These four poems are compulsory set texts in the Latin AS level syllabus prescribed by the UK examining board OCR from 2012 to 2014. There is at present no appropriate commentary on Book 3 of the Amores. Fortunately the Bristol Classical Press quickly responded to the situation by commissioning an edition of the four specified poems (using E. J. Kenney's Oxford Classical Text) from Jennifer Ingleheart and Katharine Radice, and this will be published later in 2011; but it was felt that Greece & Rome could help to plug the gap by reviving in some form the ‘Critical Appreciations’ that it published between 1973 and 1980; in these, a schoolteacher's close analysis of a selected text was juxtaposed with one by a university teacher.

In the circumstances, it seemed best to cover all four poems, and so the decision was taken to assign one to each author. However, the tradition of thirty-odd years ago is preserved in the fact that two of the present contributors teach in schools and the other two at a university. Two of them, incidentally, were trained at Cambridge and two at Oxford. The commentary on 3.5 contains more reference to scholarly debate than the others: for all its literary complexities this poem has struck many as a misfit and its authorship is a matter of debate (Kenney brackets it in the OCT). Thus, it seems better to face the difficulties than to ignore them. Throughout we hope to suggest lines of interpretation, and to stimulate debate – and disagreement.