Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by E. P. CROWELL, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. GINN & HEATH: J. S. CUSHING, Printer, 16 Hawley Street, PREFACE. THE HE design of this series of selections from the Ciceronian poets Catullus and Lucretius, the elegiac writers of the Augustan age, and the epic poet Lucan, is to bring together in convenient form such portions of their writings as may be most profitable for study in a college course. These selections are not only free from all impurity of sentiment, but they are among the choicest and best productions of their respective authors, and may thus be of service also as an introduction to a critical study of the complete works of these poets, and in the study of the history of Roman literature. The text adopted for Catullus is that of R. Ellis (Oxford, 1867); for Lucretius that of H. A. J. Munro (Cambridge, 1873); for Tibullus that of Rossbach, for Propertius that of Keil, and for Ovid that of Merkel (in the Teubner series of Latin texts); and for Lucan the text of that author in the Tauchnitz series. In a few instances the reading of some other editor has been substituted, and due mention of the change made in the notes. To these selections have been added a brief notice of the life and writings of each author and such explanatory notes as it was judged might be required for the pupil, without relieving him of the necessity of an independent and thorough study of the text itself. The sources from which these explanations and comments have been chiefly derived are indicated in the notes themselves, |