In Domini Secretum: A Latin Novella, Aquilinus is a teenager who lives in a beautiful house in Rome. He’s also a slave in that house whose life is about to be upended and his family torn apart. Aquilinus’ father Ferox, once a proud Gallic chieftain who was captured and enslaved during the Gallic War, loses his temper and berates their master Valens during Saturnalia. Worse, Ferox reveals that he knows something terrible about Valens, a secret that Valens thought he had left safely behind in war. This secret threatens to undermine Valens’ political ambitions, and his fiery, angry response has tragic repercussions for Aquilinus and his mother Euphemia. Aquilinus becomes consumed by his need to understand what happened to his father and to know his master’s terrible secret.
Domini Secretum: A Latin Novella is suitable for use in Latin II/III. This novella may be appropriate at other levels depending on the students’ years of study and its intended use.
This novella is available on Amazon for $12 and available in bulk discounts through Bombax Press’s store.
About the Plot of Domini Secretum: A Latin Novella
The plot of Domini Secretum is original and not based on any mythological sources. You may review the first chapter of Domini Secretum: A Latin Novella here.
Aquilinus is a teenage Roman slave who admires and looks up to his father, Ferox. Ferox was born not only a free man, but he was also a Gallic chieftain during the Gallic Wars. His enslavement and loss of personal liberty chafes him. Ferox’s inability to endure slavery and his ridicule at the hands of his master Valens, whom Ferox sees as beneath him, leads to an explosion of anger and the revelation that Ferox knows his master’s darkest secret. Valens acts quickly to ensure that others do not learn this secret, but the need to understand what happens to his family compels Aquilinus to discover his master’s secret. What did Ferox know about Valens? How can Aquilinus save his family when as a slave he has little power?
To help readers orient themselves to the novella, a list of personae appears at the beginning of the novella. Since this novella lacks a mythological framing, all these characters are of my own invention.
Personae
- Aquilinus is a 16-year-old slave who was born at Rome. He is an artisan who makes statues. His name derives from the word aquila, which means eagle.
- Euphemia is Aquilinus’ mother and a Greek slave in Valens’ house. She is a cook. Her name means to use words of good omen.
- Ferox is Aquilinus’ father and a Gallic slave in Valens’ house. He was a chieftain in a Gallic tribe before becoming enslaved in the Gallic War. His name means ferocious.
- Valens is a wealthy Roman who owns Aquilinus, Euphemia, Ferox, Nicomedes, and Brutus. He has a terrible secret that he doesn’t want anyone to know. His name means strong.
- Nicomedes is a Greek slave who has tried to run away several times. He wears a metal slave collar. He knows how to read and to write. His name means victory and to think or plan.
- Brutus is a slave who acts as a doorkeeper and bodyguard for Valens. His name means heavy and dull; we get the word brutal from it.
- Salvius is a wealthy Roman who is Valens’ rival. They are both competing rivals in an election. His son, Marcus, died in the Gallic War. His name means safe.
- Marcus is Salvius’ son who the Gauls killed in the war.
- Mariana is a slave in Salvius’ house. She is a cook.
About the Vocabulary and Grammar
The vocabulary is intentionally sheltered to allow for more extensive and independent reading. The novella contains 8,000 words, and it uses only 222 total unique words. Of those words, some are clear cognates, names, or glossed words that were essential to the story but appeared fewer than ten times. When those words are removed from the 222 words that constitute the novella’s 8,000 word length, a student would need a strong working vocabulary of 136 words to read this text.
In addition, I paid careful attention to the frequency that words appear in Latin literature. When choosing between synonyms, for example, I chose the more common word. I am also careful about what I consider to be a cognate and choose only words that I consider to be especially clear and in most students’ English vocabulary. After all, it doesn’t matter if a word is a clear cognate if it’s not in a typical student’s vocabulary.
Unlike the vocabulary, the grammar in this novella is not sheltered. This story is in the past, so students will encounter an abundance of verbs in the imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect tenses. The novella, though, is rich with dialogue, so readers will also encounter a significant amount of the future and present tenses as well. Verbs in the subjunctive do appear frequently, especially in indirect questions. In addition, students will encounter indirect statement, participles, and gerunds to express purpose.
Many verbs also are in the passive voice. In particular, I chose to use the passive form for the verb vendo, vendere, to sell, rather than the classical form veneo, venire, to go on sale. The passive form of vendo is in common use after Seneca’s time. More importantly, I believe that students would have found the similarities between venire, to go on sale, and venire, to come, entirely too confusing.
About the Artwork
The original cover art for Domini Secretum: a Latin Novella is by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay. My neighbor Linda Renaud, whose nature photography and watercolor wax batik artwork are on www.lindarenaudart.com, altered the image with Photoshop to turn the picture into the cover design. Although I recognize that the silhouette on the cover resembles a Spartan soldier, not a Gallic or Roman one, the image is a compelling one to me and evokes the themes of bravery and sacrifice that are at the heart of this novella.
Inside the book, the artwork is all in the public domain in the United States and the country of origin. Many of the pictures inside the novella are in museums. Each image is accompanied with a small caption in Latin, and a bibliography with URLs is available to those who would like to incorporate the images into their lessons.
About the Text Features of Domini Secretum: A Latin Novella
Domini Secretum has a full index of word forms. In the index, the reader can look up all unknown words. The index lists verbs separately. As such, a reader could independently look up both tulisset and fer without knowing the dictionary entry of the word. The index provides a general translation of the word that is grammatically appropriate and would fit the context of the sentence. This text also contains a dictionary. This dictionary offers all the principal parts. The dictionary notes how frequently the words appear in Latin Literature according to the Core Latin Vocabulary or Essential Latin vocabulary.
If you would like to review the vocabulary used in Domini Secretum, the dictionary is available here.
Domini Secretum also contains three cultural appendices to provide the reader with essential background knowledge. The first appendix is on the Roman festival Saturnalia, which celebrates the Roman god Saturn. The second appendix includes background information on Roman slavery. Unlike the first two appendices, the third appendix discusses the battle at Atuatuca that Julius Caesar describes in The Gallic War. This battle serves as an essential backdrop to some of the plot points that occur in the novella.
