By Rex E. Wallace

Description

This unadapted Latin text of the emperor Augustus' autobiography is designed to allow the intermediate/advanced student at the high school or college level to read Latin rapidly, without having constantly to consult a dictionary or grammar. The facing vocabulary and comprehensive grammar notes facilitate a rapid read. The Res Gestae, reveals as much about Augustus and his accomplishments through what it omits as what it contains. This primary document allows students rare access to non-literary historical Latin, to the most impressive of all Latin inscriptions: the Res Gestae of Rome’s first emperor, his accomplishments as he sought to have them presented.

Special Features

• Comprehensive introduction provides the historical background, organizational analysis, and grammatical idiosyncracies of the inscription
• Complete unadapted Latin text of the inscription with appendix (327 lines) including macrons with same- and facing-page vocabulary and notes
• Grammatical, lexical, and historical commentary in facing-page notes
• Eight black-and-white illustrations, maps, and photographs
• Index of proper names with textual references and identifications
• Complete vocabulary

Comments and Reviews

Rex E. Wallace’s textbook, Res Gestae Divi Augusti [ . . . ] presents Latin students with an engaging introduction to the corpus of Latin epigraphy. Wallace’s work includes a thorough orientation to the history, content, function, and organization of the Res Gestae, along with relevant historical, grammatical, and vocabulary notes on the page facing the text. . . . Wallace provides an up-to-date bibliography of resources for additional reading that is especially helpful [ . . .] This is a thought-provoking text for the intermediate college students and advanced high school students who wish to increase their proficiency in Latin and gain an understanding of one of the key historical documents of the Augustan Age.

— Jennifer A. Rea
Luther College
Classical Outlook, Fall 2000

Rex Wallace's entry into the field is superior in several ways to the two editions (Benario and Damon) intended expressly for Latin students.

Wallace's addition to the available student editions of the Res Gestae offers historical and grammatical/syntactic annotation sufficient to the needs of an intermediate-level student and quite comparable to that in Benario and Damon. The lexical assistance, however, is fuller—much fuller—than in any competing work. These features—together with the volume's excellent introduction, maps, and illustrations—make it the best option in a field of fine choices for classroom use.

— James P. Holoka
Eastern Michigan University

P. A. Brunt and J. M. Moore's 1967 edition of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti has sat unchallenged on bookshelves for nearly forty years, and for that reason, if no other, it is refreshing to see W's slim rival volume. In practice, the two books complement each other: B&M is probably used mainly by Ancient Historians, glancing across from English text to Latin original (or vice versa) and making use of the thorough but dry scholarly notes. W's book is intended as a ‘reader’ and is excellently equipped for that role: it includes a helpful vocabulary, numbered lines, and very full grammatical notes aimed at the relatively inexperienced Latinist, providing a helpful introduction to inscriptional Latin. Historical notes are highly accessible, though there is little cross-referencing with the other sources briefly mentioned in the introduction. The summary and index of names and places are both clear and useful.

It is no surprise that this volume was created on the other side of the Atlantic: while we squint myopically through the British exam fug, we risk losing sight of the richness of the subject. I would like to read extracts of this volume with a bright GCSE/AS Latin class (and not just as a mine for ‘unseens’) and would warmly recommend it to an AS/A2 Ancient Historian with Latin (or an undergraduate). One of the great strengths of the volume is that it brings together different aspects of the subject—historical, political, archaeological and stylistic (the terseness of the Latin is breathtaking!—“senatum ter legi” (8)) . . . the photographs . . . should bring out the Indiana Jones in any young reader: the clear and well-selected line drawings also indicate that this is a text which needs to be studied in context. And what better way of preparing a new generation to live critically in a world of spin—as W remarks, “not only to read the text but also to read between its lines” (p.xv)—than to take lessons from the master?

— Judith Affleck
Harrow School
JACT #3, 2004

Author Bio

Rex E. Wallace is Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts, where he has been teaching since 1985. He received his PhD in Linguistics from The Ohio State University in 1984. His major research and teaching interests are Greek and Latin linguistics, historical linguistics, and English morphology and lexicography. He has coedited two books on linguistics, Language Files (2nd edition, with Jean Godby and Catherine Jolley; Reynoldsberg, 1982) and Morphology (with Arnold Zwicky; Columbus, 1984). Wallace has also authored/coauthored over 30 articles on Italic linguistics, Etruscan, and ancient Greek.