The book
A bridge from the first year to the second.
R. B. Appleton and W. H. S. Jones wrote Pons Tironum for students moving from a first year of Latin to a second. A tīrō is a recruit or a beginner, and the book is the bridge. Its preface, in Latin, says that each chapter gathers many examples of the constructions it teaches, so that repetition wears the difficulties down, and that you will find Latin everywhere and English nowhere.
The fifteen chapters are told by a Roman boy. He wakes up (Expergīscor), and then come a poet, a soldier, dinner, a dog, school, an old woman’s tale, a litter-bearer, a journey, more school, a questioner, his father’s speech before the praetor’s court, and the stories of Sciron and Nisus. The last chapter explains why there are donkeys’ heads on the dining couches.
What you get
Fifteen chapters, about 5,100 words.
What you get is the reading: all fifteen chapters, with a definition, lemma and form on every word. What you don’t get is the printed book’s word index, because every word is already defined where you meet it.
Pons Tironum
A 15-chapter graded reader following a Roman boy through daily life, school, travel, and storytelling.
A taste of the Latin
Up before dawn.
Tap any word for its meaning, lemma and form:
Pons Tironum · Expergīscor
Tap a word — or reveal the translation.
Difficulty
Early intermediate.
Pons Tironum scores 4.05 on Librorum Capsula’s 1–11 scale (3.35 to 4.9). It sits between Primus Annus (up to 3.3) and the same authors’ Puer Romanus (4.3). Read it after a first course, or alongside the second half of one.
Puer Romanus
A complete, varied reader of Roman stories, daily life, history, and culture.