Latin was the language of the ancient Roman Empire. It belongs to the family of Indo-European languages. The native sons of Latium saw the superiority of the Greek languages and proceeded to use its style, formulating their own. Before the fall of Rome, Latin became the accepted language of much of the civilized world. Latin remained the language of the Church, science, medicine, law, and education. It was used for most of the written transactions in Europe, throughout the middle ages.
In the field of literature, the Romans tried to imitate the Greeks. The ‘Golden Age’ of Latin literature was heralded in the Prose works of Cicero and the Poetry of Catullus and Lucretius. Julius Caesar wrote ‘Gallic Wars’ and ‘Civil wars’. The dawn of Augustinian age saw writings of Virgil, Horace, Livy, and Ovid, Virgil has been given the title, the most splendid ‘Voice of Rome’.
He wrote ‘Aeneid’. Augustinian age saw the Lyrics of Horace and the ‘Natural History’ of Livy. Livy’s another great work was ‘History ”of Rome’. The ‘Silver Age’ (198 BCE- 138 CE) saw the Tragedies of Seneca, the Satire of Juvenal and the sceptical Histories of Tacitus. Tacitus also wrote ‘Annals’ and, ‘Histories’. Pliny, the Elder wrote ‘Natural History’. The other well-known Historians were Sallust and Plutarch. Marcus Aurelius wrote ‘Meditation’ and was a great orator on philosophy.
