everything was born of this /  by Anthony Gibbins

When Legonium first began, I had no idea where the story would go. I imagined it more like a Days of Our Lives soap opera with one random event following another. The focus was to be more on the language than the story, describing the simplest of actions with clear illustrations to help the reader. Go back to episode one and you will see what I mean - the bulk of the story is Marcellus walking past the bank and returning home to paint. My first draft of that episode ended with Marcellus again walking in the street. Where was he going? That was the big cliff-hanger. It seemed boring to me, so instead I put a minifigure dressed in black and wearing a mask on the bank’s roof. I had no idea who she was - probably a bank robber…

Over the months that character became Jessica, and the part she would play in the story became clearer to me. It didn’t happen all at once, however. First she had no greater motivation than to steal, although she chose to steal from thieves. Then she became something of a vigilante - fighting crime by leaping across roof tops. Afterwards she was the nemesis of that sailor, who turned out to be some sort of crime lord. The story finally fell into place when I realised that the sailor was a collector and that he and Jessica were ex-associates. That they had had a falling out. And that that falling out was the result of a difference in philosophy.

Today’s slide is the genesis of Legonium. The entire story can be traced back to this one moment; the moment where Jessica wants to share a discovery with the world, and Hadrianus wants to keep it hidden, for no better reason than enjoying that he has it to himself.

He, however, was not willing to share this book with others. He wanted rather to hide the book in his bookcase. We fell into a great quarrel and I denied myself to be going to help him (ie: I said that I would not help him).

The Book Hunters /  by Anthony Gibbins

Almost six hundred years ago, a short, genial man took a very old manuscript off a library shelf. With excitement, he saw what he had discovered and ordered it copied. The book was a miraculously surviving copy of the ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, and it changed the course of history.

He found a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas - that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion. These ideas fueled the Renaissance, inspiring Botticelli, shaping the thought of Montaigne, Darwin and Einstein.

So reads the blurb on Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began. Here is an extract, to give you a feeling for his work, to whet your appetite for Book Hunting, and to introduce the character of Poggio Bracciolini.

ITALIANS HAD BEEN book-hunting for the better part of a century, ever since the poet and scholar Petrarch brought glory on himself in the 1330s by piecing together Livy’s monumental History of Rome and finding forgotten masterpieces by Cicero, Propertius, and others. Petrarch’s achievement had inspired others to seek out lost classics that had been lying unread, often for centuries. The recovered texts were copied, edited, commented upon, and eagerly exchanged, conferring distinction on those who had found them and forming the basis for what became known as the “study of the humanities.”

The “humanists,” as those who were devoted to this study were called, knew from carefully poring over the texts that had survived from classical Rome that many once famous books or parts of books were still missing. Occasionally, the ancient authors whom Poggio and his fellow humanists eagerly read gave tantalizing quotations from these books, often accompanying extravagant praise or vituperative attacks. Alongside discussions of Virgil and Ovid, for example, the Roman rhetorician Quintilian remarked that “Macer and Lucretius are certainly worth reading,” and went on to discuss Varro of Atax, Cornelius Severus, Saleius Bassus, Gaius Rabirius, Albinovanus Pedo, Marcus Furius Bibaculus, Lucius Accius, Marcus Pacuvius, and others whose works he greatly admired. The humanists knew that some of these missing works were likely to have been lost forever—as it turned out, with the exception of Lucretius, all of the authors just mentioned have been lost—but they suspected that others, perhaps many others, were hidden away in dark places, not only in Italy but across the Alps. After all, Petrarch had found the manuscript of Cicero’s Pro Archia in Liège, in Belgium, and the Propertius manuscript in Paris.

The prime hunting grounds for Poggio and his fellow book hunters were the libraries of old monasteries, and for good reason: for long centuries monasteries had been virtually the only institutions that cared about books. Even in the stable and prosperous times of the Roman Empire, literacy rates, by our standards at least, were not high. As the empire crumbled, as cities decayed, trade declined, and the increasingly anxious populace scanned the horizon for barbarian armies, the whole Roman system of elementary and higher education fell apart. What began as downsizing went on to wholesale abandonment. Schools closed, libraries and academies shut their doors, professional grammarians and teachers of rhetoric found themselves out of work. There were more important things to worry about than the fate of books.

