Classical Studies at Brandeis
Brandeis University
Classical Studies Department
Patricia Johnston

Patricia A. Johnston


Research Interests

Latin and Greek Language and Literature. Vergil. Ancient Religion. Mystery Cults.


Selected Courses Taught

  • Beginning Latin (LAT 10a)
  • Continuing Latin (LAT 20b)
  • Advanced Latin Composition (LAT 110b)
  • Latin Prose Authors (LAT 114b)
  • Roman Drama (LAT 115a)
      Plautus
      Terence
  • Roman Satire (LAT 116b)
      Selected Readings from Horace and Juvenal
  • Lucretius: De Rerum Natura (LAT 117a)
  • Latin Lyric and Elegiac Poetry (LAT 118a)
      Selected Readings from Catullus, Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid
  • Roman Historians (LAT 118a)
      Selected Readings from Julius Caesar, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus
  • Ovid: Metamorphoses (LAT 119b)
  • Vergil (LAT 120a)
      Eclogues
      Georgics
      Aeneid
  • Classical Mythology (CLAS 170a)
  • Ancient Greek Drama (Sophocles' Oedipus Cycle) (GRK 115a)
  • Ancient Mysteries, Cults, and Myths (USEM 27a)


Selected Publications

Fortunatae Gentes: Mystic Cults of Magna Graecia and Their Persistence in Magna Graecia. Austin: University of Texas Press (forthcoming Spring 2009).

Cultural Responses to the Volcanic Landscape: The Mediterranean and Beyond. Co-edited with Miriam S. Balmuth and David K. Chester. The Archaeological Institute of America, Colloquia and Conference Papers 8. Boston: The David Brown Book Company, 2005.

"Vergil," Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, by Mircea Eliade, edited by Lindsay Jones. New York: Macmillan, 2005.

Ancient Myth in Art and Literature. Co-written with Phillip V. Stanley. Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2004.

Vergil, Philodemus and the Augustans. Co-edited with David Armstrong, Jeffrey Fish, and Marilyn B. Skinner. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.

Traditio: An Introduction to the Latin Language and its Influence, second edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1998.

Traditio: An Introduction to the Latin Language, Workbook Part I: Chapters One to Nine, second edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1998.

Traditio: An Introduction to the Latin Language, Workbook Part II: Chapters Ten to Eighteen, second edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1998.

Vergil’s Agricultural Golden Age:  A Study of the Georgics. Mnemosyne, (Bibliotheca Classica Batava: Supplementum). Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980.

Vergil's Agricultural Golden Age by Pat Johnston Vergil Philodemus and the Augustans Ancient Myth in Art & Literature by Pat Johnston Cultural Responses to the Volcanic Landscape Traditio by Patricia A. Johnston Traditio Workbook by Patricia A. Johnston Tradition Workbook II by Pat Johnston


Contact Information

Office: Rabb 348

Office Hours (Fall 2008): TBA, and by appointment

Phone: (781) 736-2182

Email: johnston@brandeis.edu


Professor Patricia A. Johnston has been teaching at Brandeis since 1975, after she completed her doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley.  She has held visiting professorships at the University of Southern California and San Francisco State.  She was chair of the Classical Studies Department in 1984-1988 and again in 1990-1992.

Her publications include Vergil’s Agricultural Golden Age:  A Study of the Georgics (Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava: Supplementum), (Leiden: Brill, 1980); Traditio: An Introduction to the Latin Language and Its Influence (a college-level introductory Latin textbook), now in its second edition (Focus Publishing, 1998) with two accompanying workbooks and The Latin Tutor, a computer-assisted-learning software program; Vergil, Aeneid VI, A Commentary (forthcoming from Focus); as well as a number of scholarly articles. She is currently working on the interaction of art and mythology, and on evidence of ancient mystery cults in classical literature. She has recently completed a translation of The Aeneid in dactylic hexameter. 

Professor Johnston is a past president of the Vergilian Society of America.  She frequently leads study tours for the Vergilian Society in Italy and Sicily.  In 1995, as president, she established a series of annual scholarly symposia in Italy for the Vergilian Society, and since then has been the main director of these symposia. In this capacity she has co-edited two books: The Cultural Response to the Volcanic Landscape (Archaeological Institute of America, 2005) and Vergil, Philodemus and the Augustans, co-editor with David Armstrong, Jeffrey Fish, and Marilyn B. Skinner (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), and is now editing a collection of papers from the 2002 symposium on the Mystery Cults of Magna Graecia.  She is currently editor of Vergilius, the journal of the Vergilian Society.

She has also been actively involved with the teachers of Latin in local high schools, directly and through the Classical Association of Massachusetts, the Classical Association of New England, and the Junior Classical League of Massachusetts.  On three occasions, she has brought the annual convention of the latter to Brandeis. 

Professor Johnston teaches introductory and advanced Latin and Greek courses as well as an occasional course in translation.


Photograph of Patricia A. Johnston by Brandeis Campus Card Office.

To report broken links, please contact Janet Barry at jbarry@brandeis.edu or x6-2180.
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Department of Classical Studies, 2008.