Look, Romans!  Ecce Romani Review

 

Look, Romans! 

Ecce Romani! That is, “Look, Romans!” Yeah, I get it. I suppose I should confess at the outset that I didn’t enjoy using this book. That’s why I have held off reviewing it so far. To be fair, a lot of people love it. And they have valid reasons, which I’ll try to present fairly below. It may in fact be a good choice for you, if you’re looking for a reading-based text with a less-rigorous approach to grammar. If you’re looking for something more traditional, probably not.

In any case, I promise not to make this a hit piece. I learned that lesson a long time ago. I was attending a state classical convention in Massachusetts in the late 1990s. As I was enthusiastically trash-talking Ecce Romani to another attendee, she leaned closer and whispered to me, “You know, that’s Gilbert Lawall sitting right behind us.” Lawall was a very prominent and well-respected figure in New England classical circles at the time. He was also the creator of the American version of Ecce Romani. I snuck a look behind me, and, sure enough, there he was. Oops.

 The New Teacher’s Choice 

Anyway, I also learned long ago that we should always lead with a positive when we give feedback. Fair enough. Here’s another story. About twenty-five years ago (give or take) I was teaching in a school with a large Latin enrollment. We needed a second teacher to take the two Latin I classes. We hired a lovely woman whose first language was Spanish. She had never taught Latin before. In fact, she had never taught in a school at all. She had previously worked for a company that instructed business people who were going abroad in the rudiments of whatever language they needed. She had studied Latin as a student, however, and loved it. She was eager to renew her acquaintance with the Mater Linguarum, this time as a teacher.

The problem was, she was intimidated by our textbook. At the time, we were using Jenney’s First Year Latin. As fond as I was of Jenney, I had already decided to replace it, for reasons I explain in my review of the book.  My preference at the time was for the Oxford Latin Course. Our new teacher, on the other hand, had heard of Ecce Romani somewhere and wanted to give it a try. Now, my first teaching job required that I use Ecce. I didn’t like it. I had heard, however, that the creators of the series had tried to put a little more grammatical rigor into the new edition. The approach to grammar was one of my objections to the book, so that sounded promising.  Also, we wanted our new teacher to succeed.  Ecce Romani it was.

A Reading-Based Text 

And she loved it. Ecce suited her style perfectly. It fit with how she had taught Spanish to business professionals. After just a couple of years, however, the school decided that they needed my colleague more as an instructor in her native language. I inherited the first-year Latin classes, along with their introductory text. Maybe, I thought, between revisions to the text and my own greater maturity as I a teacher I would find Ecce Romani more to my liking.

Sadly, I did not. But before I go into my criticisms, let’s take a look at the good points. Ecce is a reading-based text. It’s intent is to help students to learn inductively. That is, they don’t first study vocabulary and grammatical rules, which they then apply to a written text. Rather, they start with reading the text and encountering vocabulary, grammar, and syntax in a meaningful context. The idea is to approach Latin more in the way we naturally learn our native language.

Warm and Friendly 

Reading-based textbooks of my acquaintance also aim to create a warm, friendly feel. That is very much the case with Ecce Romani. The book is at pains to avoid looking like the stern old Victorian Latin master driving students through endless repetitions of forms to the beat of a stick which might also be used to discipline students who are not sufficiently attentive to their studies. No, Ecce aims to come across more like a kindly mentor. Maybe a wise but older sibling, or an indulgent uncle.  On the whole, it fairly successfully creates a non-threatening feel.

It starts with the physical appearance and format of the books themselves. Ecce presents itself in slim volumes, both in paperback or hardcover format. The cover boasts highly colored illustrations of ancient Roman life. There are lots of line-drawn illustrations inside. Many of these are color illustrations in later editions. In earlier versions, they are simple black and white. The later editions have also added numerous photographs, which were lacking before.

A few of my hardcore students complained that their textbook looked more like a comic book, especially compared to the more substantial looking volumes that the modern language students were carrying around. I heard the same complaint, by the way, when I was using the Oxford Latin Course as well. Perhaps, in the caser of OLC, with more justification. Most students didn’t complain, though. They appreciated that the book added less bulk and weight to the load in their backpacks.

