Unit 4 Overview: Caesar, Gallic War, Book 4

Overview of Unit 4

Salvete Omnes 🏛️! We’re nearing the half-way point in the AP Latin curriculum (and we can’t wait to dive back into the curriculum once more with you!). Unit 4 covers Book IV of Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, recounting parts of Caesar's conquests in Britain. We will walk you through some translations as you learn about (or review) both the hardships and successes experienced by the Romans as Caesar and his soldiers attempt to make conquests in Britain.

In order to prepare for the exam, you’ll of course be reading Book IV in Latin 🤩. Reading over the Unit 4 checklist is important in making sure you understand the correct skill categories each section of lines tackles.

If you want an exact guide of what you will need to know for this difficult exam from the College Board itself, feel free to check out the Course and Exam Description from the College Board linked here. If that document looks intimidating to trudge through, don't worry, we've done the heavy lifting for you in our guides and will break everything down nicely for you, so just keep reading.

Thank you for all of your unconditional support throughout the school year 🏫. We weren’t kidding when we told you AP® Latin is hard! However, with great work comes great rewards. Doing well on this exam can reward you with tons (okay, maybe not literally) of college credit, and learning the material is great just for the sake of learning it anyways. But, if you need that extra motivation, check out the College Board's AP Credit Policy Search tool to find to see where you can get credit for this your amazing work. (Spoiler: Over 1000 accredited colleges and universities will do so!)

We hope that you will continue to use our resources in your AP and college-level studies (and spread the word!). That's enough though, you're here to knock out some solid Latin practice, so let’s get right into it, shall we?

Unit Guide at a Glance 

As you already know, in AP Latin and other languages, there are no key concepts like there are in other AP subjects 🤨. Instead, we will practice skill categories in the form of different style questions to help you prepare for the exam. Then, we will break down the lines within that particular section of the Book.

Also, there are different themes in the Course Content that students should be able to know, tackle correctly, and understand the focus of. For Unit 4, there are three themes: Leadership (LDR), War and Empire (WAE), and Views of Non-Romans (VNR) that students should be aware of throughout the unit. Notice the questions to ponder for each theme below. Some of these, you have likely already seen, so just make sure to continue to keep those in mind, but others are may be new to you, so especially watch for those.

Themes of Unit 4

1. How do leaders deal with setbacks and failures?

2. How does a leader inspire others to follow? | | War and Empire (WAE) | 1) Why do wars happen? What questions do these works raise about the consequences of war?

3. What questions do the works raise about diplomacy, negotiation, and peacemaking?

4. What are the perspectives of Vergil and Caesar concerning Roman imperialism? What are the perceived purposes, benefits, and costs of the empire?

5. What are the effects of war on women and non-combatants?

6. How do the texts portray enemy groups? | | Views of Non-Romans (VNR) | 1) In what ways do the authors portray the various non-Roman peoples that appear in the works?

7. What criteria do they use to evaluate these groups?

8. To what extent do the authors reinforce or challenge stereotypes of these groups?

9. How do the authors use these portrayals in their works? |

As always, when there is a gap between sections of lines since we will be picking up with Chapter 24 of the book. We would suggest reading the lines in English (more information on this below) or sight-reading them Latin for extra comprehension and practice. These are great skills to practice in order to prepare for your exam in May!

Contextualization 

Hold up! I know, I know . . . I said we would get right into it, but understanding what leads up to Book IV is CRUCIAL. Although Books II and III aren’t required they are important as contextualization for required argumentation and textual analysis skills necessary for the exam.

Linked below are some English translations of the books not covered for that extra context if you'd like it. However, keep in mind that while this material is helpful, it will not be explicitly tested on the AP Exam.

Gallic War - Book II 

Gallic War - Book III

Review of Unit 2

In Unit 2, we read Books I and VI of the Gallic War. After reading Book II of Vergil’s Aeneid in Unit 3, it may have been quite some time since your class has discussed the Gallic War, so if you need a refresher (it’s perfectly ok if you do 😁), take a look at our Unit 2 guides to resituate yourself in Julius Caesar's work.

Now that the overview is done with, let's get to the fun part: the content🤑. Let's get to it!