THE TIMES OF LATIN

Origin of Latin

Latin belongs to the family of European Indo-European languages (languages spoken between the IV and III millennium BC in the regions between Europe and Asia).

These languages are relatives in fact they have common characters, the most recent being the Latin which has undergone Etruscan and Greek influences.

With the expansion of Rome, Latin became widespread in the western world and was influenced by local idioms, causing a differentiation of the spoken language from the literary one.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, this linguistic pluralism will give rise to the romance or Romance languages.

THE TIMES OF LATIN

THE TIMES OF LATIN

ARCHAIC PERIOD: from the Origins to the beginning of the 2nd century BC characterized by the works of Ennius for poetry, Plautus and Terence for comedy, Cato for prose.

CLASSICAL PERIOD: Age of Caesar and Augustus 1st century BC - beginning of the 1st century AD represented by works that will become the model of literary Latin. This is the period of Catullus, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, Propertius, Cicero, Caesar, Sallust, Livy.

POSTCLASSICAL: Imperial Age from Tiberius to Marcus Aurelius 1st-2nd century AD is the period of Seneca, Tacitus, Petronius, Apuleius.

CHRISTIAN: end of the 2nd century - 6th century AD represented mainly by Augustine.

MEDIEVAL: mid-5th - first half of the 14th century.

HUMANISTIC: typical of the Italian Humanists of the 15th and 16th centuries.

MODERN: characterized by the science of the 17th and 18th centuries and the Catholic Church.