# Reading ancient thoughts on memory

**URL:** https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/reading-ancient-thoughts-on-memory/57828
**Category:** General Memory Chat
**Created:** [December 12, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/reading-ancient-thoughts-on-memory/57828 "2020-12-12T19:34:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![Josh](https://forum.artofmemory.com/user_avatar/forum.artofmemory.com/josh/32/21_2.png) [@Josh](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Josh)
#### Post date: [December 12, 2020, 11:25pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/reading-ancient-thoughts-on-memory/57828/2 "2020-12-12T23:25:13Z")

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If you haven’t seen them yet, there are some pages on the site about other ancient writers:

> **[Quintilian on Memory](https://artofmemory.com/blog/quintillian-on-memory/)**
>
> 👉 Quintilian was a teacher in Ancient Rome who wrote a famous book on rhetoric called Institutio Oratoria which was published around 95 CE.

> **[Pliny the Elder on Ancient Memory Feats](https://artofmemory.com/blog/pliny-the-elder-on-memory/)**
>
> 👉 Pliny the Elder wrote about memory feats in his work, The Natural History. Here are a few things he had to say circa 77-79 C.E. in chapter 24 of book 7.

> **["In the First Place, in the Second Place"](https://artofmemory.com/blog/first-place-second-place/)**
>
> 👉 Have you ever heard that the phrases 'in the first place, in the second place...' may have originated with memory palaces?

> **[Simonides of Ceos and the Method of Loci](https://artofmemory.com/blog/simonides-of-ceos/)**
>
> 👉 According to Roman legend, Simonides of Ceos was the inventor of the method of loci. The method of loci allows people to memorize vast amounts of information.

> [@Passage from Rhetorica ad Herennium](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/passage-from-rhetorica-ad-herennium/28747):
>
> Interesting passage in [Rhetorica ad Herennium](http://www.utexas.edu/research/memoria/Ad_Herennium_Passages.html), from 2,100 years ago: Now, lest you should perchance regard the memorizing of words either as too difficult or as of too little use, and so rest content with the memorizing of matter, as being easier and more useful, I must advise you why I do not disapprove of memorizing words. I believe that they who wish to do easy things without trouble and toil must previously have been trained in more difficult things. Nor have I included memorization of word…

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