# On summoning the dead



## Katerina R.

Hello everyone! Don't be frightened (and don't laugh much) - I need your help with translating a book title "On controlling the dead" into Latin (it could also be "On summoning the dead" or something else in the same vein, depending on what sounds better). That's for a novel I'm helping to edit 
There was a suggestion to name it "De administratione mortuorum", but "administratione" doesn't sound very occult, does it?


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## bearded

Hello


Katerina R. said:


> (it could also be "On summoning the dead"


My suggestion:
_De evocatione mortuorum._


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## Scholiast

Greetings, and a right royal welcome for Katerina to the Latin Forum

bearded (# 2) is surely on the right lines here, though to my mind his proposal is vulnerable to the (for the technically-minded) ambiguity between 'subjective' and 'objective' genitives. My own suggestion is a variant which avoids this:

_de mortuis evocandis_.

Σ


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## bearded

Scholiast said:


> _de mortuis evocandis_


  
Undoubtedly a much better solution - and an elegant Latin expression!


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## Katerina R.

Great! Thank you so much!


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## Scholiast

Greetings once again, Katerina R et alii amici;

An afterthought: in the sense of 'controlling' (rather than 'calling forth/summoning') the dead, one could equally think of _de mortuis imperandis_ ('On commanding the dead') or possibly _de mortuis exercendis_ (in the sense of mobilising an army).

Σ


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## Katerina R.

Scholiast said:


> Greetings once again, Katerina R et alii amici;
> 
> An afterthought: in the sense of 'controlling' (rather than 'calling forth/summoning') the dead, one could equally think of _de mortuis imperandis_ ('On commanding the dead') or possibly _de mortuis exercendis_ (in the sense of mobilising an army).
> 
> Σ


Thank you!


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