Languages as superficially different as English, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit in fact all developed from a single "proto-language," called Proto-Indo-European. This course will explore the following questions: What was this proto-language like? How do we know what it was like? By what processes did it develop into the various daughter languages? How can we trace words as diverse as wit, idea, video, and Veda back to a common source?

This introduction to the Celtic inhabitants of Gaul and Britain unites two approaches, one literary, one linguistic. First, we will compare descriptions of the Celts found in Greek and Latin authors with readings of Celtic literature in translation, notably Ireland's great prose epic, the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Second, we will explore how the Celtic languages work, focusing on the basics of Old Irish as well as touching on Middle Welsh and Gaulish.

This advanced course will study Ovid's calendar-poem, Fasti, which presents festivals and star-myths for six months of the year. This work of late Ovid (written both before and after his exile) offers the opportunity to study a literary response to Rome's religious calendar and its imperial remaking in the age of Augustus.

New course in the subject of Latin. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.

Independent research under direction of a faculty member leading to writing of a Distinguished Majors thesis or comparable project

Independent research under direction of a faculty member leading to writing of a Distinguished Majors thesis or comparable project

Writing of Distinguished Majors thesis or comparable project.Prerequisite: GREE 4998

Writing of Distinguished Majors thesis or comparable project.Prerequisites: LATI 4998

This class will combine Latin prose composition exercises with close analysis of the style of Cicero, with the goal of actively recognizing, understanding, and using key characteristics of literary prose style from the Late Republic. We will work through exercises designed to make us comfortable in writing Latin, lectures on topics in Latin syntax, word order, and style, and culminate in the composition of extended passages of Latin prose. There will also be a brief foray into verse composition.

Studies selections from Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at http://www.virginia.edu/classics/.