Enjoy!Īgricola et vitam et fortunam nautae saepe laudat nauta magnam fortunam et vitam poetae saepe laudat et poeta vitam et agros agricolae laudat. Note that some of these are unedited Latin passages and sentences from the original authors while others are simplified for the purpose of accessibility to beginning Latin students. In the interest of whetting your appetite for Ancient Roman philosophy, here is a small selection of philosophical passages and sentences from the early chapters of Wheelock’s Latin and my own translations of them.

Although Ancient Roman stoicism does have a metaphysical component in its views on the cosmic order of things, Ancient Roman stoicism was also highly practical and down-to-Earth, as can be seen in various passages from Seneca in Wheelock’s Latin. It’s quite easy to see, for example, that the Ancient Romans were an infinitely more practical people than the Ancient Greeks, with Roman philosophy being less lofty and metaphysical and more about practical philosophy as the art of life ( ars vitae, in latin), promoting the health of the state, molding the character of the Roman people ( populus Romanus), and avoiding the many dangers of money and power. While I was working my way through the early chapters, I was struck by how clear a picture (albeit a simplified one) of Ancient Roman philosophy emerges from the brief passages and simplified sentences in Wheelock’s Latin. So I’ve recently been working my way, once again, through Wheelock’s Latin, the text I used to study Latin originally, both for its own sake and in hope of being able one day to teach Latin in addition to philosophy.

Ars est pecunia