Learning Latin is one of the key experiences of the modern Classicist; nearly all of us have done it ourselves, and many of us spend much of our time helping the next generation do it. Yet most of us know almost nothing about how our experience of this crucial activity relates to the ancient one; indeed many Classicists are unaware that Latin learning was common in antiquity and that many of the materials used for that purpose have survived. This lack of awareness limits opportunities not only to compare our experience with the ancient one, but also to exploit the ancient Latin-learning materials, many of which are still useful and enjoyable today.

This book aims to show modern Latin teachers and Latin students how ancient Latin learning was conducted, by making the ancient materials accessible to modern readers in a format that allows them to be used as they were originally intended to be used. It is not a Latin textbook and cannot be used by itself to learn Latin (among other reasons, because it includes only a selection of the ancient materials and so omits a significant amount of vital information); rather it is designed to complement a textbook and/or to be used by those who have already mastered the basics. It is not cumulative: the pieces it contains can be read in any order.

Since some aspects of ancient education are alien to modern practice, teachers may actually prefer to use the ancient materials in ways that no ancient teacher ever used them, for example by asking students to translate texts that in antiquity would have been memorized rather than translated. In doing so they will have my blessing; I myself use the ancient materials inauthentically in teaching, because there are good reasons why we no longer use certain ancient methods. But inauthentic use of the ancient materials is best carried out in full awareness of how those materials were originally designed to be used, and for that reason every effort has been made to make clear what the original function of the various materials was. I hope this book will be a tool usable in a wide variety of different ways by people whose own creativity is limited neither by my intentions nor by those of the ancient authors of these texts.