Ad Alpes

A Tale of Roman Life

Read­ing exten­sive­ly is the only way to mas­ter Latin. But what to read? Ad Alpes is a for­got­ten gem that will make the road to Latin read­ing flu­en­cy much more fun.

Get the book

A Roman Roadtrip

Ad Alpes fol­lows a Roman fam­i­ly trav­el­ling from Eph­esus via Rome to the Alps. On their jour­ney, they tell each oth­er sto­ries in Latin from the rich foun­tain of Roman lit­er­a­ture and the Bible.

Ad Alpes is both a nov­el with its over-arch­ing nar­ra­tive and Latin read­er with a col­lec­tion of inter­est­ing sto­ries, fables, anec­dotes and myths.

“Excel­lent book, excel­lent pro­nun­ci­a­tion, per­fect for prac­tis­ing lis­ten­ing in Latin.”

—Mikel Arri­eta

“Excel­lent audio book with a cap­ti­vat­ing sto­ry and very good record­ing qual­i­ty. Lis­ten­ing to ‘Ad Alpes’ with­out the accom­pa­ny­ing text is chal­leng­ing, though; I’d rec­om­mend pur­chas­ing the paper­back as well. (I’ll def­i­nite­ly do so..)”

—Matthias Volnhals

Ad Alpes

Formats

Paperback

200 pages of com­pelling read­ing in Latin with an exten­sive Latin-Eng­lish glos­sary and detailed gram­mat­i­cal notes for each chapter.

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E‑Book

Read the Ad Alpes on your tablet or com­put­er. The con­tents of the e‑book is the same as the paper­back. Pre­view the book here.

Audiobook

Lis­ten to all the chap­ters of Ad Alpes on the go or in bed. This is a pro­fes­sion­al stu­dio record­ing of the entire text. Pre­view the audio­book here.

Learn & enjoy

Learn about Roman his­to­ry and life from a Roman fam­i­ly on the road.

  • Improve your Latin: 200 pages in a clas­si­cal Latin style for exten­sive reading.
  • Read and enjoy Latin: Inter­est­ing sto­ries from clas­si­cal authors and the Bible.
  • Read with­out the dic­tio­nary: Full Latin-Eng­lish vocabulary.
  • Per­fect for auto­di­dacts, stu­dents and teachers.

read Exciting stories in Latin

Ebook & Paperback

Any­one who wants to learn Latin well and tru­ly acquire the lan­guage, will have to read an immense amount of text. This is eas­i­er said than done. Slow­ly work­ing through pas­sages from Cae­sar or Vergil, cer­tain­ly has its place, but a learn­er needs to read much larg­er amounts of texts and enjoy the process.

Ad Alpes pro­vides over 200-pages of clas­si­cal Latin with the cen­tral sto­ries and anec­dotes of clas­si­cal lit­er­a­ture, from both myth and history.

Thus any­one who reads and lis­tens to the book so as to inter­nal­ize the lan­guage will also become famil­iar with the most famous pas­sages from authors such as Livy, Horace, Sue­to­nius, and Tac­i­tus, to name but a few.

Ad Alpes

Preview chapters

If you want to get an idea of the lev­el and style of the Latin, click below to dive right in to Ad Alpes.

Preview image of Ad Alpes

Ad Alpes

Selection of chapters

Roman lit­er­a­ture

Pirates in the Aegean
Cross­ing the Rubi­con
Ghost sto­ries

Sto­ries from the bible

Fall of Jeri­cho
Sam­son
David and Goliath

On the road

The inex­pe­ri­enced trav­el­er
Adven­ture with brig­ands
A night alarm

The book was great, but read­ing it only once did­n’t giv­en me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to absorb all the expres­sions and words I liked. Lis­ten­ing to the audio­book over and over in my dai­ly Latin lis­ten­ing rou­tine helped me a lot in my path to acqui­si­tion. And Daniel’s per­for­mance is stun­ning.

—Alexan­der Veronensis

Listen to Ad alpes The Audiobook 

Learn­ing Latin well requires con­stant con­tact with the lan­guage which is not always pos­si­ble with a book.

Since Ad Alpes is prin­ci­pal­ly based on sto­ry­telling, it works very well as an audiobook.

