Colloquia Latina
A free library of short, neo-Latin plays.
What are colloquia?
A “colloquium” is a dialogue, with or without a parallel translation, that has been a common feature in language
classrooms since the Babylonians. They are usually written with a self-contained story and provide both an
enjoyable way to practice grammar and vocabulary in context, and a model for daily speech. In the Latin
classroom, these have been a regular feature since the late empire, when Greek-speakers used them to practice
their Latin--and vice versa.
Some of the finest and most interesting colloquia were written by Humanists on both sides of the Reformation:
men like Erasmus, Corderius, and Castalio. They modeled high-level Latin speech while still conciously writing
for students. Today, these can be used for solo reading, group reading, memorization, writing prompts, and even
short skits. They are a particularly valuable resource for those using Latin actively, as they provide a model
for applying classical models to diverse situations.
Where do these Colloquia come from?
The colloquia on this site are all collected from works in the public domain. We owe a debt of gratitude to Ross
Scaife, Terence Tunberg, and Milena Minkova at the University of Kentucky, who with other professors and
students aranged for the digitization and online hosting of a number of neo-Latin colloquia. Unfortunately,
after Ross Scaife’s death and subsequent migration updates to the Perseus website, those colloquia were only
available through Internet Archive. Thanks to Christopher Francese at Dickinson College, the text has been made
again available, which has allowed us to format and macronize the text, before moving it here to a more stable
and accessible hosting platform.
You can find many of the source text files in our Archive right here.
Where do I start?
The list of colloquia can be a bit overwhelming. The most famous Colloquia are those written by Erasmus, but these are hardly the only ones. To help you, we've tagged colloquia by author, topic, and difficulty level to help you better find what you're looking for.
Want to Help?
This website and its contents are published by Jackson Perry and Jacob Terneus. This is a labor of love for the
Latin language and especially active Latin.
Many colloquia still need to be transcribed before they can be published on this site.
To assist with transcription, proof-reading, or formatting, email us at [email protected].