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Introducing the Liber Memorialis Project

Introducing The Liber Memorialis Project!

All semester long, Professor Swetnam-Burland and a team of dedicated students, pictured below, have been meeting Friday mornings in the Classical Studies Library to work on The Liber Memorialis Project. In partnership with Swem’s William & Mary Press, they are working on a translation of a little-known text, unavailable in an accessible English-language translation. Eventually, their work will be published as an open access e-book.

The Liber Memorialis or "Memory Book" is a short text in Latin, written by an author named Lucius Ampelius for a specific recipient - Macrinus, who many think was a young man, perhaps ten to fourteen years old. It purports to present everything that he would want to know about the world. It includes summaries of both universal and Roman history, lists of influential Roman politicians and generals, information about the gods, geography, and the cosmos - and, intriguingly, short discussions of the miracula mundi ("miracles of the world") including famous monuments and artworks.

The students involved represent all of W&M’s Classical Studies community: post-baccalaureate students, majors (in Greek and Latin, Classical Archaeology, and Classical Civilization) and minors. Some are doing background research on Roman education. For example, Emma Conkle ('25) has been researching typical patterns of education for elite young men, looking at what they are taught about rhetoric and Roman History. Elissa Press ('26) has been more focused on questions of literacy. How much reading and writing could most people do, in Roman society? Devon Keesee ('26) and Caroline Snodgress (post-bacc, '25) have been exploring similar questions, but about the dissemination of Greek learning and language in the Roman world. They are writing a new translation of an inscription on a tomb from the Via Salaria in Rome, which memorialized a young man who had died at 11 years old. Despite his age, he was already fluent in Greek and the memorial preserves a poem that he wrote himself. (Is it a good poem, though? You'll have to read our book to see what they think about that).

Most of the students, however, are focused on providing a fresh translation of the text of the Liber Memorialis. (Patrick Carpenter '28, Linnea Mason '25, Ben McClarty '27, Mary Katherine Musick '26, Hannah Ryan '25, Fred Wang, post-bacc '25). They are working in pairs, translating and discussing some of the unusual features of the text as they go. All in all, the group has had a blast, and hopes you will follow along as they make progress.