Meet the Cornelii 

Next, the content.  Ecce Romani is very much in the reading-based category. It emphasizes reading the Latin language over direct grammar instruction.  Accordingly, the reading passage is the first thing that students encounter in each chapter. The readings, however, are not as extensive as those in the Cambridge and Oxford books. Like those other courses, the readings do follow a cast of regular characters through a continuous story. Here it is the Cornelian family.  They start out on a farm near Baiae, from which they travel to Rome. By the way, Gilbert Lawall’s intro Greek text, Athenaze, follows a similar trajectory.* Its title Ἀθήναζε literally means “to Athens.” A character by the name of Dikaiopolis and his family start out on the farm, then head to the Big City. In this case, of course, that city is Athens.

But back to Ecce. The direct grammar instruction is quite a bit more extensive than it is in a more purely reading-based series such as Cambridge Latin. This is especially true of the revised 1995 edition. I have to admit that the 1995 edition of the series really does improve on the earlier version. Look at the comparisons above and below.

Ecce Romani contains occasional English language sections on historical and cultural topics (Roman Dress, Slavery, etc.). These do not come at the end of each chapter as they do in the Oxford Latin Course. Nonetheless, they do provide welcome context to 21st students that older books such as Jenney’s First Year Latin lack. There are also extended Word Study and Building the Meaning sections as well. The newer edition has somewhat expanded the content of the Word Studies, and quite significantly added to the number and content of the Building the Meaning sections.  Below are both sections from the revised 1995 editions:

A Cast of Characters 

When I first looked into the 1995 version, I could immediately see that Ecce Romani had made significant improvements over the earlier edition. When I put it to use in the classroom, however, I found that my previous objections still applied, at least to some degree.

My biggest objection is to the content. As I mention above, students read less Latin text in Ecce than they do in the Cambridge or Oxford programs. The amount is roughly comparable to what they would find in Latin for the New Millennium. I can see asking for more in a reading-based text. There is moderately more Latin to read in the earlier edition, by the way. Take another look at the images from the inside of chapter 3. You’ll notice that the 1990 edition has a second reading passage as exercise d. This passage has disappeared from the newer edition. The detail of Sextus knocking the statue into the piscina has moved into the remaining, only, reading passage. In the original passage it is Sextus himself to takes a dip.

My concern is more with the matter in the readings, however, than the amount. The Latin readings tell the story of a family, the Cornelii. These are not actual members of the historical Cornelii. The Scottish Classics Group invented this family when they created the earliest version of Ecce Romani in 1971. The idea was to make learning Latin more engaging by creating a cast of characters that students could follow through a connected narrative, a story. Younger students especially could identify with the children of the family, Marcus and Cornelia. Sextus, a boy who is staying with the family, provides comic relief with his mischievous antics. I refer you again to the reading passage from chapter 3 above.

Into a Ditch 

To some degree, it works. Many students do get involved with the story and the characters. When I was using Ecce, however, I found it frustrating. It struck me that most of the translation material didn’t go much of anywhere. Yes, the stories do manage to work in a fair amount of cultural and historical information. Students practiced reading skills and had a context for vocabulary and grammar acquisition. But they spent an awful lot of time and effort on the details of a made-up story about made-up people. When the family carriage goes into a ditch midway through their journey to Rome, it seems like it’s stuck there forever.

Latin for the New Millennium offers a comparable amount of reading, but all of it drawn directly from major works by significant authors. If you’re looking for a connected story with engaging characters, the Oxford Latin Course has that and more. The main character is the poet Horace, and real and significant literary figure. The story prepares students to read and appreciate his work and that of other classical authors. You might say that OLC combines the best features of Ecce and Latin Via Ovid. In my experience these other programs make better use of their readings than Ecce Romani does.

