Latin
.The language spoken by the people of Laʹtium, in Italy. The Latins are called aborigines of Italy. Alba Longa was head of the Latin League, and, as Rome was a colony of Alba Longa, it is plain to see how the Roman tongue was Latin.
“The earliest extant specimen of the Latin language is a fragment of the hymn of the Fratres Arvāles (3 syl.), a priestly brotherhood, which offered, every 10th of May, a public sacrifice for the fertility of the fields.”—Sellar: Roman Poets of the Republic, chap. ii. p. 34.
Classical Latin. The Latin of the best authors about the time of Augustus, as Livy, Tacitus, and Cicero (prose), Horace, Virgil, and Ovid (poets).
Late Latin. The period which followed the Augustan age. This period contains the Church Fathers.
Middle Latin. Latin from the sixth to the sixteenth century A.D., both inclusive. In this Latin, prepositions frequently supply the cases of nouns.
“Latium. The tale is that this word is from lateo, to lie hid, and was so called because Saturn lay hid there, when he was driven out of heaven by the gods.”
The Latin cross. Formed thus: †
⁂ The Greek cross has four equal arms, thus: +