Camilla

Camilla is a sheltered-vocabulary Latin novella published by Rachel Ash in 2018. It tells the story of Camilla, the warrior woman devoted to Diana. It is notable for its unique writing style with a high average sentence length and many compound and complex sentences, and also for retelling an episode of the Aeneid in a way that maintains some of Vergil's imagery while remaining comprehensible. It is also notable for featuring a female protagonist in a non-stereotypical role, and for being one of the shortest novellas.

Available from Amazon.

Reading level

The author’s introduction states that this novella was written for readers in their third year of study. Comprehensible Antiquity puts this novella at Level E.

Diverse & Multicultural Identities

For information about how representation of multicultural and diverse identities is analyzed in LNDb, see here.

Parallel cultures

No depictions identified.

Gender

Features one cis female main character (Camilla). At times, Camilla’s story is told through the perspectives of other characters, including Diana (cis female), Metabus (cis male), and Arruns (cis male). Features no transgender main characters.

Sexual identity

No depictions identified. (Many men ask to marry Camilla, but she rejects them all.)

SES/class

No depictions identified.

Religion

Features a depiction of Roman religion: Camilla’s father prays to Diana for Camilla to be kept safe, and Camilla remains devoted to Diana up until her death.

Disability

No depictions identified.

Language Statistics

Vocabulary

Word counts may differ from the author's advertised figures. See here for information about how words are counted in LNDb.

Word List

A complete word list for Camilla can be found here.

Glosses

This novella contains glosses in the form of footnotes with English translations or cultural notes in English.

Of the 236 unique words (not counting proper nouns) used in the text, 30 of them (12.7%) are glossed at their first appearance in the text. Of the 1301 total words in the text, 35 of them (2.7%) are glossed.

Glossary

This novella contains a Latin-English glossary, with words listed by headword only. The glossary is incomplete; some words used in the text are not found in the glossary. There are also some words found in the glossary that are not used in the text.

Syntax

The ratio of compound sentences indicates what proportion of the total sentences are compound sentences, on average. A compound sentence is defined as a sentence with multiple T-units.
The ratio of complex sentences indicates what proportion of the total sentences are complex sentences, on average. A complex sentence is defined as a sentence with one or more subordinate clauses or verb phrases.

See here for more information.

Summary

The graph above shows the vocabulary and syntax of the novella relative to the other novellas studied. A higher position on the graph means that this novella scores higher than average in this criterion. These scores are not necessarily tied to reading level; this graph is descriptive of the novella's language rather than predictive of its difficulty.

Genre & Sources

This novella is in the genre of mythological (Classical).

It is an adaptation of the story of Camilla from Vergil’s Aeneid (7.803–817, 11.445–915).

Complete Plot Summary

CONTAINS SPOILERS

King Metabus is chased out of his city with his infant daughter in his arms, and comes to a river. Unable to cross the river with her, he ties her to a spear and throws her across with a prayer to Diana that, should she survive, she will be a friend to her. The girl, Camilla, grows up to be a huntress who rejects all of her many suitors and prefers to live alone. When war comes, Camilla kills many enemies, making her a terror on the battlefield. She sees an enemy wearing vibrant clothing, and while she is admiring them, she is struck and killed by a spear. Her killer is killed in turn. Diana mourns her death.

First 100 Words

Underlined words are glossed in the text. See also the preview found here.

curro. curro quam celerrime. mihi fugiendum est! haec quam fero est carissima. nemo eam a me capiat.
gloriam. hostes gloriam sequuntur; ita hostes me, regem Volscorum, sequuntur. me interficere volunt. sed curro. meam filiam carissimam—eam servabo! mihi fugiendum est. esse rex nolo, esse Volscus nolo, tantum filiam servare volo!
subito in flumen paene cado. flumen magnum est, et potens; nescio utrum trans flumen transeam, an in flumine moriar. filiam specto. cum filia transire timeo, ne eam amittam.
hostes sequentes audio. hostes multi sunt. potens fortisque sum, sed non omnes interficere possum. perterritus circumspecto. quomodo filiam servabo?

Studies show that a reader should understand 98% of the words in a text in order to have a good chance of comprehending it. One rule of thumb is to read the first hundred words and count the number of unfamiliar words. If there are two or fewer unfamiliar words, it can be read without much difficulty. Three to five unfamiliar words is possible to read, but may be difficult. If there are six or more unfamiliar words, the text may be too difficult.

Supplementary Materials

If you have resources for Camilla and would like to share them on LNDb, please contact me.

Presentation

Illustrations?	yes
Illustrator	Maggie Xia
Macrons?	no
Font	Times New Roman, 22 pt
Pages of story	36
Total pages	47
Chapters	7

Key Information

Publication date	May 8, 2018
Publisher	Pomegranate Beginnings Publishing
ISBN	1948125013
ISBN-13	978-1948125017