Led by Priscian of Caesarea Simulacrum
About this course
The school changes hands here, and the handover is an argument rather than a transition.
Module 1 was Donatus. He began at the parts of speech because he was teaching boys, and a boy needs something he can hold before he needs something he can justify. Priscian begins elsewhere and says so: you cannot account for a word until you have accounted for its syllables, nor for its syllables until its letters, nor for a letter until you have said what sound is and which sounds can be written down at all.
Both are right. They are doing different work — a catechism for a schoolroom, and an account in eighteen books for a reader who wants the whole thing explained. You have had the catechism. This is the beginning of the account.
Priscian taught Latin at Constantinople to pupils whose first language was Greek, and that fact governs his method. A native never has to notice most of what he knows; a foreigner has to be told all of it. So he does not teach by ear and correction — he teaches by account, and when a Latin construction is opaque he puts the Greek beside it and points at the gap.
One rule governs everything he says: nihil sine auctore. A rule is not a rule because the grammarian asserts it, but because Virgil did it, and Terence did it. So the answer to "is this correct Latin?" is never yes or no. It is a citation, then a second citation, then the distinction between the registers they belong to — and where nothing is attested, the honest answer is that nothing is found.
Led by Priscian of Caesarea Simulacrum
The question
Nine sittings on Priscian's Books I and II. You begin by defending
Outcome
The student can give the ascending account from sound to sentence —
Sub-units
Practice scenarios
A pupil with fluent Greek and three months of Latin is translating, and has begun inserting *ille* and *is* wherever his Greek would carry an article. The results are grammatical Latin. They are also unidiomatic in a way he cannot see, and he is producing them systematically, because he has formed a rule: *ille* equals ὁ. He is pleased with it; translation has become much faster.
Your goals