Surus: Fabula Belli et Elephanti (Latin Edition)

My elementary latin students really enjoyed this book. It also inspired some of them to do their own research on Hannibal and Surus. It was a bit difficult for my 3rd year elementary-/middle school kids as the grammar was more complex, but I was proud how they worked through it because it was so interesting. They really wanted to spend time talking about this time in history and Hannibal's military strategy-not just the boys, the girls too! I think this made Latin seem more alive for them.

This is a great book and I highly recommend it!

I've been on the lookout for somewhat more advanced novellas that would be good for my 2nd-3rd year students. At first glance this seemed like a good option: the sentences are longer and more complex than I've seen in many other Latin novellas and I really like the variety of tenses.A major pro: I really like the author's project of telling stories from Roman history through the perspective of animals and the changing narrators is a cool conceit.A con about the narrative: not much...happens? The actual journey is only really narrated on pp. 28-50. pp. 1-27 are more backstory and, because of the changing narrators, it's quite repetitive. I appreciate targeted repetition, but there needs to be some variation as well: seeing the same words in *different* constructions/context helps drive them home. The material about Ptolemy and Pyrrhus was interesting, but I kept waiting for something to happen, and it only took me about an hour to read this. I find my students tend to respond better to more plot-driven narratives, so I'm not sure they would like this.In case there is any chance the press will issue a reprint: I'm used to poor editing with Latin novellas, but this is the first I've encountered with a typo on page 1! Fortier should be forti*t*er and there are a few other (minor) typos throughout. This isn't a huge deal in a classroom as instructors can always point typos out to students.Overall, I'm not sure this will meet my goals for my students in terms of practice navigating a continuous prose narrative. It feels like there are a lot of missed opportunities here for practice with Latin conjunctions and adverbs. For example, there are a LOT of quamquams ("although...") that are not picked up by tamens ("...nonetheless"). There are also a lot of sentences that would benefit from nam / enim or at / autem. I mention this because a major upside of continuous prose in the target language is that it can give students a "feel" for how sentences interact and build on each other to create a meaningful text. The absence of "signposts" makes this text less helpful for intermediate students (meā quidem sententiā).Like many novellas, there are some minor errors or infelicities, most of which probably wouldn't interfere with classroom use (e.g. p. 20: nec...incendemus nec *necāmus* --"we WILL neither burn nor DO we kill" --> should be necābimus, p. 26: similēs Surī --"similar OF Surus" --> should be similēs Surō). A more systemic issue is the odd use of alius throughout. Latin doesn't really use a single form of alius to mean "some." The *pairing* of two (or more) forms of alius in *distributive clauses* is typically what means "some...others." For a truly indefinite pronoun or adjective, I would expect a form of quidam or aliquis. Less problematic but indicative of the overall issue with alius is "ūnus...alius" (p. 16) instead of "alter...alter" or "ūnus...alter." Again, this is not the end of the world, but it's not really ideal either if your goal is to prepare students to read authentic texts. The little errors are especially frustrating to me, because each one feels like a missed opportunity. Like "nec incendēmus nec necābimus" could be a really good opportunity to reinforce that the future works differently in the 3rd/4th conjugation vs. the 1st/2nd. But because instead we have "nec incendēmus nec necāmus" that opportunity is lost.On balance, I think I probably *won't* order this for my classroom. I'd love to hear from anyone in the replies who has had a good response from their students as that would make me more inclined to order this.I think overall this review is a plea for better editorial support for Latin novella-writers. Especially in the intermediate range, I haven't found many texts outside of Fabulae Syrae and Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles that I feel really good about, and I'd really prefer to introduce more voices and perspectives into my classroom while also setting my students up for success when they make the transition to authentic Latin texts. There's probably a trade-off for novella-writers between output and quality, and I notice many of the authors publish a lot & frequently. I would urge authors to make a different calculus: more texts does not necessarily mean more eyes on those texts if they have been rushed to publication with little or lackadaisical editing/review.

Buen texto, demanda un poco más de nivel (no mucho). Trata sobre uno de los elefantes de Anibal, también menciona aspectos del ejército cartaginés que intentó derrotar a Roma.