Itinera Līviae et Amīcōrum

Itinera Līviae et Amīcōrum (The Adventures of Livia and Friends) is a sheltered-vocabulary Latin novella published by Chris Buczek in 2019. It tells the story of Livia, a Roman girl, and her friends including a tiger an a unicorn as they make a journey to Rome in search of cookies. It is notable for its silly episodic plot, with chapters that increase in grammatical and syntactic complexity, and for having few glosses and no illustrations.

Available from Amazon.

Reading level

The title page states that this novella is for students in their first or second year of study. Comprehensible Antiquity puts this novella at Level F.

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 (Livia). Features no cis male main characters or transgender main characters.

Sexual identity

Features a depiction of heterosexual identity: Octavius has a father and mother, and Livia has a father and a long-lost mother.

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 Itinera Līviae et Amīcōrum can be found here.

Glosses

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

Of the 207 unique words (not counting proper nouns) used in the text, 26.0 of them (12.6%) are glossed at their first appearance in the text. Of the 6132 total words in the text, 178 of them (2.9%) are glossed.

Glossary

This novella contains a Latin-English glossary, with words listed by headword only. The glossary is complete.

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 historical (Classical).

It is not an adaptation of any particular piece of Classical literature.

Complete Plot Summary

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Livia is a Roman girl who is friends with a Roman boy, Octavius, who likes to sleep. They soon meet a talking tiger named Antonius and a unicorn named Laurentius. One day, Livia decides that she would like a job, and she decides to go to Rome to get one. She and Octavius don’t know the way to Rome, but they end up in another town where she gets a job selling jewels and pots in a shop. Antonius gets a job with the same shop hunting mice. Laurentius gets a job making cookies, and Octavius delivers them. They run out of cookie ingredients, and Livia has to go to Rome to get them. On the way, she see a sad boy by the side of the road, whom they resolve to help. While trying to help him, they find Antonius and Octavius, who have crashed their carriage into a ditch. The shopkeeper comes to help them with another girl. The girl turns out to be Octavius’s sister Octavia, and she reveals that the sad boy is their brother. Once the carriage is pulled out of the ditch, they all arrive in Rome, where Livia meets her long-lost mother. Livia’s mother runs a bakery, and gives them the cookie ingredients they are after. Then the sad boy wakes up: Antonius and Laurentius had only been part of his dream. Livia, Octavia, and the sad boy rescue Octavius from a fire. Livia starts her own jewel shop, Octavia returns to her family, and the sad boy stays at the city gates.

First 100 Words

Underlined words are glossed in the text. Note that this novella increases in grammatical and syntactic complexity over the course of the story.

Līvia est puella. Līvia est puella Rōmāna. Līvia est puella laeta. Puella nōn est trīstis.
Octāvius est puer. Octāvius est puer Rōmānus. Octāvius nōn est trīstis. Puer laetus est.
Līvia ad Octāvium it. Līvia sub arbore sedēre vult. Sed Octāvius sub arbore sedēre nōn vult. Octāvius sub arbore dormīre vult.
Octāvius ad arborem it. Līvia ad arborem it. Līvia sub arbore sedet. Sed Octāvius dormit.
Līvia est puella Rōmāna. Līvia amīcum habet. Octāviī amīca est Līvia. Octāvius est puer Rōmānus. Octāvius quoque amīcam habet.
Līviae amīcus est Octāvius! Līvia et Octāvius sunt amīcī.
Līvia et Octāvius nōn iam sub arbore sedent. ...

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 Itinera Līviae et Amīcōrum and would like to share them on LNDb, please contact me.

Presentation

Illustrations?	no
Illustrator	N/A
Macrons?	yes
Font	Palatino
Pages of story	57
Total pages	74
Chapters	16

Key Information

Publication date	September 1, 2019
Publisher	Independently published
ISBN	1646694589
ISBN-13	978-1646694587