Transportation
The Institute will coordinate a group flight accompanied by a Paideia staff member, from New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport to and from Rome. Students may also travel directly to Rome, where they will be met at the airport by Paideia staff.
Tuition and Fees
The cost of Living Latin in Rome (High School) is $3450. This amount includes tuition, housing, meals, site visits, course materials, and transportation to and from Rome's Fiumicino airport. Airfare is not included.
The Paideia Institute is able to offer a number of full and partial scholarship to students with financial need. Please visit our scholarships page to learn more.
Request an Application
The deadline for Living Latin in Rome (High School) 2016 has now passed.
If you would like to be considered for a spot on our waitlist, email [email protected]
Testimonials
"Paideia opened up an entirely new way of thinking about and exploring Rome. Through the lens of the Latin language and Roman history, I was able to decipher a part of Rome that had been previously inaccessible. The Latin texts I'd read in my classroom and the ones we read every morning gained meaning at each of the sites we visited and truly brought the city to life. This access to the city of Rome, combined with our morning Latin sessions, which were conducted completely in Latin by the end of the program, gave me a love for and understanding of Latin that I will build upon for the rest of my life and made Paideia a truly unique and valuable experience."
Amelia O'Donahue '15
"Paideia resurrected the ancient ruins, and they became colorful, vivacious, and fascinating. The stones of the Forum and the Via Appia spoke not of historical events only, but of us, as humans. Walking along the road like an average Roman would have done thousands of years before really instilled in me a sense of connection, that Latin and history isn’t about memorizing facts, vocab, and tables, but for connecting with those before us, those living in the present, and those who will come after us."
Andrew Biondo '15
"My time in Rome was honestly amazing. It was everything I expected it would be and more. I learned so much from my instructors and my fellow peers. I studied the works of Ovid, Horace, Virgil, Suetonius and many more. I established great friendships along the way. This experience was life-changing, and I'm so grateful to have been awarded the chance to stay in Rome."
Stephanie Dinsae '14
Read More"This summer I saw Rome from a completely new perspective: instead of simply standing in awe of the varied historical sites cluttered throughout the modern city, we were able to approach them in the context of our morning readings and really piece together the long history of the Eternal City. When we visited sites as well known as the Roman Forum, we were thrilled to see the exact places where, for instance, Cicero had articulated In Catilinam, which we had just read that morning. Beyond that, though, we were exposed to periods of Roman history that escape most Latin classes as well as the typical tours given at these sites. We read Ovid’s own words describing how the spot where we now see the ruins of the Roman Forum was, even longer ago, just a marsh land where cattle roamed. We learned about how, much more recently, Mussolini used the grandness of this old Forum for self-aggrandizement by building a prominent road right by it in the 1930s. When we arrived back home for dinner, we sat at the 'Mensa Latina,' struggling to express our thoughts in Latin, while our instructors worked with us patiently, building up our confidence so that soon, a few students were even using relative clauses of result or other rare uses of the subjunctive in extemporaneous speech."
Constanza Rasi '14
"Every day in Rome was truly great. It was an amazing experience to not only go to Rome and see the great monuments but also to read the texts from the people who helped make Rome what it was and is today. Along the way I made great friends and by the end of the trip felt close to each and every member of the program. The experience was unbelievable and unforgettable, and I'm so grateful to have been a part of the trip."
Ryan Sobel '14
"A journey into Rome is a journey into legends. Over the course of two weeks our group of classics students and passionate teachers toured through several millennia-worth of the greatest history, literature, and art that Western civilization has to offer. By reading the primary texts in the places where they happened, we relived the waning days of the Republic and entered the minds of the Renaissance thinkers whom the Eternal City so fixated. This course has given deepened my understanding of Latin and the classics in a profound way and increased my love of one of my favorite subjects more than I thought possible."