But all monks were expected to know how to read.

This book, as he explained to me, would be able to teach the reader much about ancient Rome. I very much wanted to find this book and to share it with all peoples.

the accusative of duration and the ablative of time within which /  by Anthony Gibbins

Today’s post is just a short note on an interesting point of grammar concerning time. There are three important time expressions in Latin; one that tells you when something happened, one that tells you how long something lasted, and another that tells you the time within which something occurred. Each one conveniently contain the name of the Case that they use within their title; Ablative of Time When, Accusative of Duration, Ablative of Time Within Which. Today’s post will concern only the final two.

Let us choose four Romans; Julia, Marcus, Antonia and Decimus. omnes Romae nati sunt they were all born in Rome. Note the use of Romae, which is in the seldom seen Locative Case, to mean in or at Rome.

Julia lived in Rome for ten years. Julia Romae decem annos habitavit. Accusative of Duration.

Marcus has lived in Rome for twenty years. Marcus Romae viginti annos habitat. Accusative of Duration. Note the use of the simple Present Tense habitat he lives to means he has lived.

Antonia will return to Rome within five years. Antonia Romam quinque annis reveniet. Ablative of Time Within Which.

Decimus has not lived in Rome for fifteen years. Decimus Romae quindecim annis non habitat. Note that although the English reads for fifteen years, Latin treats this as Time Within Which. There is an example of this on today’s page. nemo plus quam mille annis [librum] viderat Nobody had seen the book for more than one thousand years.

Once, in the library, he made me more certain (ie: he informed me) about an ancient book of great importance, which nobody had seen for more than one thousand years. He said that he knew where a copy of the book had been hidden.

aedes Hadriani /  by Anthony Gibbins

This is a wonderful build. I wish I could say that I knew who built it, but the truth is I found it by searching Lego mansion on Google. Any attempt to track down the builder took me to a Pintrest echo chamber, of which I could find no way through. If you would like to see the model in its full and original glory, search Lego mansion for yourself - I had to crop the picture and darken it significantly, to hide the fact that it was standing in front of an equally impressive bookcase. But all that aside, it truly is a thing of wonder. Every day I see something online that makes me stop and say, People are so clever.

This is the home of Hadrianus, a collector of marvelous things. The name Hadrianus means of the Adriatic, a suitable Latin name for a sailor. The text of this page contains some nice grammatical structures. There is the Impersonal Verb in cui placuit to whom it was pleasing or whom it pleased, the Adjective plenus full with the Ablative talibus rebus with such things indicating what it is full of, the Double Dative ei auxilio a help to him, and the Gerund in in colligendo in the (act of) collecting.

I was then an associate of a certain man, named Hadrianus, whom it pleased very much to collect marvelous things. His house was filled with such things. I was a help to him in collecting.

borrowing from the best /  by Anthony Gibbins

Do you know, dear reader, the origin of these sentences, appearing on today’s page of Legonium?

his dictis, Miranda Marcellusque conticescunt intentique ora ad Jessicam vertunt. inde Jessica sic orditur:

Here is the original Latin, with a name removed to keep something of the challenge.

conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant.

inde toro pater <nomen> sic orsus ab alto:

If you said that these were lines from Virgil’s Aeneid, then you were absolutely correct. Can you also pick their position in the poem?

That’s right, reader! (I’m channelling Dora Explorator here!)  These are the opening lines of The Aeneid Book II. At the end of Book I, during a sumptuous feast, Queen Dido asked Aeneas to tell her of his home’s destruction and of the wanderings that have brought the Trojans to Carthage. As he readies himself to speak, the gravity of this moment is signalled by the reaction of the revellers. They fall silent and hold their glances towards him.

Jessica is about to tell her long tale, of the destruction of her old life and of the wanderings (and wonderings) that have brought her to Legonium (and to the attention of Miranda). I thought it would be fun to borrow a little gravitas from Aeneas.

These things having been said, Miranda and Marcellus fall silent and, attentive, turn their faces toward Jessica. Then Jessica thus begins: ’One month ago I was living in a far-off location.

impero vs iubeo /  by Anthony Gibbins

The sentence Miranda Jessicae imperat ut omnia narret Miranda orders Jessica that she tell all contains an Indirect Command.  ut omnia narret that she tell all is an Indirect Command. A smoother English translation would be Miranda orders Jessica to tell all. In English the Verb in an Indirect Command is Infinitive, to tell, which in Latin would be narrare. In Latin, however, we instead use an Indirect Command, such ut narret that she tell. Except when we don’t.

