Rufus Lutulentus – An introduction to Rome and characters of the Pisoverse.

Other level A novice level Latin texts:

Piso Perturbatus by Lance Piantaggini at Magister P – Rufus’ older brother isn’t sure of himself because his interests seem to be in conflict with his family expectations.

Rufus et Arma Atra by Lance Piantaggini at Magister P – Rufus plays in the dirt everywhere!

Syra Sola – Syra wants to be alone but, surprisingly, her many interactions with others create a compelling text with sheltered support for the novice level reader.

Magister P’s Pisoverse offers pages of Novice level reading with connected characters for beginning level Latin students.  Students experience sheltered vocabulary in each title with connected repetition between titles because characters make multiple appearances.  Rufus Lutulentus offers a simple introduction to the Pisoverse.

The story begins with an introduction to the character Rufus, a young Roman boy.  As the title implies, Rufus likes to be dirty.  Chapter 1 offers repetition with the impersonal placet construction, a review of days, with a few genitives and datives sprinkled in that are easy for an early Latin reader to comprehend.

Chapter 2 leads the reader to different structures found in the city of ancient Rome.  Chapter 3 expands by introducing the neighbor, Livia and her daughter Drusilla.  These characters are found in other titles of the Pisoverse for readers to experience a connection to past characters as they progress through the Pisoverse.

The story continues by taking a closer look at the famous places in the city of ancient Rome introduced early.  The story maintains sheltered vocabulary that offers an early reader multiple repetitions with a base structure.  Magister P notes there are 20 core Latin words outside of names, cognates, etc… throughout the story for a reader to master.

Along the way a reader experiences the imperfect tense, impersonal constructions similar to placet such as decet, complementary infinitives with words like placet, decet and vult, ablative of place constructions, multiple personal perspectives beyond the core 3rd person singular, the locative case with domi, ablatives of accompaniment, questions with the inclidic -ne, dative nouns with impersonal constructions, possessive genitives, singular and plural forms among even more Latin grammar.

There are many language constructions presented in this story and because of its simplicity even the beginning reader may begin to build on acquisition of grammar.  But it doesn’t stop there.  The beginning reader connects to days of the week, places in Rome, mothers and children and an interest in gladiatores at the end. Rufus Lutulentus offers a simple introduction to the Pisoverse which includes multiple characters and stories waiting for the beginning reader to progress by reading a comprehended message.  Piso Perturbatus and Rufus et Arma Atra are titles easily paired with Rufus Lutulentus.  Agrippina: Mater Fortis offers a connected story for the early reader to move forward in reading level shortly after the 3 titles mentioned above.  And those titles are not even half of the Pisoverse reading material at this point.