Sententiae, Unit 22
- Res publica consiliis meis eo die ex igne atque ferro erepta est (Cicero)
The Republic was snatched from the fire and the sword on that day by my plans.
consiliis meis - ablative of means with the perfect indicative passive erepta est. What is the difference between an ablative of means and an ablative of agent?
eo die - "on that day" ablative of time when. Note that the demonstative pronoun eo is being used as a demonstrative adjective.
erepta est: 3rd person singular perfect passive indicative from the 3rd "io" verb eripio, eripere, eripui, ereptum. The perfect passive participle (erepta) is feminine and singular because of res publica.
- Dic mihi bona fide tu eam pecuniam ex eius manibus non eripuisti? (Plautus)
Tell me in good faith: did you not snatch money from his hands?
Dic - "Tell" - 2nd person singular imperative.
bona fide - "in good faith" - ablative of manner. Usually, an ablative of manner is accompanied by a cum. The cum is sometimes omitted when there is an adjective (in this case, bona). Read more for a further discussion of the ablative case.
Translating directly from Latin to English can sometimes be frought with peril, as this phrase shows. We do not do things "with good faith", as the Latin might be translated, but we do things "in good faith."
ex eius manibus - from his/her hands. The word, eius, is the genitive singular of is, ea, id. Remember if a form of is, ea, id stands by itself (meaning it is not being used as an adjective to modify another noun), it is used as the 3rd person personal pronoun. Since the genitive singular form for this demonstrative is the same in the all three genders, this can be translated as "of him or his" or "of her, her".
ultra - adverb and prep.+ acc., on the other side, beyond. The word governed by the preposition in this case is "quos".
quos - masculine, accusative, plural relative pronoun, "which". The case of the relative pronoun in this sentence is governed by the preposition, ultra.
virtus - Nominative singular, meaning "virtue". Virtus, being in the nominative, functions as the subject of the relative clause. Remember that this noun is a member of the third declension nouns, anf not of the recently learned 4th declension nouns. Interestingly, virtus, although the gender is feminine, was thought of by Roman men as one of the most important male qualities.
inveniri - present passive infinitive for invenio, invenire. The ending, -iri, is the standard ending for the present passive infinitive for most 4th conjugation verbs.