There is another Verb that means the same (plus minusve more or less) as impero imperare imperavi imperatum and that Verb is iubeo, iubere, iussi, iussum. And yet, these Verbs demand different things from the words around them. Miranda imperat and Miranda iubet both mean Miranda orders. imperat, however, demands that the person you are ordering be placed in the Dative Case, while iubet demands they be placed in the Accusative. Miranda Jessicae imperat and Miranda Jessicam iubet, therefore, both mean Miranda orders Jessica. Moreover, while imperat demands ut narret that she tell, iubet demands (like English) narrare to tell. Both narret and narrare, of course, demand that their object, omnia all, be in the Accusative Case. And so, both Miranda Jessicae imperat ut omnia narret and Miranda Jessicam iubet omnia narrare mean Miranda orders Jessica to tell all.

There are a handful of Verbs that demand the same as iubet. Perhaps the most important is veto, vetare, vetui, vetitum to forbid. Miranda Jessicam vetat omnia narrare Miranda forbids Jessica to tell all. There are more, however, that behave like imperat, such as persuadeo, persuadere, persuasi, persuasum to persuade. Miranda Jessicae persuadet ut omnia narret Miranda persuades Jessica to tell all.

All three sit down around a table. ‘Who are you?’ Miranda asks Jessica without delay. ‘And why are you spending time here in town?’ She orders Jessica to immediately tell all.

Forum Legonii : aka Assembly Square /  by Anthony Gibbins

On today’s page, Miranda leads Jessica and Marcellus past the bakery into the forum. This seems a good opportunity to introduce Lego’s most recent Modular Building, Assembly Square. Assembly Square, like many of the Modular Buildings, was designed by Jamie Berad. It was announced in a press release on October 17, 2016 and released to the public on January 1, 2017. It is the largest of the Modulars to date, being one and a half times as wide as other buildings. Its enormous size reflects its status as a 10th Anniversary model. It has 4002 pieces, stands 35cm (13”) high at its tallest point, and contains a world of small details. For me, the most exciting aspect was its outdoor area; up until now all Modulars have faced directly onto the street. Assembly square allows the citizens of Legonium a public place in which to sit, meet and converse.

As you can see, Assembly Square is surrounded by buildings. I am a big fan of the Latin Verb cingo cingere cinxi cinctum to surround, to encircle. I also like cingulum which is a girdle or sword-belt, but is often used in contemporary Latin to mean a belt of any kind. The buildings around Assembly Square are each three stories high. The building to the left contains - from the bottom up - a café, to which our characters are heading, a music store and a dance studio. The building to the right contains a bakery, a dentist surgery and Jessica’s apartment (seen in episode nine). The middle building contains a florist, a photography studio and Jessica’s balcony. Jessica’s apartment was built to be the home of a Lego enthusiast, and comes equipped with mini Lego models, including an Eiffel Tower, which you can just make out here.

Lest this post be entirely about Lego, here is the Roman architectural writer Vitruvius on designing a forum;

There is a custom established by our ancestors of holding gladiatorial displays in the forum. Because of this, the space between the columns should be widened for better viewing. Place shops for bankers in the surrounding porticoes, and include viewing balconies on the upper stories; such arrangement are both convenient and bring in public revenue. Architecture 5.1.1

See the forum! The delightful forum is surrounded by many beautiful buildings. In the middle of the forum is a very beautiful fountain. Miranda is leading them to the café.

Guest Post : Dr Patrick Owens on the Morgan-Owens Lexicon /  by Anthony Gibbins

If you are a reader of Legonium, you will know that the pet store has played an important part in the past few episodes. It was difficult to find an appropriate Latin translation of pet store, but I found zoopolium within the Morgan-Owens Lexicon. The Morgan-Owens Neo-Latin and Contemporary Latin Lexicon is such a monumental piece of work (and monumental work in progress!), that I asked Dr Patrick Owens - the current editor-in-chief - if he would write something on it for Legonium. I am grateful to Dr Owen's for penning this fascinating account of the Lexicon's history, as well as a glimpse towards its bright future.

