Jeanne Neumann explaining to students about the Terme Ruler, Rome

Latin Minor

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There are plenty of reasons to pursue the Latin language.

Studying an inflected language like Latin is perhaps the best way to learn English grammar, a command of which will make you a stronger writer and speaker. Just a basic knowledge of Latin can also help you make ready sense of many of the most obscure theoretical, scientific, and medical terms. Technical terminology aside, you’ll find that Latin deepens your understanding of etymology and nuances behind the English words you utter every day.

And of course, Latin opens the door to important seminal works in a variety of fields. Are you a philosophy major? Read Lucretius and Cicero. Theatre? There’s the comedy of Plautus. There’s the tragedy of Seneca. Religious Studies? Start with St. Augustine’s Confessiones. A history major? There’s Livy, Tacitus, Sallust, and many more. Majoring in English or Global Lit? Try Horace’s Ars Poetica, one of the most influential pieces of literary criticism around. Did we forget to mention Vergil’s Aeneid, the military accounts of Caesar, and the poetry of Ovid and Sulpicia? The list goes on!

LAT 101 (Elementary Latin), taught only in fall semesters, is the starting point for Latin at Davidson. After your first three semesters, you will have completed LAT 201, fulfilled the college’s language requirement, and be eligible to enroll in any advanced Latin course available. We offer one each semester, and we’ll make sure that the same course is not taught more than once during your time at Davidson. Yes, we’ll always have something fresh to read in Latin together!

The minor in Latin requires six courses: CLA 111 (The Ancient World), and five courses in Latin numbered above LAT 200.

A major in Classical Languages and Literatures (Latin and Greek) is also available, as is the major in Classical Studies.

Courses You Might Take

LAT 225
Ovid: Poetry from Exile

Carmen et error (“a poem and a mistake”). Many of us have perhaps done worse, and yet these are what the poet Ovidsays provoked the Roman emperor Augustus to exile him for life. Ovid nevertheless kept the carmina coming, writing his Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto, and Ibis from the Black Sea. 

LAT 234
Latin Philosophical Poetry: Lucretius

The influence of Lucretius’ de Rerum Natura, an epic in six books celebrating Epicurean philosophy in poetry of spectacular beauty, cannot be overstated. His poetry imbued the verse of the Augustan poets, especially Virgil and Horace; there is nothing else like it in Latin.

LAT 244
Roman Historians: Livy

Titus Livius (59 BCE - 17 CE) wrote a 142-volume history of the city of Rome from its founding down to his own day. This monumental opus became the standard account of the history of the Roman republic, and it remains one of the best historical sources for this period.

Related Programs

Interested in Studying Latin at Davidson?