Latina Laeta B1.4 — Crimen aut amor
Latin–English Interlinear Reader

Ephesus is loud with harbor noise, and the great temple of Artemis stands above the city like a promise—and like a threat.

In B1.4, Spurius Florus arrives in Asia and takes up office as triumvir capitalis, reading one tablet after another: counterfeit coins, a brawl, a runaway slave. A merchant presses a coin into his hand; Spurius hears the dull, false sound for himself. The trail leads from the macellum to the port, from a sailor's purse to a tavern table, and onward into the dockyards where fraud hides behind noise and crowds.

Then the case turns darker.

A priest lies dead on the threshold of Artemis' temple. Bright coins glitter nearby. A boy touches them and collapses in front of the people. Some cry out for divine punishment—others for foreign magic—but Spurius sees something colder and more Roman: human poison, human greed, human fear, and a crowd ready to believe anything except the obvious.

Meanwhile in Rome, the pressure is quieter—and no less real.

In Plautia's atrium, matronae sit beneath the columns and speak of marriages as if they were arranging goods in the forum: beauty, modesty, dowry, family name. Flaminia sits in the corner, listening, blushing, trying to disappear into the peristyle—only to be called back: "Hic ades, filia. Haec quoque ad te pertinent." The question of amor is not romantic here. It is social, financial, and unavoidable.

Crimen aut amor brings B1 prose into fuller reach: sustained investigation, public panic, formal questioning, and domestic scenes where every sentence carries status and implication. The Latin is fully Classical and continuously readable; each sentence is followed by a deliberately close English translation that mirrors the Latin structure for support, not style.

This volume features:

A Roman magistrate's investigation in Ephesus: coins, taverns, port, temple politics
Superstition versus evidence, and public panic in a sacred place
Flaminia and the marriage "market": dowry talk, suitors, reputation, restraint
Strong B1 narrative with layered syntax and purposeful dialogue
A bilingual format built for uninterrupted extensive reading

Rome can be judged in the forum—and in the atrium.

In B1.4, the choice is not simple:
crimen aut amor.

Read on.

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