Latine Vertere: Latin Translation of Greek Texts in Ancient Rome

The phenomenon of translating Greek texts into Latin marked the very beginnings of what we know as the Roman literary tradition. Starting famously with Livius Andronicus in the mid-3rd century BC, it continued through Ennius, Plautus, and Terence, was embraced across many disciplines by Cicero, and flourished at least intermittently thereafter, especially in the various Latin versions of Aratus and the Homeric epics. From the testimony of the Romans themselves, translation was viewed as a transformative art, the most common verb to capture the technique being vertere and its cognates; the result was a Latin text that was at least on a par with its source, if not superior, a sort of ‘conquest’ of the original that contributed to the Romans’ more general control over and absorption of Greek culture. This one-day conference will explore the dynamics of Latin translational activity within the Roman republic or empire, across a range of text, prose or poetry.