This book contains over fifty passages of Latin from 200 BC to AD 900, each with translation and linguistic commentary. It is not intended as an elementary reader (though suitable for university courses), but as an illustrative history of Latin covering more than a millennium, with almost every century represented. Conventional histories cite constructions out of context, whereas this work gives a sense of the period, genre, stylistic aims and idiosyncrasies of specific passages. 'Informal' texts, particularly if they portray talk, reflect linguistic variety and change better than texts adhering to classicising norms. Some of the texts are recent discoveries or little known. Writing tablets are well represented, as are literary and technical texts down to the early medieval period, when striking changes appear. The commentaries identify innovations, discontinuities and phenomena of long duration. Readers will learn much about the diversity and development of Latin.

Table of Contents:
Preface; Introduction; Abbreviations; Texts; 1. Ennius Euhemerus III (Vahlen); 2. Plautus Miles Gloriosus 5-27; 3. Plautus Miles Gloriosus 416-35; 4. Cato De agricultura 33.5-35; 5. Cato De agricultura 157.3-7; 6. One of the Johns Hopkins defixiones ('Plotius'), of republican date (c. 100 BC?); 7. Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.14: a specimen of the 'simple style'; 8. Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.16: a 'debased' variant of the 'simple style'; 9. Letter of Marcus Caelius Rufus to Cicero (Fam. 8.15.1-2); 10. Some jokes recorded by Cicero, Quintilian and Macrobius, mainly of republican date; 11. Vitruvius on the larch (2.9.14-16); 12. From a letter of Augustus (Suetonius Aug. 76.2); 13. Soldier's letter of the late first century BC (Augustan period) from Qasr Ibrîm Egypt (P. Rainer Cent. 164, CEL 9); 14. Letter from Oxyrhynchus, possibly of Augustan date (Brown 1970, P. Oxy. XLIV.3208); 15. Legal document from the archive of the Sulpicii (TPSulp. 51: Camodeca 1999), dated 18 June AD 37 at Puteoli; 16. Sexual verses from Pompeii (CIL IV.2360, 4008, 8229); 17. Passage from a letter of Seneca (12.1-3); 18. Freedman's speech from the Satyrica of Petronius (37.1-38.2); 19. Curse tablet from the sanctuary of Isis and Mater Magna at Mainz (Blänsdorf 2010a: 173-5, text no. 8), of the second half of the first century AD; 20. Letter from the Myos Hormos road (Egypt), end of first century/first quarter of second (Cuvigny 2003: II.409, M689); 21. Letter of Claudia Severa from Vindolanda (Tab. Vindol. 292), of the early second century; 22. Letter of Claudius Terentianus (P. Mich. VIII.471, CEL 146), of the early second century; 23. Letter from Mons Claudianus (Egypt), of the second century (O. Claud. 367); 24. Another letter from the Myos Hormos road (Egypt), of the period of Hadrian (Cuvigny 2003: II.405, M1107); 25. Surveyor's inscription from Algeria (CIL VIII.2728 = 18122 = ILS 5795), commemorating the construction of an aqueduct, c. 153; 26. Soldier's letter from Wâdi Fawâkhir (Egypt), possibly of the second century (O. Faw. 2, CPL 304, CEL 74); 27. Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis 10, of the early third century; 28. The Magerius Mosaic (third century); 29. Pelagonius Ars ueterinaria 34 (fourth century); 30. Parts of Pelagonius Ars ueterinaria 404, from two different manuscripts; 31. Letter of Publicola to Augustine (Aug. Epist. 46, CSEL 34); 32. Curse tablet from London Bridge (Hassall and Tomlin 1987: 360-1 no. 1); 33. Curse tablet from the Hamble Estuary, Hampshire (Tomlin 1997: 455 no. 1); 34. Curse tablet from Uley, Gloucestershire (Hassall and Tomlin 1996: 440 no. 1); 35. Another curse tablet from Uley, Gloucestershire (Hassall and Tomlin 1992: 311 no. 5); 36. Curse tablet from Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire (Hassall and Tomlin 1993: 312 no. 2); 37. Curse tablet from Leicester (Tomlin 2008, 2009: 327 no. 21); 38. Gospel of John (6.51-69) from the Vetus Latina (Codex Palatinus, e), and the corresponding passage from the Vulgate; 39. Patrick Confessio 42-3 (fifth century); 40. Patrick Confessio 48-9; 41. From one of the Albertini Tablets (Tablettes Albertini XIV.1-9), of the late fifth century; 42. Two versions of a passage from the Physica Plinii; 43. Two versions of Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri 40.1-15; 44. Itinerarium Antonini Placentini 36-7, with different versions; 45. Passage from the Dialogues of Gregory the Great (1.2.2-3); 46. Visigothic slate tablet (Velázquez Soriano 2004, 40.II), of the first half of the seventh century; 47. Passage from the Vita sanctae Euphrosynae (17); 48. Selected passages from the Annales regni Francorum, in two versions; 49. A description of the Basilica of Saint-Denis of 799; 50. A tenth-century treatise on falcon medicine from northern Italy; Final conclusions; Bibliography; Subject index; Index verborum.