reply to u/coffeetoffee92 at https://reddit.com/r/ClassicalEducation/comments/1sxcw5m/well_trained_mind_ancient_history_facts_for/<br /> RE: rote memorization of historical dates

I've not read Bauer, but I'll suspect that she doesn't teach "serious" rhetoric, much less the fourth canon: memory. She's likely relying on the post-Ramus (15th Century) method of rote memorization rather than the methods used from ancient Greece through Augustine, Aquinas, and Llull.

I'd start with some mnemonic methods like the method of loci or the Major System to make it much easier for the kid to begin scaffolding memory techniques and make it easier for them to memorize those facts you're talking about.

For the memory piece, I'd start first with one of the most wide-ranging:

Kelly, Lynne. 2019. Memory Craft: Improve Your Memory Using the Most Powerful Methods from around the World. Pegasus Books.

Many of the older classics on memory also include long lists of historically important dates to use. Grey is a good example:

Grey, Richard (1694-1771). 1799. Memoria Technica, or, A New Method of Artificial Memory. W. Lowndes. https://archive.org/details/memoriatechnica03greygoog/page/n2/mode/2up.

.As we rode the ferry from Angoon to Sitka, they’d bring my attention to a location on a nearby island, highlighting features on the landscape, and I knew a story was about to begin.

David Kanosh reveals some of the overlap of other memory traditions with the Tlingit of Alaska

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democritus

Was the epithet "laughing philosopher" used as a mnemonic device for Democritus?

https://www.reddit.com/r/latin/comments/1pdindz/translation_of_roman_oratory_gestures_graph/

John Bulwer's chirogram from his Chirologia (1644)<br />

via https://archive.org/details/gu_chirologianat00gent/page/n11/mode/thumb

Inspired by this section, though not specifically suggested:

In Greek, Roman, and even Christian (saint) traditions, most gods (saints), were closely associated with one or potentially a few attributes which made it easier to give them short hand identifications and also to use them in mnemonic traditions. It would seem that in Celtic traditions, that the gods (or heroes) were better delineated people with broader and fuller characters which didn't play into this sort of mnemonic/oral piece in the same way.

Donn in Irish traditions seems to fit this mold. What other evidences could be brought to bear to back this up?