Latin course for the Virtual School of Languages

Lesson 21: Tyrants, enemies, foreign rulers

Back to the main page

Text
(While few people believe in Davus' story, Demaratus tells Marcus
more about Greek history:)
"Tandem Syracusani filium Dionysii tyranni fugaverunt, et Athenis viri
intrepidi filiis Pisistrati insidias paraverunt. Hipparchum necaverunt,
Hippias fugam capessivit. Mox autem patria mea in summo periculo
fuit; iam Persae cum magnis copiis adibant, oppida et templa delebant.
Sed nos e patria exiimus, feminas liberosque in insulam propinquam
transportavimus. Tum a deis auxilium petivimus, arma capessivimus
Persasque superavimus, quamquam copiae nostrae parvae, Persarum
copiae magnae fuerunt."
Tum Marcus: "Vobis summam gloriam paravistis, quod tot adversarios
tanta victoria superavistis."
Et Demaratus: "Tum concordia Graecorum magna erat, neque Graeci
cum Graecis pugnabant. Mox autem alii alios lacessiverunt, multis bellis
debilitaverunt, postrema praeda Philippi, Alexandri, Romanorum fuerunt.
Fuimus viri liberi!"
Marcus autem: "Multa narravisti, amice, ego quoque iam multam narravi.
Iuvat narrare, sed etiam ambulare iuvat. Itaque nunc ambulabimus."
---------------------------
Reading vocabulary you needn't learn:
Syracusani: citizens of Syracus
Athenis: in Athens
intrepidus, -a, -um: unshaken, undaunted
debilitare: to weaken, exhaust
ambulare: to walk


Vocabulary

fuga, -ae

flight, exile

Practise the vocabulary of this lesson by matching it.	

Grammar
Just like in most Romance languages, you can express the past in more than one
way in Latin. You already know the first possibility: the insertion of -ba- in order
to form the simple past, which you learnt in lesson 17. 
This lesson deals with
another past tense: the perfect. It is most often formed by adding -v- to the verb 
stem and then adding the following personal endings:
-i, -isti, -it, -imus, -istis, -erunt

Let's take the verb "narrare"(to tell) as example. The verb stem is narra- , so the
forms of narrare in the perfect tense are these:
narra-v-i (I have told); 
narra-v-isti (You have told);
narra-v-it (He/she has told);
narra-v-imus (We have told);
narra-v-istis (You have told);
narra-v-erunt (They have told);
The Consonantic Conjugation is very easy to handle here, they always
use -i- as extra vowel between the verb stem and -v-, 
e. g. pet-i-v-it (He/she has demanded).

Just like in English there are Latin verbs whose perfect stems are irregular,
however you just have to learn the first person singular of these words
because their use of the perfect personal endings is regular, e. g.
The perfect of "esse"(to be) is "fui" (fui, fuisti, fuit, fuimus, fuistis, fuerunt).
The perfect of "ire"(to go) is "ii" (ii, isti, iit, iimus, istis, ierunt).
Do you recall what I said about verb like adesse, who are made up of
an affix like ad- and an irregular verb like esse? Their advantage is that
you needn't learn new forms, you just add the affix to the appropriate
form of the irregular verb. That is the case with these perfect forms, too.
Ad-esse has the perfect form ad-fui, ex-ire the perfect form ex-ii, red-ire
the perfect form red-ii, and so on.

You now know everything there is to know about the perfect of verbs like 
narrare, and even some irregular verbs. You might want to print this card, 
which shows you all the perfect tense endings at once (and even those of 
verbs who don't form their perfect like narrare, which will be introduced 
much later). With this card, you can revise the conjugations everywhere you 
go.


Exercise
Determine the form of the verb according to the known criteria
(person, number, tense).
Example: terreo - first person singular present
lacesses, rediit, delevistis, vocabam, paraverunt, fuisti, capessam,
ierunt, trahebas

Information on the history of Persia
Information on the history and culture of Hellenic Greece



Exercise answers:
lacesses - second person singular future
rediit - third person singular perfect
delevistis - second person plural perfect
vocabam - first person singular simple past
paraverunt - third person plural perfect
fuisti - second person singular perfect
capessam - first person singular future
ierunt - third person plural perfect
trahebas - second person singular simple past