By providing a much-needed grammar review, along with a variety of readings that will suit the tastes of many different teaching preferences, this textbook will help students make the transition from beginning Latin to the intermediate level. The book is filled with exercises and a balance of prose and verse readings organized around five topics. After using College Latin, students will be reacquainted with all the major Latin grammar and able to hold their own in the ?authors courses” that make up most intermediate Latin curriculums.

The Priapeia is a collection of ninety-five poems in various meters on subjects pertaining to the phallic god Priapus. It was compiled from literary works and inscriptions on images of the god by an unknown editor, who composed the introductory epigram. From their style and versification it is evident that the poems belong to the classical period of Latin literature. Some, however, may be interpolations of a later period. These poems were posted upon statues of Priapus that stood in the midst of gardens as the protector of the fruits that grew therein. These statues were often crude carvings made from tree trunks. They roughly resembled the form of a man with a huge phallus. The statues also promoted the gardens' fertility. The verses are attributed variously to Virgil, Ovid, and Domitius Marsus. However, most authorities on the matter regard them to have been the work of a group of poets who met at the house of Maecenas, amusing themselves by writing tongue-in-cheek tributes to the garden Priapus. (Maecenas was Horace's patron.) Others, including Martial and Petronius, were thought to have added more verses in imitation of the originals.

The Hermetica are a body of theological-philosophical texts written in late antiquity, but long believed to be much older. Their supposed author, Hermes Trismegistus, was thought to be a contemporary of Moses, and the Hermetic philosophy was regarded as an ancient theology, parallel to the received wisdom of the Bible. This first English translation based on reliable texts, together with Brian P. Copenhaver's comprehensive introduction, provide an indispensable resource to scholars in ancient philosophy and religion, early Christianity, Renaissance literature, and history, the history of science, and the occultist tradition in which the Hermetica have become canonical texts.