Introducing newcomers to Latin literature and its history is an important aim, which Laurel Fulkerson and Jeffrey Tatum achieve amazingly well in their ambitious history of Latin literature ‘from its beginnings to the age of Augustus’. 1 They provide a thoughtful and exciting introduction to the key genres and texts up to and including the Augustan age: the beginnings of Latin literature; Republican drama; oratory and rhetoric; the ‘personal voice’ in satire, Catullus’ poetry and Cicero’s letters; didactic literature; history and biography; Augustan love poetry; Augustan epic; and the Augustan ‘personal’ poetry of Vergil’s Eclogues , the works of Horace, and Ovid’s exile poetry. The writing is lively and clearly conveys the authors’ passion. I particularly liked the fact that the chapters include discussion of individual lines and phrases, to give readers an idea of the sound, rhythm, and style of the language. Another thread that runs through the volume is the way Latin literature developed through a dialogue with Greek texts, and how later authors kept shaping it in a reaction to both their Greek and Latin predecessors. A number of useful ‘sidebars’ (that appear at the end of each chapter, though) provide introductions to basic concepts such as Roman nomenclature, Latin metre, slavery in Rome, Callimachus’ Aetia , or the civil wars, followed by recommendations for ‘further readings’, of both primary texts in English translation and some key secondary literature, commendably containing a section of a few crucial works in languages other than English. A timeline of historical events and the lives of key Roman authors, maps, and a glossary provide further orientation for readers with no prior knowledge. The only aspect that I thought should have received a bit more attention is the transmission of Latin literature and the role of textual criticism, which would have provided more background, e.g. for the discussion of an important textual variant in the proem of Ovid’s Metamorphoses . Otherwise, I very much enjoyed this lucid and intriguing account of Latin literature up to the age of Augustus and hope that it will reach many newcomers as well as students of Latin – and that Fulkerson and Tatum, or others, will soon undertake the task of writing a follow-up volume on imperial Latin literature.
Anne Walter (Tue,) studied this question.