Presentation of Grammar

My issues with the presentation of grammar are, in part, objections to features of the reading-based approach in general. You can get my full perspective on that here and here. And, as I indicate above, the 1995 Ecce is a real improvement over the earlier edition. The basic problems, however, still remain. It mostly stems from the reading-based aversion to explicitly addressing forms and concepts that students have not already encountered in their reading. On top of that, they don’t see a particular ending in a paradigm or table until its formal introduction. Now, it’s much easier to learn endings as part of a paradigm than as a bunch of one-offs. So naturally students complained about having to re-learn declensions every time they covered a new case.

I solved this problem satisfactorily by simply introducing full sets of declension endings myself before the book does. I had to do the same with Oxford, by the way. But it’s more than a matter of memorizing endings. Ecce doesn’t discuss the full conjugation of verbs in the present tense until chapter 10. It doesn’t get to the dative and genitive cases until chapter 11. In fact, up until they encounter the ablative case in chapter 9, learners are working mostly with just the nominative, accusative, and vocative. That represents a big chunk of their first year of Latin.

Acquiring the Tools 

This leisurely pace combined with the tenets of the reading-based philosophy invites a number of further consequences. Trying to fit new information into a mental pattern that students have already established and reinforced is one. It also complicates the learning of vocabulary. Words in the vocabulary lists, at least for the first 10 chapters, take the same form that they do in the reading passage. Students don’t see verbs listed with principal parts or nouns with genitive and gender until chapter 10.

Now it makes sense, on the one hand, to list new words in the form students encounter them in the reading. A traditional dictionary-style listing, however, gives students tools they can use for more than just that one passage.It doesn’t take much extra effort to learn the principal parts of verbs when they learn the definitive.  The same with the genitive and gender of nouns. As with learning case uses, If students already have the tools, they can focus more of their attention on the more intellectually demanding task of learning to apply them when applications of those forms come up later.

Putting It All Together 

Let’s put it all together. You can certainly learn to read Latin using the Ecce Romani program. It has numerous ardent enthusiasts. The newer edition especially successfully presents a kinder, gentler face than more traditional textbooks. It aims to be a hybrid of reading-based and grammar-based approaches. It involves considerably more direct instruction in grammar and linguistic topics than a more purely reading- based text such as the Cambridge Latin Course (although Cambridge has significantly more extensive readings). Many students enjoy following the ongoing adventures of the Cornelian family, and find characters with whom they can identify. This program is especially suited to younger or less confident Latin learners.

I personally was not satisfied with Ecce Romani as a classroom text, even when I was teaching 7th and 8th grade students. The grammar instruction is too slow, and too piecemeal. I also would have liked more meaningful content in the reading lessons. The Oxford Latin Course sets out to do the same things as Ecce and, on the whole, does them better. Below is my overall rating.

Ecce Romani: the Rating 

Rating based on the five points I outline in my earlier post, “Latin Textbook Reviews: How to Choose.”

My rating: ★★★ for lower-to-mid-range students; take off 1/2 ★ for more advanced students. Reviewers on Amazon.com have a higher opinion, for what it’s worth. They give it 4.8 stars.

1/2★	Includes a clear, rigorous presentation of Latin grammar. The explanations are clear, but not as structured or extensive as those in more traditional programs. Many learners will find the development too slow.
1/2★	Provides students with ample opportunities for reading Latin prose (and occasional poetry) that is as authentic as possible for their stage in the learning process. Again, the readings are sufficient. Younger and less motivated students will find the content engaging, but too much of it is devoted to deveoping a fictional story. More substantive content would be better.
1/2★	Presents the Latin Language as an ongoing, living literary medium over the past two thousand years. The focus is mostly confined to the 1st century AD. It does present Latin in a lively way witin that narrow scope.
1/2★	Provides a reasonably comprehensive view of the literary and historical context that produced and continued to nourish the Latin language. Again, good within its ancient Roman focus area.
★	An inviting and lively invitation to the study of the Latin language. Yes, as explained above.

*For the record, I was much happier with teaching Greek from Athenaze than I was teaching Latin from Ecce Romani. They have a great deal in common (including the curious detail of the daughter of the family dropping and breaking a pot at the local well). Athenaze does a better job presenting grammar, however. Perhaps more importantly, Greek presents a different challenge for English speaking students than Latin does.