As I looked more closely at the word in the original document, I could see that the “c” was actually an “r,” and so the word was “supernumerary.” I had never heard of this word either, but thanks to Latin, I now had some clues. In one instance, the volume editor had transcribed a word from a Washington letter as “supernumeracy.” I had never heard of that word. I’ve also used my knowledge of Latin to figure out unfamiliar words while proofreading document transcriptions for an upcoming volume of The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series. 4 It’s exciting when my worlds connect like that! 3 Sound familiar? Inspired by Cato’s stand against Julius Caesar, Washington requested that Cato be performed for American troops at Valley Forge.
2 Cato tells the story of Roman senator Marcus Porcius Cato (95–46 BC), who stood up to the tyranny of a dictator and believed passionately in republican ideals.
For example, George Washington’s favorite play was Cato, a Tragedy, written by Joseph Addison in 1712. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Īt The Washington Papers, one of the more obvious benefits of a classics degree is that when I’m conducting research, I understand classical references that I may come across. Washington Crossing the Delaware, painted by Emmanuel Leutze (1851). At UVA, I also took a required year of ancient Greek (which I didn’t like as well as Latin) and classes in Greek and Roman culture, history, and mythology. I took to learning the language fairly easily and continued studying it in high school (where I won sixth place on the Virginia Junior Classical League’s mythology test) and in the University of Virginia (UVA)’s Classics Department. My teacher, a seemingly mild-mannered older woman, gave my class a list of common curse words in Latin, which unsurprisingly helped further stoke my interest. At the time, I wanted to be a pediatrician and thought Latin would help me with complicated medical terms. I started learning Latin to satisfy my eighth-grade foreign language requirement. I had never imagined I would grow up to be a research editor at The Washington Papers and use my background in classics every day on the job. 1 But as one of those junior scholars of Latin, I didn’t think I would explore the connections between these two worlds much further. For centuries, young students of Latin have learned this quotation, which translates to “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Their history lessons presented another well-known general who crossed a river (Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, and George Washington crossed the Delaware in 1776). “Veni, vidi, vici.” Roman emperor Julius Caesar supposedly proclaimed this famous Latin phrase after a military victory. JCaesar Crossing the Rubicon, an illumination on vellum by Jean Fouquet (c. TOPICS: Documentary Editing, Revolutionary War, Three Degrees to Washington