Imperium Latin: Unseens

This collection of 80 passages for unseen translation will provide entertainment and experience for students of advanced Latin and could also be used as a class reader. The unseens have been included in three separate sections, but they were all chosen as enjoyable and challenging for students in the twenty-first century.

Part 1, called Saucy Unseens, concentrates on the bizarre habits of the Roman emperors, in a set of stories taken from Suetonius and the Historia Augusta. Never boring, though not always truthful, these stories should engage all comers.

Passages in Part 2 were chosen from the first six books of Virgil's Aeneid. The introduction includes a set of notes on the scansion of dactylic hexameters.

The texts of Part 3 were chosen from writings of or about Cicero. They represent different areas of his output and include extracts from philosophical works, speeches and letters.