"Vivam" is the very last word of Ovid's masterpiece, the Metamorphoses: "I shall live." If we're still reading it two millennia after Ovid's death, this is by definition a remarkably accurate prophecy. Ovid was not the only ancient author with aspirations to be read for eternity, but no poet of the Greco-Roman world has had a deeper or more lasting impact on subsequent literature and art than he can claim. In the present day no Greek or Roman poet...

Latin is very much alive in the poetry written by the great Latin poets, and this book is about their poetry, their language, and their culture. Fitzgerald shows the reader with little or no knowledge of the Latin language how it works as a unique vehicle for poetic expression and thought. Moving between close analysis of particular Latin poems and more general discussions of Latin poets, literature, and society, Fitzgerald gives the un-Latined reader...

"Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC), widely regarded as the father of Roman literature, was instrumental in creating a new Roman literary identity and inspired major developments in Roman religion, social organization, and popular culture. Brought in 204 to Rome in the entourage of Cato, Ennius took up residence on the Aventine and, fluent in his native Oscan as well as Greek and Latin, became one of the first teachers to introduce Greek learning to Romans...