Fabulae Romanae
Shakespeare’s plots are retold as one connected Roman world: shipwrecked twins in Illyria, merchants sailing from Venice, lovers lost outside Athens, and soldiers posted to Cyprus. No sentence is translated from a modern course. The Latin begins with what a place is, repeats before it advances, and grows toward sustained narration; tap a word whenever you want the dictionary rather than a guess from context.
This is an expanding first-year reader: 35 of 35 planned chapters are published, with 39,752 words of original narrative and 1584 introduced lexemes. Its length and grammatical runway are being paced against Lingua Latina per se illustrata: Familia Romana; none of that book’s sentences are copied, translated or paraphrased.
- IIllyricumA Roman world, an Illyrian coast and separated twins, with one verb.
36 new words · 2 names
- IIHortus OliviaeA garden, a table and a letter, and a verb that takes an object.
50 new words · 6 names
- IIINomen puellaeWhose? The genitive, the enclitic -que, and the first questions.
40 new words · 7 names
- IVVenetiaShips, merchants and money: giving, and the case you give to.
44 new words · 4 names
- VProcellaOut of, with, without: the ablative, and verbs in -eo.
47 new words · 4 names
- VIAthenaeA city, four lovers and a wood: the plural of every case.
47 new words · 4 names
- VIINoxA wood after dark, and the declension that hides its stem.
42 new words · 7 names
- VIIICyprusA garrison, a trick and a handkerchief: verbs in -it, and orders.
42 new words · 5 names
- IXFortiorBraver than, sadder than: third-declension adjectives, and -ior.
43 new words · 10 names
- XConviviumEveryone in one room: this one, that one, and the one who.
39 new words · 19 names
- XIGemini EphesiTwo masters, two servants, and the infinitive that sets them all in motion.
32 new words · 6 names
- XIIOfficium PublicumThe city watch turns a private confusion into a public judgment.
42 new words · 6 names
- XIIIDies et ResRome counts the days while Caesar, Calpurnia, and Brutus approach the Ides of March.
50 new words · 3 names
- XIVHomines AgentesOn the Ides of March, simultaneous actions carry Caesar from his house to the Curia.
45 new words · 6 names
- XVVoces et TabulaeAfter the Ides, a teacher tests voices and evidence while a forged tablet breaks a promise.
50 new words · 7 names
- XVIProficiscentesA voyage from Ostia scatters passengers, witnesses, and disputed tablets across Aeolia.
49 new words · 5 names
- XVIIActa et AuditaOn Aeolia, a salvage inquiry tests who acts, what is reported, and how altered records are recognized.
49 new words · 0 names
- XVIIICertamen PublicumGames and a civic hearing at Syracuse test who moves fastest, who speaks most precisely, and which promises are freely made.
45 new words · 1 names
- XIXDuae DomusIn Roman Verona, two client networks repeat an inherited rivalry until a market brawl brings Florus and Laelia briefly together.
49 new words · 12 names
- XXPromissa et MinaeElection promises, marriage terms, a lawful private agreement and a civic warning place Verona’s future in competing hands.
50 new words · 0 names
- XXIQuid FeceruntA concealed banquet visit, a witnessed marriage, two deaths and a sentence of exile test Verona’s promises against completed acts.
50 new words · 0 names
- XXIIConsilia DispositaVerona is closed and watched, Laelia is promised against her will, and two authenticated messages begin an interrupted escape plan.
50 new words · 0 names
- XXIIINuntii ContrariiVerona, its road officials and a delayed witness give Florus incompatible accounts of what has happened to Laelia.
50 new words · 0 names
- XXIVQuae Antea AcciderantAn inquest reconstructs the failed messages and household coercion, then turns acknowledged responsibility into a shared public memorial.
45 new words · 0 names
- XXVFabula ad ProbandumRoscius's company stages a Roman exemplum so Cassianus can test suspicion against observable evidence.
50 new words · 7 names
- XXVIUt EffugiatSeverus orders Cassianus removed, but a copied record, an actor's costume, and four careful allies open a road to lawful refuge.
49 new words · 9 names
- XXVIIAmbitioVictory, an ambiguous oracle, and carefully arranged hospitality turn Drusus from an honored deputy toward a dangerous claim on command.
49 new words · 7 names
- XXVIIICum Factum EritCompleted conditions govern a dangerous night, a premature succession, and the first hidden movement of the sacred grove.
48 new words · 7 names
- XXIXQuod Faciendum EstEmergency orders assign duties to soldiers, scribes and towns while Sabinus answers political necessity with duties owed to law.
47 new words · 7 names
- XXXQuaestioAn inquiry into seals, rosters and testimony ends Drusus’s command without replacing law with another personal ruler.
39 new words · 8 names
- XXXISi AudivissemAn elder senator divides land and clients in exchange for public loyalty, then learns through loss what mutual duty required.
53 new words · 6 names
- XXXIIExercitus et CivitasA commander who saves an allied town refuses civic accountability, marches against Rome, and is recalled to mutual duty by an embassy from home.
49 new words · 4 names
- XXXIIIFoedus OrientaleA grain and naval alliance with Cyrene is distorted into an invasion until its bilingual copies make a negotiated settlement possible.
50 new words · 10 names
- XXXIVFabula PublicaRoscius turns the authenticated archive into a public play whose metre, claims and mistakes can be tested by its Roman audience.
38 new words · 10 names
- XXXVReditus in IllyricumArtemidorus and Aurelia carry the corrected record across the Adriatic, where reunited twins test its reports and entrust an open copy to new readers.
26 new words · 8 names
The full arc
People and places
The five common cases, present-tense statements and commands
Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello
A Roman day
Infinitives, all verb persons, participles, passive and deponent verbs
The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest
Stories in time
Imperfect, future, perfect and pluperfect; indirect statement
Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth
Purpose and consequence
The subjunctive sequence, purpose, result, fear and indirect question
King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline
Rome and the stage
Extended connected prose, Roman institutions, verse and synthesis
Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest
35 chapters published, 0 planned; 1584 introduced lexemes in 39,752 words of narrative.
A macron marks a long vowel: īnsula, videō. Every mark in the course is attested, and an unmarked vowel is usually short, though not always: the quantities come from a dictionary that marked a vowel only where the metre left it open, so a few long ones go bare. 858 of the course’s 1620 words carry a macron, and nothing at all is recorded for 71, which are the invented names and three place names that dictionary files under a different headword.
Every word of every chapter is run through the analyser on each build and has to be one the course has already taught.