Alexander Lin '13
Read More"As we sat around the dinner table, we spoke conversational Latin over a plate of puttanesca. Living Latin in Rome offered new perspectives to the study of Classics that could not be found in the classroom: speaking Latin, visiting sites that related to ancient texts, and performing the Latin comedy Auricula Meretricula. We ended each day with a walk to the nearby gelateria and sampled many flavors—my favorite is frutti di bosco. A day swimming in the beautiful blue water with the backdrop of Tiberius’s villa at Sperlonga was the perfect way to celebrate hard work, shared interests, and new friendships."
Hannah Baumann '13
"'Arma virumque cano...' Everyone knows these famous words of Virgil, but what about the equally profound ideas of Seneca? of Vitruvius? of Poggio Bracciolini? This program not only introduced me to a plethora of surviving Latin authors across two millennia, but also brought alive the spoken language that filled the many day-to-day gaps in between. After our short time of studying the Romans in Rome itself, I feel I better understand their language, their culture, and their modern influences on Western society. To revise the classic adage, you don't really know someone until you've talked a mile in their shoes, and we sure did a lot of talking (and walking) in the language and locality of the Romans. And perhaps the best part was the people I met, from our doctissimi instructores to my fellow interesting individuals and classy Classicists who are equally as passionate about the lingua latina as I am myself. For the rest of my life, I will never forget the summer I became a Roman."
Frederick Muth '12
"I will never forget all the moments on this trip when I really felt Classical texts come to life, whether it was through imagining the magnificent works of architecture that stood on the sites of Roman ruins or actually viewing the same landscapes that inspired so many Classical authors hundreds of years ago. I will never forget standing in the cave at Sperlonga, reading my favorite passage from Virgil's Aeneid and truly experiencing the poetry in an entirely new way. I envisioned how the Romans might have listened to a reading during a dinner in the cave, surrounded by beautiful statues depicting scenes from the Aeneid. The texts I had pored over during the school year for the AP Latin exam came alive, and I was no longer restricted to an exclusively "classroom" understanding of the readings. It is moments like these, I now believe, that Classics scholars reflect on when they are asked the question, 'Why do you study the Classics?' We study Classical literature and culture to be immersed into a world where art, philosophy, and even politics can all be combined, to discover just how different or similar things are in our world today."
Elodi Healy '12
Read More
"At the Lay Center, the windows of my bedroom opened to the east. Every morning, my roommate and I woke up to the rays of the Roman sun and the sound of the desktop fan that would become our best friend by the end of two weeks of summer in Italy. Every night, the sounds of the dance hall on the other side of the wall float in on the evening breeze. Though I did not know it at the time, the view out that window would become my visualization of Rome. Not the tourist infested awe of the Coliseum, but the more subtle juxtaposition of the fresh gardens against the ruins, the Catholic monastery against our devoted study of the pagan language."
Savannah Marquandt '12
"At the Vatican Museum I saw a statue of Laocoon and his sons being attacked by serpents. I remember hearing about this in my freshman year Art History class, and then, there I was, seeing the statue for real. While at the Capitoline Museum, I saw a bust of Marcus Tullius Cicero, whom I studied in Latin class. This entire trip and the experiences that came with it are really something to be grateful for, and I am. While here, I was able to get a deeper look into the world of Latin. I got to meet and talk to people with much more Classics experience than me. Not only that, but I also received much more exposure to various Latin texts. In school, we read Cicero and Catullus, but here, we were exposed to famous writers, such as Virgil, Ovid, Plautus, Tacitus and more. Some of the writers whose works we read, I had not even known about. There was so much I learned while here in Italy. This was just a huge learning experience for me and I am truly grateful."
Sabiya Ahemed '12
"When I describe my summer as a 'Latin boot-camp,' many cringe. But the Paideia program provided me with an intellectual setting that was a joy, and not a grind, a counterpoint to the incredibly structured academic setting of high school. Both students and teachers wanted to be there, making the atmosphere electric. This exceptional group transformed my outlook on learning. In fact, I left Rome wanting to study ancient Greek."