Hans-Friedrich Mueller

Learn to form the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect middle/passive tenses on the basis of the fifth principal part. Study examples in Matthew and Luke. Then read lines 33-37 of the Iliad, which includes a stirring scene "along the shore of the much-roaring sea."

In late antiquity, even after the initial emergence of Christianity, the majority in Rome and Italy held to the traditional religion and ancient gods. Explore the relationships between paganism, Manichaeism, and Isis worship at the time of the rise of Christianity and learn why Rome's rulers could not accept or tolerate Christianity.

Delve deeper into the aorist passive, which was introduced in Lesson 19. This tense may sound exotic, but it's a workhorse in Greek sentences. For example, study the string of aorist passive commands in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew. Then work your way through lines 59-63 of the Iliad.

Learn two more irregular verbs, to go and to know, seeing them at work in sentences from John and Matthew. Then complete your last passage from the Iliad, lines 118-125, and consider strategies for continuing your Greek studies-whether you want to dig deeper into Homer and the New Testament, or discover new masterpieces.

Is it possible that one of the world's greatest empires was based in great part on the art and science of birdwatching? Absolutely. The calls, flight patterns, and eating styles of various birds were all were signs from the gods. Explore the college of priests, the Sybilline Oracles, and the detailed rituals of divination required before state officials could take any decisive action.

The most common μι verb is also one of the most irregular: to be. Study its forms, discovering that, as unpredictable as it appears, it is more regular than its English counterparts: I am, you are, he is. Then learn to count in Greek, and analyze lines 109-117 of the Iliad.

Study first- and second-declension nouns, discovering that they have the same endings as first- and second-declension adjectives - with some peculiarities. Close the lecture by translating your first complex sentence in Latin, which involves a shocking incident in Rome's Temple of Vesta.

Learn two important irregular verbs, sum (I am) and possum (I am able), mastering their present tense indicative, imperative, infinitive, and subjunctive forms. Notice how the tiniest linguistic details can be powerful markers, giving rise to Latin's great economy of expression.

Greek has several ways of talking about the past. Focus on the imperfect tense, which describes an action that was ongoing in the past-for example, "The Achaeans were dishonoring the gods." The imperfect is built by adding a vowel prefix, called an augment, to the verb base, plus secondary endings.

How did the descendants of the shepherds and criminal outcasts who founded Rome on the hills above malaria-infested swampland conquer the entire Mediterranean? According to the Romans, their greatest strength was their religion. Learn about the cultus deorum and how precise relationships with dead ancestors, as well as the gods, allowed the conservative Roman culture to flourish.