An affair with Cynthia is too hard work for you, Propertius tells Gallus, and he has some pretty persuasive-sounding arguments.
Hear Propertius’s Latin and follow in English here.
In his fourth poem about his lover, Cynthia, Propertius delivers a sharp response to an acquaintance who tells him he should be looking elsewhere. Her accomplishments include the arts, including music – and certain other things, he adds …
Hear Propertius’s Latin and follow in English here.
With a flattering valuation of Cynthia’s natural beauty and an elegant selection of mythological examples to back him up, Propertius takes a swipe at fancy cosmetics and beauty treatments. Hear his Latin and follow in English here.
Virgil is bound for Athens. His friend, Horace, wishes him a voyage watched over by the Gods, and a safe return. In a bravura performance on a conventional theme, he goes on to marvel at the presumption of those who step over the divinely-ordained boundaries of the natural world by hazarding an ocean voyage.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.
Horace writes again about love, this time from the point of view of middle age. Others, he says, are now better suited to dedicating marble statues to Venus and her powers.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.
To Laelius, brother, parent, wife and child mean less than his loyalty to Caesar his commander. Hear his chilling speech in Lucan’s Latin and follow in English here.
The illustration is David’s “Oath of the Horatii”.
In one of the most famous moments of European history, Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon.
Hear Lucan’s Latin and follow in English here.
As civil war threatens, the poet Lucan sums up the protagonists: Pompey (pictured) has popularity, authority and the advantages of a mighty reputation, but Caesar has something more.
See and hear Lucan’s Latin from his De Bello Civile and follow in English here.
In the coming days Pantheon Poets will be posting a short series of extracts from Lucan’s poem. Lucan, forced to commit suicide in his mid-twenties by the Emperor Nero, pulls no punches on his account of the struggle between Julius Caesar and his adversary, Pompey the Great. As a prelude, read more about Lucan and his work on his poet page here.