Latin course for the Virtual School of Languages

Lesson 22: Poor Delia

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Text
(Since Marcus has left with his friends, Cornelia visits her rich
friend Atia, who proudly shows her her numerous slaves:)
A: Ecce lecticarii mei! Firmi sunt, nam eos servos imprimis curo.
		Interdum eis etiam vinum do!
		Ibi Diodotus stat, magister liberorum meorum. Is eos linguam
		Graecam bene docet, quamquam Syrus est. Pueri autem clamant
		eum severum esse. Itaque eum non amant semperque mala de eo
		narrant.
		Servas multas habeo easque laudo, si bene laboraverunt. Neque
		tamen industria earum magna est frustraque eas moneo.
		Ecce Delia! Serva nova est et semper maesta. Eam servam
		numquam laetam videbis.
C: Lacrimas in oculis eius esse apparet. Fortasse dolet se a patria
		sua abesse, sibi in terra aliena amicas non esse?
A: Ego eam superbam esse credo: Dicit se ingenuam esse! Ego autem
		superbiam eius brevi frangam! Modo eam verberavi!
C: Id non laudo...
A: Quid ei nocebit? Serva est!
C: Immo vero femina est ut tu!
---------------------------
Reading vocabulary you needn't learn:
lecticarius: slave whose job is to carry sedans
serva: female slave, servant
ingenuus, -a, -um: noble
verberare: to beat


Vocabulary

lingua, -ae

language, tongue

Practise the vocabulary of this lesson by matching it.	

Grammar
In lesson 12 you learned about the personal pronouns ego, tu, nos and vos, which
the speaker uses to refer to himself (ego -> "I"), to his group (nos -> "We"), to a 
person he talks to (tu -> "You") or a group he talks to (vos -> "You"). That means
one set of pronouns is still missing: those referring to one person or several people 
that the speaker does not talk to. In English, the pronouns he, she, it or they would
be used. Just like the other pronouns, these pronouns can also be put into cases, so
I'm going to write down the declension scheme, with the English equivalents and
untranslated English words in blue italic letters (they are there as examples where 
a pronoun would be used). In the case of the word "they", Latin keeps the distinction
of a group of males (beneath "he"), a group of females (beneath "she") or a group
or things (beneath "it"), but that distinction is lost when translating to English.

These pronouns and the se pronoun allow an interesting distinction in AcI clauses. 
Compare these two example:
1) Marcus et Titus amici sunt. Marcus eum beatum esse putat.
2) Marcus et Titus amici sunt. Marcus se beatum esse putat.
Both examples can be translated as "Marcus and Titus are friends. Marcus considers
him fortunate."  However, the reflexive pronoun "se" is used in the second example,
which makes it clear that Marcus considers himself (not Titus) fortunate; whereas the
pronoun "eum" in the first example shows that Marcus considers Titus fortunate. This
distinction is not always made in English, so that sentences like the example above 
can have two meanings in English but only one meaning in Latin.

This is carried on through all cases. Apart from the usage in AcIs, there's another 
case in which it's interesting to have this distinction: when it's used in the Genitive.
Compare:
1) Marcus et Titus amici sunt. Marcus amicam eius amat.
2) Marcus et Titus amici sunt. Marcus amicam suam amat.
In the second sentence, Marcus loves his (own) girlfriend. In the first sentence,
Marcus loves his (Titus') girlfriend! 
Another thing you should notice in this example: eius remains the same, whereas
suus, which works like an adjective, has to be adapted to the gender, number and
case of the word it's referring to. 


.Exercise
Connect the pronouns from list A to the nouns from list B that have the same position
in the declension table (same gender, case and number).

Information: Slaves I
In the antiquity, there were generally two social groups: free people and
unfree people. The free man belongs to himself and participates in social life,
the slave belongs to somebody else, to a free person. He can't rule over his
own life, he can't even marry by his decision alone. Slaves are humans
without rights, law regards them as "thing". They are traded like goods and
have to work for their owner. The antique society can't be imagined without
slaves. Whether as a rowing slave on a galley, a slave in a public mine, on
a farm, as a craftsman, cook, teacher, doctor, secretary, bibliothecary -
even as servus publicus, a policeman: slaves are employed everywhere.
Many rich people have hundreds of slaves and of course they are more or
less expensive, according to their "quality" and education.

To be a slave means for an adult to be totally dependent on somebody else,
to be allowed to do just what the master (dominus) orders, not to have own
money, no own house and no own family. Even a slave's name was given to
him by his possessor.

Slaves, who lived in the household of their masters, have to do everything
that he demands of them. That means, that they can't develop and realise own
plans or goals. They're isolated from most of public life: they mustn't vote and
of course they mustn't run for office. The only area of social life that was open
to slaves was religious cults and clubs.




Exercise answers (all possible ones, rather than one way to assign them):
eius deae, eius agri, eius puellae
id argentum
eis magistris, eis liberis
eo regno, eo anno
ea auxilia, ea victoria
earum tubarum
is vir
ei anno, ei regno, ei deae, ei puellae