Living Latin in Rome
June 9 - July 14, 2013
Program Description
This intensive, five-week Latin language course has two purposes: providing a continuous period of study of Latin and introducing students to the most important ancient sites of Rome and its surrounding areas.
The course meets five days a week for four hours a day (divided into two sessions) and combines traditional classroom instruction with the active use of Latin as a living language. Each afternoon, students meet in the classroom to read through a well-known passage from Latin literature connected with an ancient Roman site. The following morning's session uses the city as a classroom. Students visit the site referenced in the morning’s readings and work with the instructors in small groups, using Latin actively to interact with each other and the site they are visiting. Grammar, vocabulary and syntax seen in the morning’s reading are reinforced and practiced in a memorable and authentic setting.
Each Saturday there is a trip to an ancient site outside of the city with associated readings. Sundays are free for relaxing and exploring Rome.
Accommodation
Students are free to seek their own accommodations in Rome. Given the difficulty and expense associated with finding summer housing in the Eternal City, for single students we strongly recommend using the Institute's apartments. These are shared, located near the center of Rome, and include kitchen and bath.
Trips Outside of Rome
Each Saturday, the course visits an important ancient site in Rome’s environs. Sights may include:
SPERLONGA - The Museum, Beach, and Grotto of Tiberius
LICENZA - “Horace’s” Sabine Villa; Tivoli - Hadrian’s Villa
LAGO BRACCIANO - Lake in northern Latium near ancient Veii
CUMAE and the BAY OF NAPLES - The Sibyl’s Cave, Mount Vesuvius, The Campi Flegrei, Pompei, Naples (Weekend Trip).
*All trips include associated Latin readings.
Tuition and Fees
Tuition: $2,500
Tuition and Housing: $3,750
Includes
Transportation to and from Fiumicino Airport
Welcome and Farewell Dinner and Special Meals on Trips
All Site Visits
Two Nights Room and Half Board at the Villa Vergiliana in Cuma
All Course Materials
Apply
All persons of at least 18 years of age and with at least an intermediate knowledge of Latin grammar are encouraged to apply. This means at least one year of college or two years of high school Latin. For more information and to request an application please write to: summerlatin@paideia-institute.org. For information by phone call: (609) 429.0734
Student Testimonials
"This summer was one of the most incredible of my life - one steeped in language, history, and, yes, even modern culture. Speaking the language I've spent six years reading and writing was like learning it all over again. My understandings of Latin and what it means to study a language have been completely refreshed through small class translation work and adventures throughout Italy. I've utilized my Latin skills in ways that I could not have imagined. Debate at the Colosseum? Check. Latin tour of Vatican City and excavations? Check. Daily conversation in my Roman apartment? Check. This program is one-of-a-kind and is true to its name: Living Latin in Rome. Veni, vidi, vixi linguam latinam. I came (to Rome), I saw (the sights), I lived the Latin language."
-Anna Dardick '11, Oberlin College-
"There is no better way to learn Latin than to use it as an actual language, and there is no better way to learn about Rome than to experience it in the language of the ancients. From debates in the Colosseum on the ethics of gladiatorial games (in Latin of course) to chats with Vatican Latinists, the unique opportunities this class offered to experience the Classics were endless. Not to mention this course probably improved my Latinitas more than any other class I've taken. Best use of five weeks I've ever made."
-Christopher Cochran '11, Princeton University-
"Living Latin in Rome was something I will never forget, always cherish, and cannot quite express in words-- although I’ll try. Not only did it drastically improve my Latin to the point that I walked into my 3000 level Latin class this fall (my standard level of the past year) and I immediately felt that it was too elementary, but it was so much more than that pedagogically. Sure, I’ve known how to scan dactylic hexameter for years but now I can read it fluidly at sight; now I can use conversational idioms correctly; now I can rap Horace’s Ode 1.9 in meter. But what I learned doesn’t compare to how I learned it. Eric and Jason created a chill atmosphere but never ceased to make us think. They gave us exclusive tours of places that very few get to experience, such as the Vatican necropolis and the auditorium of Maecenas, all the while Eric supplied his never ending deluge of historical and religious knowledge, and Jason explained the linguistic or metrical nuances of the Latin. I read so much Latin that is often ignored in academia, ranging from biblical texts and medieval philosophy to operas and German drinking songs; while walking down the hill to the beautiful Lake Bracciano we sang, Navis Lutea, or as some may know it, Yellow Submarine. It was the perfect balance of work and play, or maybe it was all work that seemed like play. Either way, it was an incredible summer and taught me more than I could have ever hoped to learn.
-Lillian De Lisle '11, University of Virginia-
"Living Latin in Rome changed the way I think about Latin as a language. By connecting literature to actual historical sites, the culture came alive in a way I had never thought possible. Through my experience with the program in Rome, I realized that there is more to Latin than analyzing it like a micro-organism under a microscope – there’s an entirely different component: considering the language as a means of communication, and becoming familiar with the flow between words and ideas in Latin; that is to say, thinking about Latin as a language instead of a puzzle."
-Alexander Craig '11, Princeton University-
Living Latin in Rome gave me everything that a college classroom education couldn't. We tied the literature we read to the archaeological ruins by visiting actual sites such as the Forum, the Via Appia, and Mt. Vesuvius, and enjoyed the Latin language just as the Romans did: not as a code to be cracked, but as an actual means of expression. Strolling the streets of Pompeii, speaking only in Latin, was the closest I've ever felt to antiquity. The program was relaxed, yet I was intellectually challenged: reading Latin out loud and then being asked to paraphrase what I'd just read--in Latin--truly took my reading comprehension to the next level, and my grammar became sharper. LLIR also emphasized facets of Latin that are sometimes neglected in college literature classes: sight-reading, reading in meter, and medieval and Renaissance Latin (though I will always remember reciting Cicero in the Forum and Horace at the Fons Bandusiae!). It was a Classics major's heaven: surrounded by fellow Latin enthusiasts, communicating in an ancient language in the place where every Latin student can feel at home: Rome.
-Kelly Lougheed '12, Brown University-
My first trip to Rome -- I wouldn't have had it otherwise! It was an initiation into the practice of the "living" Latin tradition and a new, challenging and very personal experience of Latin the language, Latin the phenomenon. The instructors, although very different from one another, complemented each other exceedingly well. I'm glad I was exposed to a variety of different styles and approaches. There's nothing quite like learning Latin in Rome and literally being embedded in the physicality of a world otherwise accessible only through disembodied texts. It's just an entirely different thing. I've not looked at Latin the same way since.
-Alice Yeh '12, University of California, Berkeley-
I've studied Latin since middle school but had never been to Italy. "Living Latin in Rome" was the perfect introduction to Rome and Campania: in fact, despite other opportunities to go, I waited to travel to Italy until I could do this program. By day we read texts from all periods that dealt with sites of interest, while many evenings and each weekend we visited these sites in and around Rome. I will never forget visiting Cicero's alleged tomb in Formiae and reading a Latin translation of Plutarch's account of his final moments, or memorizing sections of his 3rd Oration Against Catiline and delivering it atop the ruins of the Temple of Concord in the Forum, where the orator addressed the Roman people in 63 B.C.
-Brandon Bark '12, Princeton University
