This textbook features the best of traditional methods for learning ancient Greek, with an especially strong focus on composition work. But the text also includes innovative drills and stimulating readings and sentences, designed in such a way that they offer a gateway to discussions about Greek literature, history, and culture. The text presupposes the mastery of no other foreign language, including Latin, and thus fully explicates the most basic principles of tense, part of speech, etc. Particularly difficult aspects of the Greek language, like accentuation or the principles of euphonic change, are introduced gradually yet fully. The relative frequency of forms, vocabulary, and constructions in Greek informs the organization and order of the text. With the completion of the companion text, A Course in Attic Greek II, the student will be prepared to read any ancient author in the original, including works in koine.

Containing readings from eyewitness accounts of the collapse of the Roman republic, Res Publica Conquassata (The Republic Shattered) relates Julius Caesar's invasion of his own fatherland at the head of a loyal and seasoned army. The correspondence of the great orator Marcus Cicero, one of Caesar's most prominent political adversaries, is interspersed among Caesar's narrative episodes of the civil war (De Bello Civili). James K. Finn and Frank J. Groten, Jr. provide critical commentary on the Latin text giving depth to the readings, as well as placing the writings in historical context with a chronological table, short biographies of important persons of the time, a glossary of political terms, a map, and a full Latin-English vocabulary. The design of the whole work presents a self-contained edition intended for students of intermediate and advanced Latin.