SCRIBBLERS, SCVLPTORS, AND SCRIBES

[rick lafleur]

SALVETE! My new Latin reader, SCRIBBLERS, SCVLPTORS, AND SCRIBES, is due out this month, and Andrew said it'd be fine to post a notice; you can browse it here:

http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=97800612591...

I'm pretty excited about it; here's the cover "blurb":

A new and unique anthology of readings for those beginning their study of Latin, SCRIBBLERS, SCVLPTORS, AND SCRIBES contains entirely authentic, unaltered texts from ancient Rome. The reading selections, and accompanying illustrations, provide an extraordinarily wide range of insights into Roman daily life as well as Latin literature. The volume’s readings include:

–numerous graffiti, with thoughts on love, hate, sex, politics, death, and sweetheart gladiators, scribbled by "creative" Romans–men, women, and children–on the walls, gates, windows, and doors of houses and shops, latrines, amphitheaters, and other handy locations, especially in Pompeii, where so many such texts were preserved in the cataclysm of A.D. 79;

–dozens of inscriptions produced by ancient scvlpt r s, the Latin term for those who engraved on stone, bronze, silver and gemstones, mosaic tiles, pottery, and other durable materials a variety of texts ranging from epitaphs, religious dedications, and instructions for the return of fugitive slaves, to "Beware of the Dog" and "Bathe Well" signs, oracular responses, and the inauguration of public buildings;

–a host of well-known and not-so-well-known literary texts, both formal literary passages and a collection of excerpted proverbs and maxims, transmitted to us via the labors of ancient and medieval scribes and drawn from the works of such poets as Catullus, Sulpicia, Horace, Phaedrus, Martial, and Juvenal, and the prose writers Cicero, Sallust, Nepos, Apicius, Petronius, Seneca, Pliny, St. Jerome (including translations from the Old and New Testaments), Aulus Gellius, and others.

Intended in particular as a companion to WHEELOCK’S LATIN, the anthology’s many useful design features–including texts of gradually increasing difficulty, comprehensive vocabulary aids, systematically focused grammar questions, and a "Summary of Forms" appendix–make it suitable for use alongside any introductory college or high-school Latin textbook. The hundreds of reading selections are accompanied by numerous illustrations and maps of ancient Italy and the Roman Empire.