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| √ ∴ | “root” and “therefore” symbols |
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Shorter Table of Contents
List of Passages for Translation
Appendices
Index
‘Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
Hae tibi’erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem.
Parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.’
Vergil, Aeneid, vi. 851 3
‘Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam,
Profuit iniustis te dominante capi.
Dumque offers victis proprii consortia iuris,
Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.’
Rutilius, i. 63-6
Whatever controversies may be astiras to the precise objects of a classical training, it will hardly bedisputed that if that teaching has been successful the pupils willsooner or later be able to make out an ordinary passage of ‘unseen’Latin or Greek. It is a test to which the purely linguistic teacher mustobviously defer: while the master, who aims at imparting knowledge ofthe subject-matter must acknowledge, if his boys flounder helplessly inunprepared extracts, that they could have learnt about ancient lifebetter through translations.
In, addition to the value of unseen translation, as a test ofteaching it constitutes an admirable thinking exercise. But so numerousare the various books of extracts already published that I should haveseen nothing to be gained from the appearance of a new one like thepresent volume were it not, as far as I know, different in two importantrespects from others. It contains six Demonstrations of howsentences are to be attacked: and further, the passages are chosen sothat if a boy works through the book he can hardly fail to gain someoutline knowledge of Roman Republican history.<