Octavius
Minucius Felix, Octavius
Marcus Minucius Felix
More about Marcus Minucius Felix →
Three men walk on the beach at Ostia and argue about the gods. A pagan accuses, a Christian answers, and the author sits as judge — without once opening a Bible.
- Catch rate
- 130 / 255
- Base research
- 76
- Stat total
- 202
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
The Octavius is complete but short — one afternoon’s conversation on a beach at Ostia — and it spent centuries filed inside somebody else’s book, unread. Modest Stamina.
A courteous dialogue written to invite outsiders in, not to crush them. It persuades by charm and daylight reasoning, so its Contend is moderate.
The Octavius survives in ONE manuscript, and only by accident: a copyist misread the title and filed it as "Book Eight" of a work by Arnobius, where it hid for seven hundred years. One thread, one mistake — the weakest Defend on this shelf.
Latinists have always admired its prose, so it is better known than most second-century apologies — though hardly a household name.
Cited for this book
Preserved in a single ninth-century manuscript (Codex Parisinus Latinus 1661), where a copyist confused Octavius with octavus and filed it as Book VIII of Arnobius. Not identified as a separate work until 1560. Written after Fronto, whom it names, and before Lactantius, who names it — and it shares so much with Tertullian’s Apology that scholars still argue which borrowed from the other. Not one verse of Scripture appears in it, by design.
Moves learned
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | One Ruler | Natural Theology | Argument | 55 | 100% | 20 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 5 | Steelman | Rationality | Type shift | — | — | 10 |
| 8 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 15 |
| 10 | Argument from Design | Natural Theology | Argument | 60 | 100% | 15 |
| 13 | The Common Tongue | Presupposition | Argument | 50 | 100% | 20 |
| 16 | Ridicule | Rationality | Argument | 50 | 75% | 20 |
| 19 | Sarcasm | Rationality | Argument | 60 | 95% | 15 |
| 22 | Martyr’s Witness | History | Argument | 65 | 100% | 10 |