What does Liber Memorialis mean?

“Memory book,” or “a book for remembering.” The author calls it a liber memoriālis, a book written so that its contents could be remembered.

Who wrote the Liber Memorialis?

Lucius Ampelius, about whom almost nothing else is known. He addresses the book to a Macrinus.

After the reign of Trajan, where its history stops. The exact date is disputed.

Is there an English translation?

English translations are hard to find. In 2025 a William & Mary team began a new open-access translation because none was readily available. On Librorum Capsula you read the Latin with every word defined, so you don’t need one.

How long is the Liber Memorialis?

About 7,100 words in fifty short chapters. The shortest chapters are a couple of lines long.

Is the Liber Memorialis hard to read in Latin?

Upper Intermediate: it scores 6.1 on LC’s difficulty scale. The syntax is simple, but there are many names and rare words.

Liber Memorialis: Read Ampelius’s Roman Handbook in Latin

What it is

What is the Liber Memorialis?

Liber memorialis means “a book for remembering,” or simply a memory book. It is a short Latin handbook by Lucius Ampelius, addressed to a reader named Macrinus. In fifty brief chapters it sets out what there is to know about the world: the cosmos and the twelve signs of the zodiac, the winds and seas, the regions of the earth, its marvels, the many gods who share a name, the great empires, and the kings, generals, wars and institutions of Rome.

It is not a story. It is a sequence of definitions, lists and one-line portraits, and that makes it unusually easy to dip into. Any chapter can be read on its own in a few minutes.

The author

Who was Lucius Ampelius?

Almost nothing is known about him beyond this book. Its history runs only as far as the emperor Trajan, so it was written after his reign; how long after is disputed. The book opens with a greeting to the one reader it names: Macrīnō suō salūtem, “greetings to his friend Macrinus.”

What’s inside

A map of the fifty chapters.

The heavens (1–5): the world and its four elements; the twelve signs and the myths behind them; the stars; which wind each sign sits in; the winds.
The earth (6–8): the regions of the world and its peoples; the seas; and Chapter 8, Miracula Mundi, the wonders of the world.
The gods (9): how many Jupiters, Suns, Apollos and Mercuries there were, and whose sons they were.
Empires and kings (10–16, 30–38): the seven world empires, then the kings of Assyria, Media, Persia, Sparta, Athens, Macedon, Parthia, Pontus, Egypt, Carthage, Numidia and Mauretania.
Rome (17–29, 39–50): kings and generals, heroes of peace and war, the secessions of the plebs, seditions, traitors, the civil wars, the Punic Wars, defeats, assemblies, and finally the kinds of state there are.

Five things you’ll find in it

The universe in a sentence, a lifeguard at Sappho’s leap, and three Jupiters.

1. The whole universe in one sentence. After the dedication, the book opens with a definition: Mundus est ūniversitās rērum, in quō omnia sunt et extrā quem nihil. The world is the sum of all things: everything is in it, and outside it there is nothing. (Read it →)

2. A Roman guide to the world’s wonders. Chapter 8 is a tour of marvels as Ampelius records them: the Colossus of Rhodes, the walls of Babylon (begun, he says, by Semiramis), the pyramids, the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Alongside them are stranger things, such as a whale’s rib at Corinth quam homō complectī nōn potest, “too big for a man to get his arms around.”

3. A lifeguard at Sappho’s leap. At Leucas, he writes, is the cliff from which Sappho threw herself for love. There is a shrine of Apollo on top, and cum homō inde dēsiluit, statim excipitur lintribus: when someone jumps from there, he is at once picked up by boats. (Read it →)

4. Three Jupiters, five Suns. Chapter 9 begins Iovēs fuēre trēs, “there were three Jupiters,” and goes on through the four Vulcans, five Apollos and three Dianas, each with a different set of parents. It is a window on how ancient scholars sorted out conflicting myths. (Read it →)

5. Rome in a sentence each. Rōmulus, quī urbem condidit. Numa Pompilius, quī sacra cōnstituit. “Romulus, who founded the city. Numa Pompilius, who established its rites.” The Roman chapters make a fast, memorable review of Roman history. Chapter 22 even records the raven that landed on Valerius Corvinus’s helmet during a duel.

How hard is the Latin?

Simple grammar, heavy with names.

It scores 6.1 on Librorum Capsula’s 1–11 difficulty scale (reviewed): upper Intermediate. The opening is gentler (5.5) and the longest catalogues are the hardest part (7.2). The grammar is often simple, because many entries are short phrases or relative clauses with the verb left out. The difficulty comes from what is packed in: proper names on every line, rare and technical words, and a lot of information in very few words. A gloss on every word helps most here, because the names and rare words are exactly what slows a reader down.

How to read it

1Start with Chapter 1, De Mundo

It is about a hundred words long and sets the pattern for the rest of the book.

2Then jump

You don’t have to read in order. Chapter 8 (wonders), Chapter 9 (the gods) and Chapter 50 (the kinds of state) each stand alone.

3Use the lists

Entries repeat the same shape, X, quī…, so once you have read a few, the next ones go quickly.

4Tap the names you don’t know

Each one is glossed, so you don’t have to stop and look it up.

In the reader

All fifty chapters, with every word defined.

The reader has all fifty chapters and the dedication, about 7,100 words, from Eduard Wölfflin’s 1873 Teubner edition. Long vowels are marked throughout, and every word has a definition, lemma and form. Where the manuscript text is damaged or uncertain, the reader says so and does not guess.

Breviarium: Liber I — Eutropius

Another compact Latin history of Rome, written as continuous narrative.

See the library entry →

Greek mythLiterature

Cursed Houses of Greece — Gaius Julius Hyginus

Greek myth in short, plain Latin entries.