Chapter 21

RULE 1: In third conjugation, -eris (short e) is present tense, whereas -eris (long e) is future tense.

I. Grammar

If you introduced third, third -io and fourth conjugation passive forms in Chapter 18, this lesson will be mostly review. Be sure to point out to students that there is a mandatory long mark which makes an important distinction in the passive forms of the third, third -io and fourth conjugations: the second-person singular present-tense form in third conjugation (-eris) has a short -e- (the thematic vowel), in contrast to the second-person singular future-tense form (-êris) which has a long -ê- (the future tense sign). Note that the present passive infinitive in the third and third -io conjugation has a very abridged ending, -î, lacking the usual -r- which marks other infinitives. [For explanation of the -î infinitive ending, see Chapter 18, History of the Present Passive System.]

Whether students have encountered third-fourth conjugation passives before or not, they will need practice analyzing these forms. Click here for a worksheet designed both to drill students on these forms and to give them practice writing synopses.

II. Vocabulary

• causa: This word forms a “preposition” of sorts, causa which is in reality a frozen form of the ablative with a technical sense, “for the sake (of . . .),” e.g. causa plebis, “in the people’s cause or interest.” It normally follows the genitive word which is attached to it, e.g. pecuniae causâ (“for the sake of money”). Note that, besides “reason, cause,” causa can also mean “lawsuit, legal case.” In vulgar Latin, causa eventually replaced res, the usual word for “lawsuit,” and as a result, some Romance languages generalized the meaning of causa from “a legal matter or thing” to “any matter or thing,” hence Italian cosa and French chose. The English word “thing” followed much the same path, arising from Old English “thing” (originally meaning “judicial assembly”) to the modern connotation. [In Latin down through Cicero’s day causa was regularly spelled caussa, which explains why it did not rhotacize. Only a single -s- between vowels will rhotacize, cf. the perfect active infinitive ending -isse.]
• finis: An i-stem noun. From its meaning “end, edge, boundary,” the plural came to mean “the edges, the boundaries (of a country),” hence “a territory (i.e. the land included within certain boundaries), an area controlled by a certain people.”
• gens: An i-stem noun, denoting any group which can be seen as genetically linked.
• atque/ac: = at (“but”) + -que (“and”), see neque/nec, Chapter 20. Atque has a stronger connective force than simple et. Students should be careful not to confuse ac (the connective “and”) and at (the adversative “but”).
• quod: The relative pronoun form quod acquired its causal sense from its use in specific but common circumstances where quod functions as the subject or object of a sentence, e.g. quod male feci, crucior (Plautus), “I am tormented over what I have done wrong.” This easily translates into “I am tormented because I have done wrong.”
• iubeo: From an Indo-European base, *y(e)udh-, meaning “to move, shake, tremble,” cf. (Homeric) Greek husmine “battle.” Like many -eo verbs, iubeo is a causative originally meaning “to cause to move, to make something move,” hence “to order.” That the perfect passive participle is iussus ( = iu?- + sus) confirms this derivation, since dentals plus -tus regularly form -sus, e.g. mitt- + -tus > missus. Thus, the original base of iubeo must have included a dental, leading to the reconstruction of the Indo-European base as *y(e)udh-.
• mundus: The base mund- means “neat, elegant, refined” and was used by Romans as an equivalent of the Greek term kosmos, denoting first “order, ornament, decoration (especially, women’s toiletries),” and later figuratively “the world, the universe, mankind” (Plato). By Cicero’s day, Latin mundus had come to mean “the world.”
• tango: This verb has a reduplicated perfect, tetigi, which shows the regular loss of the nasal infix (-n-) which characterizes the present base, see Chapter 12.

III. Sentences

Practice and Review

[Be sure to call students’ attention to causa as a “post-position” in sentences 4 and 9.]

7. A good example of rapio meaning “seize, capture by force”, not “rape.”

9. Here, bonus has the sense of “happy.”

IV. Quiz 8