The Latin program is designed to give students a facility in reading Latin and an understanding and appreciation of Roman civilization.

Throughout the four years of Latin offered at College Prep, emphasis is placed on the language, literature, history, and culture of the ancient Romans.

We have a chapter of the California Junior Classical League, and students attend the Bay Area Ludi Octobres in the fall and the state convention in the spring. All Latin students take the National Latin Exam in March.

The Cambridge Latin Course has been adopted for the first two years of Latin instruction. This reading approach offers the student the opportunity to study Latin inductively: meanings of words and syntax are first presented in model sentences or reading selections. Students are then given extensive practice with the grammatical structures and with vocabulary reinforcement. Cleverly and carefully integrated into the language presentation are cultural material and historical content. Students first explore the daily life and activities of a family in ancient Pompeii of the first century. A family member survives the destruction of Pompeii in AD 79, and the class follows him to Roman Alexandria, Roman Britain, and finally Rome. Student projects center on the cultural material of the course.

Students continue learning vocabulary and the grammar needed to read Latin authors. Using the Cambridge Latin Course, students get extensive practice with more noun cases as well as subjunctive usages and verbals, including indirect statement and ablative absolute. Cultural material includes more study of Roman Britain (the Roman baths at Bath and the Roman army) and of first century A.D. Rome itself. Students read a piece of Roman historical fiction and make mythology posters.

The “Roman character” is the focus of study in Latin III. The typical Roman of the Republican Era, as met in stories by Livy, is contrasted with the first century A.D. character of Trimalchio in the Millionaire’s Dinner Party. Second semester is devoted to the personalities of Catiline and Cicero, who are met in selections from Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae and Cicero’s In Catilinam I, and of the poet Catullus. Roman Republican history and political institutions are studied through readings in English and slides. Students study the Roman Forum and make models of a Roman Forum building, as well as undertake an intensive grammar review for the SAT Subject Test in Latin. This course has been designated as an Honors course by the University of California. 

The year 2012-2013 brings a new Advanced Placement exam in Latin. The readings will focus on the late Republic and early Empire periods of Roman history. Julius Caesar's accounts of the war in Gaul (de Bello Gallico) will comprise the prose readings while selections from Vergil's Aeneid, the epic written to extol Augustus' accession to the Principate, will give experience with Latin poetry.