts and Apparitions, Letters to Trajan and Calpurnia, and Teacher’s Choice—Latin Prose
You’ll read several of Pliny’s letters on a variety of topics, including Romans’ ideas about the supernatural and divine, and different types of Roman professional and personal relationships.
You’ll focus on:
- Continuing to acquire relevant cultural knowledge
- Developing textual interpretations using supporting evidence
- Answering comprehension questions that require inference
- Consolidating and reviewing core vocabulary for Pliny’s Letters
Unit 4: Teacher’s Choice—Latin Poetry and Vergil’s Aeneid, Excerpts from Books 1 and 2
You’ll be introduced to Latin poetry and to two key leaders in the Aeneid—Aeneas and Dido—as you read about the trials of the Trojans and the roles of other mortal and divine characters in this epic.
You’ll focus on:
- Reading and comprehending Latin poetry
- Identifying stylistic features in Latin poetry
- Identifying contextual, historical, and mythological facts
- Continuing to develop your analytical skills
- Developing your ability to scan poetry in dactylic hexameter
Unit 5: Vergil, Aeneid, Excerpts from Books 4, 6, 7, 11, and 12
You’ll read more about the doomed relationship between Queen Dido and Aeneas, Aeneas’s trip to the underworld with his father Anchises, and meet the characters Turnus and Camilla in the conclusion of the epic.
You’ll focus on:
- Refining your ability to read and comprehend Vergilian poetry
- Comprehending Latin texts and their implied meanings
- Learning additional stylistic devices, features of the epic genre, and contextual facts related to Vergil and the Aeneid
- Practicing your analytical and interpretive skills
Unit 6: Course Project and Teacher’s Choice—Latin Poetry
You’ll engage in a contextually informed exploration of the four course project passages, unique to that year of the course, and continue to develop your abilities to read and comprehend Latin poetry using texts chosen by your teacher.
You’ll focus on:
- Comprehending and analyzing the four course project passages
- Translating the 4 course project passages
- Using your analytical skills to consider the passages’ deeper meanings, purposes and effects, and various attitudes and points of view
- Reviewing your grammatical, syntactical, and vocabulary knowledge
- Practicing your sight-reading skills
- Identifying and describing stylistic features and contextual details
Credit and Placement
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Course Resources
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