BC Latin Reader Series

These readers, written by experts in the field, provide well-annotated Latin selections to be used as authoritative introductions to Latin authors, genres, or topics for intermediate or advanced college Latin study. Their relatively small size (covering 500–600 lines) makes them ideal to use in combination.

Each volume in the nineteen-volume series includes a comprehensive introduction, bibliography for further reading, Latin text with notes at the back, and complete vocabulary.

The authors’ expertise about their particular Latin writer or genre and their ability to keep in mind the needs of intermediate and advanced college students to read the passages have resulted in textbooks that can be used in multiple ways and combinations…
—Judith Sebesta,
Teaching Classical Languages (Spring 2011)

Download a list of titles with full descriptions.

An Apuleius Reader: Selections from the Metamorphoses

Ellen D. Finkelpearl

A Caesar Reader: Selections from Bellum Gallicum and Bellum Civile, and from Caesar’s Letters, Speeches, and Poetry

W. Jeffrey Tatum

A Cicero Reader: Selections from Five Essays and Four Speeches, with Five Letters

James M. May

A Latin Epic Reader: Selections from Ten Epics

Alison Keith

A Livy Reader: Selections from Ab Urbe Condita

Mary Jaeger

A Lucan Reader: Selections from Civil War

Susanna Braund

A Martial Reader: Selections from the Epigrams

Craig Williams

An Ovid Reader: Selections from Seven Works

Carole E. Newlands

A Plautus Reader: Selections from Eleven Plays

John Henderson

A Propertius Reader: Eleven Selected Elegies

P. Lowell Bowditch

A Roman Army Reader: Twenty-One Selections from Literary, Epigraphic, and Other Documents

Dexter Hoyos

A Roman Verse Satire Reader: Selections from Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal

Catherine C. Keane

A Roman Woman Reader: Selections from the Second Century BCE through the Second Century CE

Sheila K. Dickison & Judith P. Hallett

A Sallust Reader: Selections from Bellum Catilinae, Bellum Iugurthinum, and Historiae

Victoria E. Pagán

A Seneca Reader: Selections from Prose and Tragedy

James Ker

A Suetonius Reader: Selections from the Lives of the Caesars and the Life of Horace

Josiah Osgood

A Tacitus Reader: Selections from Annales, Historiae, Germania, Agricola, and Dialogus

Steven H. Rutledge

A Terence Reader: Selections from Six Plays

William S. Anderson

A Tibullus Reader: Seven Selected Elegies

Paul Allen Miller

An Apuleius Reader (BMCR, June 2013)

A Livy Reader (CJ-Online, August 2013)

A Lucan Reader (BMCR, June 2009)

A Martial Reader (BMCR, July 2012)

An Ovid Reader (BMCR, September 2015)

A Plautus Reader (BMCR, October 2010)

A Propertius Reader (Euroclassica, January 2015)

A Roman Army Reader (BMCR, March 2014)

A Roman Verse Satire Reader (BMCR, March 2011)

A Roman Woman Reader (CJ-Online, August 2015)

A Sallust Reader (BMCR, August 2010)

A Seneca Reader (BMCR, September 2012)

A Suetonius Reader (CJ-Online, May 2012)

A Tacitus Reader (BMCR, May 2014)

A Terence Reader (BMCR, March 2010)

Ronnie Ancona is Professor Emerita of Classics at Hunter College and The Graduate Center (CUNY).

Her publications include Time and the Erotic in Horace’s Odes (Duke University Press); Horace: Selected Odes and Satire 1.9; Writing Passion Plus: A Catullus Reader; and Writing Passion: A Catullus Reader (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers). With David J. Murphy, she cowrote Horace: A Transitional Latin Reader and A Horace Workbook, also from BCP. She coedited Gendered Dynamics in Latin Love Poetry (Johns Hopkins University Press) and New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-Roman World (Oxford University Press). She coedits, with Sarah Pomeroy, the “Women in Antiquity” series from Oxford University Press. Her latest book is Martha Graham’s Greek Myth–Based Dances and Her Collaboration with Isamu Noguchi (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026).

From the Series Editor:

The BC Latin Readers series grew out of a year-long exploration of what teachers of advanced college-level Latin students wanted and needed. The answer was short books written by experts, incorporating the best scholarship and pedagogy, with well-annotated selections and vocabulary.

The short format allows teachers to use the books flexibly—several for rapid reading, fewer for less-experienced students, or one or two alongside longer textbooks. While aimed at the advanced college level, the series is also valuable for intermediate college students, advanced secondary students, post-baccalaureate students, and even graduate students.

The books can be mixed and matched—for example, adding the Lucan volume to a Vergil course to read a later epic, or pairing Plautus/Terence selections with full plays in a Roman comedy course. Teachers gain freedom to design or expand their courses using these volumes.

A particular pleasure in editing the series has been discovering outstanding Latin scholars committed to pedagogy. The authors provide exciting, user-friendly, reliable guides to their topics.

Ronnie Ancona, Hunter College and the Graduate Center (CUNY)