Thread by @azforeman

I have always found it incredibly weird that Latin learners approaching "real Latin" (god I hate that term) for the first time are generally not given appropriate texts.

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Even if you restrict your choices to texts from the Republic and Empire, even if you avoid texts with any Christian coloring, there's still plenty to work with.
I've never understood why Caesar of all things is traditionally what learners have started off with.

If you need "authentic ancient" Latin, why not start kids off by reading Nepos? If you want kids to read about exciting exploits, there's plenty there to work with.

You could also use specimens of Ancient Latin that are deliberately written to sound unpretentious. The specimens of the "simple" style in the "Ad Herennium" for example.

The author literally prefaces his example of the "correct" simple style by saying that "This will serve as an example of the simple style, that which has been brought down to the level of everyday speech."

(in adtenuato figurae genere, id quod ad infimum et cottidianum sermonem demissum est, hoc erit exemplum)

Here's that "simple style" with a translation

Granted this is not exactly ordinary speech (it's still within the acceptable range for oratory) so much as an approximation of same. It has some syntactic complexity to it.

There are about ten subordinate clauses in a short space, three of them in a single sentence, and two of the relative clauses have subjunctive verbs. There is no shortage of passives. And not all the information is as spelled out as it might otherwise be.

But it's still not as syntactically complex as the stuff found in the first few paragraphs of Caesar's De Bello Gallico.

The main disadvantage though would be that the passage contains certain things that were features of spoken Latin but not normally used in the literary language, and which would have to be explained as such.

For example, the perfective "pulsarunt" is used, rather than the normative literary "pulsaverunt" (it is the former which was to survive in Romance, cf. Sp. "pujaron").

The diminutive "oricula" is also a colloquial word which survived in Romance (oreja, oreille, orecchia etc.) whereas standard "auris" did not.

In this passage you have mention of much (the baths, public sundials, slavery, education at the hands of a "paedagogus", elite decorum, reputation) that is very Roman, which would be ideal in one's first "real text" as a textual encounter with the upper end of Roman society.

But no, no....learners should start off with Caesar's polished war-reports meant to sway and impress elected officials. What unmitigated jackass dreamed that tradition up?