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PROGRAMS OF STUDY & COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Classical Languages (CLA)

Major: Yeshiva College
Latin, two years (not including 1101–1102); Greek, two years; also such additional courses, not exceeding 15 credits, as may be prescribed by the senior professor of Classics, Dr. Feldman, for the individual student. Advisor: Dr. L. Feldman.

Minor: Yeshiva College
Eighteen credits in Latin or 18 credits in Greek or 24 credits in Latin and Greek.

4405H Ancient Jewish and Pagan Intellectuals on the Bible. 3 credits.
How Jewish intellectuals, notably Philo and Josephus, who were well versed in Greek literature and philosophy, viewed pagans in general, how they dealt with pagan concepts, and how they viewed the possibility of synthesizing pagan ideas with Judaism.

GREEK (GRE)

1101–1102 Elementary Greek. 3 credits.
Emphasis on understanding Greek literature in the original, with grammar employed only as a means to that end. First semester: systematic survey of the language and reading of simple sentences taken from Greek literature; second semester: continuation of the language survey, with reading of Plato’s Apology and Crito.

1231; 1232 Homer and Drama. 3 credits.
First semester: selections from Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey; second semester: one play of Aeschylus and one of Sophocles.
Prerequisite: GRE 1101–1102 or equivalent.

1373 or 1373H Greek Myths and Their Influence. 3 credits.
Introductory survey course. Examines the major Greek myths pertaining to creation, the flood, Prometheus, the Olympian gods and goddesses (notably Athena, Aphrodite, Apollo, Hermes, Dionysus, and Demeter), and the major heroes (notably Heracles and Odysseus). Covers their origins; the cults and festivals connected with them; the light cast upon them by archaeology; the ties linking the myths to one another; and their versions in Homer, Hesiod, the Greek tragedies, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses; as well as their modern adaptations in literature. No knowledge of Greek is required.

2201; 2202; 2203; 2204 Advanced Greek. 3 credits.
Content, from among the following, varies with the needs and interests of the class: Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days; elegiac, iambic, and lyric poetry (Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Xenophanes, Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon, Simonides); Pinar’s odes; Aristophanes’ comedies; Herodotus’s The Persian War from the Histories; Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War; Lysias’s orations; Demosthenes’ orations; Plato’s Republic; and Aristostle’s The Nicomachean Ethics. May be taken for two or more successive years.
Prerequisite: GRE 1231; 1232 or equivalent.

LATIN (LAT)

1101–1102 Elementary Latin. 3 credits.
First semester: systematic survey of the language and reading of simple sentences taken from Latin literature. Second semester: continuation of the language survey; readings from Nepos, Cicero, Catullus, Horace, Pliny the Younger, Martial, Phaedrus, and in medieval Latin.

1231;1232 Intermediate Latin. 3 credits.
First semester: readings from Cicero’s greatest speeches, philosophical works, and letters; various other famous writers, such as the historians Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, and Ammianus Marcellinus; Pliny the Younger’s letters; the biographers Nepos and Suetonius; Cato the Elder on agriculture; Celsus on medicine; Seneca’s philosophical works; Petronius’s satire; Apuleius’s Metamorphoses; inscriptions; and Ovid’s account of mythology. Second semester: selections from the Aeneid, with emphasis on its poetic qualities and on Virgil’s status and influence.
Prerequisite: two years of high school Latin or LAT 1101–1102.

2201; 2202; 2203; 2204 Advanced Latin. 3 credits.
Content, from among the following, varies with the needs and interests of the class: Plautus’s and Terence’s comedies, Cicero’s philosophical works, Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things, Catullus’s poems, Livy’s History of Rome, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Seneca’s philosophical works, Martial’s epigrams, Petronius’s Satyricon, Juvenal’s satires, Tacitus’s historical works, Suetonius’s biographies of the Roman emperors. May be taken for two or more successive years.
Prerequisite: LAT 1231; 1232 or equivalent.

4901; 4902 Independent Study.
Meet with the Yeshiva College academic dean.