Quote:
Originally Posted by maddz
As far as I can recall, the main use of Latin (especially for Victorian authors) was to be able to write about pornography and deviancy so that women and servants who chanced on the passage would not be able to understand it. I think Gibbon did that when writing about the homosexual amours of the Roman emperors.
The other use was to display your classical education for all to see by the use of apposite quotations.
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It's certainly true that Greek and Roman authors write some spectacularly vulgar texts that couldn't have been published in English in Victorian England. Some of Marshal's Epigrams in particular are quite eye-wateringly obscene
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