Ad usum scholarum

Niklas Holzberg, a professor of Classics at the University of Munich until his retirement in 2011, offers a collection of lectures he held over a period of eleven years (2008–2019) in various parts of Germany, both at schools where Latin is taught and as part of advanced training programmes for those that teach it. His interpretations of the Latin texts in question, which are all required reading at grammar school level, focus on the classroom, that is, on the practicalities of learning and teaching. The Augustan poets Virgil, Horace and Ovid take up a large part of this volume, but still leave room for other genres that are introduced and illustrated using prominent exponents of each: Catullus and Martial (epigram); Pliny the Younger (epistle); Caesar, Sallust, Livy and Tacitus (history); and Petronius (novel). The principal intention of these papers, all of which draw on the most recent research into Latin literature, is to provide new impetus to reading material in the subject of Latin in schools.