AP Latin — Caesar, Vergil and Figures flashcards
10 of 80 cards free to study here · 4 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys
Caesar's career, style and Gallic War episodes; the Aeneid's structure, characters and key scenes in Books 1, 2, 4 and 6; dactylic hexameter scansion; and rhetorical figures with Latin examples. Follows the Caesar and Vergil syllabus used through 2024–25; the fall 2025 course drops Caesar.
Learn deck · part of AP Latin · written against: College Board AP Latin Course and Exam Description: the decks follow the Caesar and Vergil required readings of the CED used through 2024–25; the CED effective fall 2025 reads letters of Pliny the Younger and new Aeneid selections. Updated 2026-10-10.
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Which three men formed the informal alliance of 60 BC that helped Caesar win the consulship and then his Gallic command?Caesar, Pompey and Crassus — the so-called First Triumvirate, a private political pact rather than a legal office. Caesar was consul in 59 BC and governed Gaul as proconsul from 58 BC.Caesar › Life and Career
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What did Caesar do in January 49 BC that set off civil war?He crossed the Rubicon, the boundary of his province, with an army — illegal for a governor entering Italy. War against Pompey and the Senate followed.Caesar › Life and Career
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How is Julius Caesar connected to Augustus, and why does that link matter when reading the Aeneid?Caesar adopted his great-nephew Octavian in his will, and Octavian became Augustus. The Julian family claimed descent from Aeneas's son Iulus, so Vergil's epic also works as the ruling family's origin story.Caesar › Life and Career
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How is the Aeneid's twelve-book structure often described in relation to Homer?Books 1–6 are the 'Odyssean' half (wanderings, ending in the Underworld) and Books 7–12 the 'Iliadic' half (war in Italy against Turnus). Vergil fuses both Homeric epics into one Roman story.Vergil › Poet and Poem
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What state was the Aeneid in when Vergil died, and what evidence of that remains in the text?Vergil died in 19 BC before revising it; tradition says he wanted it burned, but Augustus had it published. Some incomplete half-lines remain as signs of an unfinished poem.Vergil › Poet and Poem
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In Jupiter's prophecy to Venus in Book 1, how does Vergil link Aeneas to the Julian family?Aeneas's son Ascanius takes the name Iulus, the source of the name Iulius, and a Trojan Caesar will be born to extend Rome's power. Jupiter grants the Romans imperium sine fīne, rule without end.Vergil › Poet and Poem
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What is the pattern of a line of dactylic hexameter?Six feet: the first four are each a dactyl (long–short–short) or a spondee (long–long); the fifth is almost always a dactyl; the sixth has two syllables, long plus long or short, because the last syllable is anceps.Meter
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How does Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab ōrīs (Aeneid 1.1) scan?Dactyl, dactyl, spondee, spondee, dactyl, spondee: Ar-ma vi | rum-que ca | nō Trō | iae quī | prī-mus ab | ō-rīs. The main caesura falls after canō, in the third foot.Meter
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tē propter Libycae gentēs Nomadumque tyrannī / ōdēre ... tē propter eundem / exstinctus pudor (Aeneid 4.320–322). Which figure does Dido use, and why?Anaphora — the same words (tē propter) begin successive clauses, hammering home that Aeneas is the cause of her ruin: 'Because of you ... because of you as well.'Figures
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Ferte citī flammās, date tēla, impellite rēmōs! (Aeneid 4.594) Which figure shapes this line, and what is its effect?Asyndeton — clauses piled up with no connecting conjunctions. The rapid-fire commands mirror Dido's frenzy as she imagines chasing the Trojan fleet.Figures
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About these cards
Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- Topic coverage follows the College Board AP Latin Course and Exam Description in use through 2024–25 (required Caesar and Vergil readings, vocabulary, grammar and analysis skills), used as an outline only (no text copied). The CED effective fall 2025 replaces Caesar with letters of Pliny the Younger in its required readings and changes the Vergil selections; Gallic War 1.1–7 and 6.13–20 remain on its list of suggested teacher's-choice texts.
- Latin quoted from public-domain texts: Caesar, De Bello Gallico, and Vergil, Aeneid. All English translations and paraphrases are original.
- Forms, meanings and constructions checked against Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary (1879, public domain) and Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar (1903, public domain) (reference only; no text copied).
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