The book
A holiday, an uncle, and Julius Caesar.
E. A. Sonnenschein’s Ora Maritima is a single continuous story. The narrator is on holiday at the coast. The first chapters are an uncle, ancient monuments, a boy’s pleasures and the schoolmaster, and then ancient Britain and the traces the Romans left. From there the story becomes history: Caesar’s first expedition, the peace broken, the fighting, Roman ships, the alliance of the British tribes, the seas around Britain, and Britain pacified.
What you get
The whole story, without the grammar.
The printed book wraps the story in grammar and exercises. What you get here is the story itself: all fifteen chapters, about 4,100 words, with a definition, lemma and form on every word. What you don’t get is the grammar or the exercises. If you want those, use the printed book alongside.
Ora Maritima
A complete maritime and historical reader, including Caesar’s expeditions to Britain.
A taste of the Latin
The first lines.
Tap any word for its meaning, lemma and form:
Ora Maritima · Chapter I
Tap a word — or reveal the translation.
Difficulty
Beginner Latin that gets you to Caesar.
Ora Maritima scores 1.9 on Librorum Capsula’s 1–11 scale and is beginner Latin throughout. It ends among events Caesar narrates himself; for his own account, see the guide to De Bello Gallico. Maud Reed’s Julia, another seaside story set in Britain, is a natural next book.
Iulia
A 52-section graded reader following a British girl’s daily life, family stories, and Roman myths and history.