Classical Latin is the form of the
Latin language used by the
ancient Romans in what is usually regarded as "classical"
Latin literature. Its use spanned the Golden Age of Latin literature—broadly the
1st century BC and the early
1st century AD—possibly extending to the Silver Age—broadly the 1st and
2nd centuries.
What is now called "Classical Latin" was, in fact, a highly stylized and polished written literary language selectively constructed from early Latin, of which far fewer works remain. Classical Latin is the product of the reconstruction of early Latin in the prototype of Attic Greek. Classical Latin differs from the earliest Latin literature, such as that of Cato the Elder, Plautus, and to some extent Lucretius, in a number of ways. It diverged from Old Latin in that the early -om and (nominative singular) -os endings of the 2nd declension shifted into -um and -us ones, and some semantic shifts also occurred in the lexicon (e.g., forte meant not only "surprisingly" but also "hard").
The spoken Latin of the common people of the Roman Empire, especially from the 2nd century onward, is generally called Vulgar Latin. Vulgar Latin differed from Classical Latin in its vocabulary and grammar, and as time passed, it came to differ in pronunciation as well.
The earliest poet of the Golden Age is considered to be Lucretius, who wrote a long philosophical poem expounding Epicureanism, On the Nature of Things.
