Text (Tired of walking and discussing, Marcus and his Greek friends enter an inn, where there seems to be lively talking going on:) In caupona iam multi viri sedent valdeque clamant: "Vita Romanorum liberorum nunc misera est!" "Graeculi villas pulchras, multos agros, magnas divitias possident! Nos nihil habemus nisi vitam miseram!" "Vir bonus et integer hodie nihil valet. Itaque neque ego neque tu valemus." "Et cur vos nihil valetis? Quod maesti et fessi hic sedetis, quod inviti laboratis, quod scientia vacatis! Ecce Graeculi nos eloquentia et scientia superant. Graeculi medici sunt et magi et funambuli. Graeculi soli nihil ignorant..." "Cur non taces de medicis Graecis: Romanos laeti necare solent!" "Nos non pueri sumus, sed viri. Quin cunctos Graecos fugamus?" --------------------------- Reading vocabulary you needn't learn: caupona: inn Graeculi: "small Greeks" (derogative, compared to Graeci) magus: magician funambulus: rope-dancer quin: why not? Vocabulary
| fugare | to drive away, chase away | |
| laborare | to work, endeavour; suffer | labour |
| necare | to kill | necropolis |
| villa, -ae | villa, country house | village |
| vita, -ae | life | vital |
| medicus, -i | doctor, physician | medicine |
ager, agri |
field, land; region |
agriculture |
| puer, pueri | boy | F: puérile |
| vir, viri | man | virile |
| fessus | tired, exhausted | |
| invitus | unwillingly, reluctantly | |
| solus | alone, just, solely | solo |
| integer, -gra, -grum | integer, untouched | integer |
| liber, -ra, -rum | free, independent | liberal |
| miser, -ra, -rum | miserable, unhappy | miserable |
| pulcher, -chra, -chrum | nice, beautiful | pulchritude |
| nisi | if not; except | |
| nihil ignorare | to know everything | |
| nihil valere | to have no influence | |
| nihil nisi | nothing but; just |
Practise the vocabulary of this lesson by matching it. Grammar I'm sure that you have noticed something strange in the vocabulary: adjectives and nouns that end in neither -us, nor -a, nor -um. They are the subject of this lesson. Fortunately, there isn't much to learn about them. These nouns behave just like words of the masculine O-Declension, that is to say that you just have to imagine that the word isn't e. g. "puer" but "puerus" when putting it into a different case. The adjectives behave in this manner as well, when they're used in their masculine forms. As to the other gender forms, they use the neuter O-Declension or A-Declension for the neuter or feminine forms, as usual. There is one difficulty however: in some cases, like the noun "ager" or the adjectives "integer" or "pulcher", the Romans drop the e when adding other endings, so as to make it sound better. So the Genitive singular forms of these words areageriagri,integeriintegri,pulcheripulchri. Of course this doesn't apply just to the Genitive singular but to all cases (and genders for the adjectives) except the masculine Nominative singular. In order to show you whether a noun or adjective is regular or irregular, I told you the Genitive singular of the nouns you learned in this lesson and the feminine and neuter forms of the adjectives you learned. If a vowel is left out in the Genitive and other forms, I marked this change in red. The words in black are regular in the sense that those in -us, -a and -um adhere to the O- and A-Declensions respectively and those like "puer" behave like they were "puerus". Exercise Explain the following words, using your knowledge of Latin words: Video, egoist, study, vacuum, patriotic, feminine, vital
Information: Romans and Greeks I Greeks settled in Southern Italy and Sicily since the 8th century BC. It is in this fashion that the Italian tribes came into contact with Greek culture very early and they were influenced by it. Alphabet, weights, measures, coins, many gods and cults as well as the building of temples were derived from the Greeks. The Romans took possession of Greek culture a second time during the conquest of Greece and the "Hellenistic countries" (countries that had been marked by Greek culture and language) in the 2nd and 1st century BC. The Romans, who had beaten Carthago but were still a society of peasants, saw in Hellenistic cities that daily life can contain so much more luxury. Formerly sparsely-ornamented houses got columns, statues, floor mosaics, tapestries and paintings on the walls. One didn't have dinner while sitting anymore, but while lying down, according to Greek custom. Exercise answers: Video from videre -> to see; something to see egoist from ego -> I; somebody who wants everything for himself study from studere -> to endeavour; vacuum from vacare -> to lack, be free of patriotic from patria -> home country; being fond of one's home country feminine from femina -> the woman; concerning women vital from vita -> life; important for life