With this stu­dio record­ed audio­book you can prac­tice lis­ten­ing com­pre­hen­sion, read along to prac­tice your pro­nun­ci­a­tion or just enjoy a long-form nar­ra­tive in Latin.

Run­time: (7 hours 19 minutes)

Beau­ti­ful­ly read and at just the right read­ing pace.

—Andrew Read

PAGES

CHAPTERS

JOURNEY

Historical context

Cen­tral sto­ries, anec­dotes, and poet­ry from clas­si­cal authors.
Sto­ries from the Bible

Easier understanding

Audio­book for lis­ten­ing to Latin on the go.*
Macrons on long vow­els
Full Latin-Eng­lish vocabulary.

*Sold sep­a­rate­ly.

Extensive reading

Over 200 pages for exten­sive read­ing in Latin.
Fre­quent rep­e­ti­tion of com­mon expres­sions and structures..

Discovery of a forgotten gem

I first found this almost-for­got­ten gem of a Latin read­er in a sec­ond hand book­store many years ago. It was the best Latin read­er I had ever seen.

Right away, I start­ed rec­om­mend­ing it as exten­sive read­ing mate­r­i­al to my stu­dents. Find­ing copies of Ad Alpes, how­ev­er, was a real challenge.

That’s why togeth­er with Johan Winge, we decid­ed to make this fan­tas­tic Latin reader—or nov­el— wide­ly avail­able again.

We’re now proud to present the new, revised edi­tion of the 1928 gem Ad Alpes – A tale of Roman Life, writ­ten by Pro­fes­sor H.C. Nutting.

We have retained the beau­ti­ful orig­i­nal lay­out but have cor­rect­ed sev­er­al typo­graph­i­cal errors, and updat­ed some aspects of the Eng­lish translations.

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“‘Aspice!’ inquit Pūblius. ‘Iam paucī cym­bā parvā effugere cōnātūrī sunt. Vidē cym­bam, quam effrēnātē in flūctibus saltet! Modo in cōn­spec­tū est, modo aspicī nusquam potest. Nunc in eā sunt trēs hom­inēs! Iam rēmōs agere incip­i­unt. Attat! Nunc ven­it aquae mōns!”
— Ad Alpes, p. 42

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get the book?

Ad Alpes (Paper­back) is avail­able from amazon.com. If you live in Europe you can get it from amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.it, amazon.es or amazon.de. The E‑book ver­sion of Ad Alpes is avail­able here.

Is it suitable for autodidacts wanting to improve their Latin?

Yes! It’s a per­fect book for exten­sive read­ing: the full Latin–English vocab­u­lary and fre­quent expla­na­tions on gram­mar make Ad Alpes very acces­si­ble for learn­ing on your own.

The struc­ture of the book also makes for good chunks around which to plan your studies.

Is there an audiobook version?

Yes! There is a three-part pro­fes­sion­al stu­dio record­ing (7 hours and 19 min­utes of Latin!). They are avail­able as dig­i­tal down­loads here.

How large is the vocabulary of Ad Alpes?

The vocab­u­lary is approx­i­mate­ly three thou­sand words, of which the vast major­i­ty con­sists of the high­est-fre­quen­cy words in clas­si­cal Latin.

Is the grammar sheltered?

The gram­mar is not shel­tered. The full range of Latin gram­mar is used.

How much Latin do I need to know to read Ad Alpes?

That’s a tricky ques­tion. Since it con­tains a full Latin-Eng­lish vocab­u­lary, any­one with a good grasp of Latin gram­mar could read it; some­one who has gone through a good larg­er Latin text­book such as Famil­ia Romana (the first vol­ume of Lin­gua Lati­na per se illus­tra­ta) care­ful­ly would be able to read Ad Alpes with­out too much trou­ble. The full vocab­u­lary list at the end of the book as well as the foot­notes will be of great help.

Can I use Ad Alpes as a textbook?

Yes. Since it con­tains a very wide selec­tion of sto­ries from ancient Rome and the Bible, you could eas­i­ly select and teach the most suit­able. The lev­el of the Latin is even all through the book. The added bonus is that a good part of the sto­ries is only slight­ly altered so the stu­dents will be read­ing 2000 year old texts.