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Scholars agree that you need to know 95‒98% of the words in a text in order to understand it. Using a digital and statistical analysis of a four-million-word corpus, we quantify the challenge of reaching this threshold in classical Latin. The vocabulary distribution has a long tail: to read with fluency you'd have to learn a lot of uncommon words. Because of the nature of the extant classical Latin corpus, this is an almost impossible task today. But Latin learners shouldn't despair. Instead, we should adjust our expectations, our teaching, and our reading practices. We make suggestions for possible changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terentianus Maurus, a North African writing probably in the third century a.d., bequeathed to posterity a preface and three polymetric poems: De litteris, De syllabis and De metris. The poems' titles reflect their content, the first two covering the pronunciation of letters and syllables and the third discussing the details of a bewildering array of metres. Unpromising subject matter for poetry? On the contrary. Terentianus Maurus uses this raw material to display his extraordinary poetic skill, while also conveying useful technical information. This paper first examines the programmatic preface to his poems, which is studded with intertextual gems and shines with every kind of literary polish. It then turns to look at passages from the rest of Terentianus' poetry to see how he puts the ideals of his preface into poetic practice. The paper aims to show that Terentianus Maurus is not, or not just, a grammarian, but rather a consummate literary artist in the tradition of learned didactic verse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we describe a series of computer algorithms that generate prose rhythm data for any digitised corpus of Latin texts. Using these algorithms, we present prose rhythm data for most major extant Latin prose authors from Cato the Elder through the second century a.d. Next we offer a new approach to determining the statistical significance of such data. We show that, while only some Latin authors adhere to the Ciceronian rhythmic canon, every Latin author is 'rhythmical' — they just choose different rhythms. Then we give answers to some particular questions based on our data and statistical approach, focusing on Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. In addition to providing comprehensive new data on Latin prose rhythm, presenting new results based on that data and confirming certain long-standing beliefs, we hope to make a contribution to a discussion of digital and statistical methodology in the study of Latin prose rhythm and in Classics more generally. The Supplementary Material available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075435819000881) contains an appendix with tables, data and code. This appendix constitutes a static 'version of record' for the data presented in this article, but we expect to continue to update our code and data; updates can be found in the repository of the Classical Language Toolkit (https://github.com/cltk/cltk). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses Hellenistic poet Vergil's possible interpretation of the author Theocritus, by way of scholar Theon's commentary, in the composition of his "Eclogues." Topics covered include the evidence via lexical items of etymology and wordplay, and correctio and aemulatio, and the invention of and Vergil's motivation on writing pastoral poetry. The author also notes the additional insight into Vergil's poetry afforded by Theon's commentary.

I show that the standard edition of Ovid's Ibis, La Penna 1957, needs to be updated. Based on a fresh examination of the oldest manuscripts, my article demonstrates that La Penna's tripartite stemma is untenable. A new bipartite stemma is proposed and justified, which results in a reappraisal of variants. 1 likewise show that a late humanist manuscript may preserve extra-stemmatic readings; these readings must be carefully considered. I also discuss some disputed passages, emendations, and interpolations, arguing for a more skeptical approach to the text. This article represents the necessary philological spadework for a broader project to reintegrate the Ibis into Ovid's poetic corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of Pliny the Younger's oration "Panegyricus" is presented. In the oration, Pliny discussed how the imperial house has become safer as it is already occupied by emperor Trajan, in comparison to the times when it was occupied by emperor Domitian. The author highlights flaws in the text at 49.2, in relation to the word erus.