Origin and History of the Lexicon

In 1998, after attending the Conventiculum Lexintoniense, Dr. David W. Morgan began to create a list of Latin vocabulary for the modern world. Dr. Morgan soon recognized that there was neither a consensus among the various enclaves of Latin speakers regarding modern terminology nor was there a single reliable repository or dictionary. In 1999, therefore, Dr. Morgan collected all of the handbooks and dictionaries that were in use for Latin speakers from around the world and painstakingly transcribed those entries which he deemed worthwhile. It wasn’t until after he had worked through a dozen such volumes that he discovered the futility of this project: many or even most of the terms contained in these dictionaries were not drawn from literary sources but entirely invented. Moreover, many of the dictionaries readily borrowed from modern languages with no regard for ancient Latin precedents or the language’s inherent rules. Dr. Morgan named this first project the Silva (Latin for the collection). The Silva was published online without editorial comments in 2000.

The shortcomings of the Silva were the catalyst for a larger project, which would give precedence to terms and phrases attested in Latin literature and would conform any coinages or neologisms to the tendencies of the language. This new Neo-Latin lexicon would provide practitioners of active Latin with a reliable source of Latin vocabulary for the modern world, complete with citations, example sentences, and the grammatical information typically found in scholarly dictionaries. When Dr. Morgan began this momentous task he recruited his colleagues Dr. Milena Minkova and Dr. Terence Tunberg as co-editors and collaborators. Minkova and Tunberg collaborated with Morgan for some time, but due to their distance and other factors, Morgan continued the work alone, periodically updating a draft publically under the name Adumbratio (or the draft) on the Furman University server. Dr. Morgan considered the Adumbratio to be the bare bones of a future comprehensive work of contemporary terms and phrases for authors and speakers of Latin.

In 2011 Morgan and Dr. Patrick M. Owens collaborated to create a print English-Latin and Latin-English dictionary for students and teachers. During the preparation of this smaller dictionary, Dr. Owens collaborated with Dr. Morgan on certain aspects of the Adumbratio (mainly emendations and formatting issues). The prospect of the learners’ dictionary was suspended due to Dr. Morgan’s fight with liver disease. Sadly, David Morgan passed away on February 6th, 2013.

Dr. Owens was left with thousands of volumes and tens of thousands of loose notes and photocopies from Dr. Morgan’s estate. When Furman University decided to remove Dr. Morgan’s pages from its servers, Wyoming Catholic College (where Dr. Owens was an Assistant Professor of Latin) agreed to host an updated version of the Adumbratio, in order that Dr. Owens could continue to maintain its presence on the Internet.

Current State of the Project

The format, namely a MS Word document that Dr. Morgan used when he began making lexicographic notes in 1998, was well suited for a small document for private use. As the document grew to more than 700 pages, however, the format proved to be clumsy and ill-matched to the new goals. As a result of this, some Internet sites created pdf documents of the entire Lexicon, disregarding the guidelines of the Common Use License that the Lexicon enjoys. 

Users often lament the Lexicon’s format. Over the past four years there have been several hundred new lemmata and additional articles. It is frustrating and discouraging to create new lemmata when the editor recognizes that the entire interface needs to be revamped; this has led to a decline in regular updates. There are nearly a thousand new notes, emendations, and articles to be added to the body of the text, but they have been set-aside until a new interface is created.

In February of 2017, after taking several graduate courses in lexicography at UC Boulder, Dr. Owens constituted a Board of Directors and Advisors for the Neo-Latin Lexicon. Dr. Owens recognized that the project required collaboration from scholars with various backgrounds and its work could not be sufficiently accomplished by a single editor working alone. While there were a number of disparate issues addressed at our first annual board meeting, the board agreed that the Lexicon would benefit from (1) an independent Internet address, (2) a new interface (3) funds perhaps provided by grant money, (4) a collaboration of slips for new lemmata, and (5) a process for identifying mistakes and easily making emendations. The current editor-in-chief, Dr. Owens, is currently working towards these goals.

'Follow me,' the police officer says, leading Jessica and Marcellus out of the pet store. Miranda leads them past the bakery into the town's forum.