Rōmulus Rēx

Rōmulus Rēx (Romulus the King) is a sheltered-vocabulary Latin novella published by Laura E. G. Berg in 2019. It tells the story of Romulus, Remus, and the founding of Rome, with a twist: all the characters are dinosaurs. It is notable for its charming photographic illustrations featuring dinosaur figurines in outdoor scenes. It uses a relatively simple sentence structure—there are only five compound sentences in the whole novella—and has a low word count. It is also one of the shortest novellas.

Available from Lulu.

Reading level

The author’s introduction states that this novella was written for novice readers. Comprehensible Antiquity puts this novella at Level D.

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 two cis male main characters (Romulus and Remus). Features no cis female main characters or transgender main characters.

Sexual identity

Features a depiction of heterosexual identity: Romulus and Remus have a mother and father.

SES/class

No depictions identified.

Religion

No depictions identified.

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 Rōmulus Rēx can be found here.

Glosses

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

Of the 135 unique words (not counting proper nouns) used in the text, 38 of them (28.1%) are glossed at their first appearance in the text. Of the 1178 total words in the text, 92 of them (7.8%) are glossed.

Glossary

This novella contains a Latin-English glossary, with words listed by headword only. The glossary is complete, though words glossed in the text and proper nouns are not included.

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 Romulus and Remus, found in Livy 1.5–7, and elsewhere.

Complete Plot Summary

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Two twin tyrannosaurs, Romulus and Remus, are pushed from their home by a storm. They are raised by iguanadons until another tyrannosaur rescues them. start living among a group of stegostaurs, defending them from harm. They decide to build a wall to defend their new stegosaurus friends, but disagree about how to build it. Romulus kills Remus and becomes king of Rome, but always remembers his brother's words to him: \"You are a tyrant, Romulus.\"

First 100 Words

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

Ōlim erant duo dīnosaurī. Dīnosaurī erant frātrēs. Frātrēs erant geminī. Dīnosaurī geminī erant.
Nōmina frātribus erant Rōmulus et Rēmus.
Māter geminōrum dīnosaurus erat. Pater geminōrum erat quoque dīnosaurus. Māter et pater geminōrum erant magnī dīnosaurī.
Frātrēs erant parvī dīnosaurī. Geminī erant līberī mātris et patris. Frātrēs erant līberī dīnosaurōrum. Rōmulus et Rēmus mātrem et patrem amābant.
Māter et pater multōs liberōs nōn habuērunt. Familia erat parva.
Rōmulus et Rēmus multōs amīcōs habuērunt.
Amīcī dīnosaurī erant. Magnōs amīcōs habuērunt. Parvōs amīcōs quoque habuērunt.
Amīcī geminōrum erant magnī et parvī dīnosaurī. Frātrēs multōs amīcōs amābant.
Rōmulus plūrēs amīcōs quam Rēmus habuit.

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 Rōmulus Rēx and would like to share them on LNDb, please contact me.

Presentation

Illustrations?	yes
Illustrator	Laura E. G. Berg
Macrons?	yes
Font	Cambria, 16 pt
Pages of story	29
Total pages	44
Chapters	6

Key Information

Publication date	May 6, 2019
Publisher	Seafoam Publishing
ISBN	N/A
ISBN-13	9781733687508