Latin · Familia Romana
The path
Thirty-five chapters, one path: that of Familia Romana. Each capitulum runs through short lessons — a few words at a time — then the comprehension quiz and the lectūra nova. The book stays an excellent companion, never a requirement: open it alongside, whenever you like.
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Capitulum I
Imperium Rōmānum
The nominative singular and plural (1st and 2nd declensions) · est and sunt: number agreement · magnus, magna, magnum: adjective agreement (first look) · Asking questions: -ne, num, ubi, quid · in + ablative: saying where things are (recognition) · Litterae et numerī: Roman numerals, cardinals (ūnus… mīlle) and ordinals · The book's Latin metalanguage: littera, syllaba, vocābulum, pēnsum…
41 words · + 17 proper nouns
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Capitulum II
Familia Rōmāna
The three genders: masculīnum, fēminīnum, neutrum · The genitive of the 1st and 2nd declensions: saying whose it is · quis, quae, quī, cuius, quot: asking about people and numbers · meus and tuus: the possessive adjectives · duo, duae, duo — trēs, tria — centum: numerals agree in gender · -que: enclitic coordination
30 words · + 6 proper nouns
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Capitulum III
Puer improbus
The masculine accusative: -us → -um (the object case) · The feminine accusative: -a → -am · mē, tē, eum, eam: the object pronouns · The relative pronoun: quī, quae (subject) — quem, quam (object) · The present-tense verb: cantat, rīdet, venit (-at, -et, -it) · The transitive sentence: nōminātīvus + accūsātīvus + verbum · cūr…? quia…: asking and giving reasons; neque = et nōn
32 words
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Capitulum IV
Dominus et servī
The vocative in -e: addressing someone (Salvē, domine!) · Imperative and indicative: numerā! / numerat · The four conjugations: -ā, -ē, -e, -ī (first look) · is and eius: the anaphoric pronoun and its genitive · suus or eius? The reflexive possessive · quod: the neuter relative (baculum quod…) · Counting from ūnus to decem; nūllus = nōn ūnus · adest / abest: compounds of esse
33 words
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Capitulum V
Vīlla et hortus
The accusative plural: -ōs, -ās, -a (multōs hortōs, multās rosās, multa līlia) · The ablative, a new case: -ō / -ā in the singular, -īs for all in the plural · The five prepositions taking the ablative: in, ex, ab, cum, sine · The plural imperative in -te: vocā! / vocāte! · The 3rd person plural in -nt: vocat / vocant · The plural across the four conjugations: -āte/-ant, -ēte/-ent, -ite/-unt, -īte/-iunt · The neuter plural in -a: nominative = accusative, with a plural verb · The plural vocative, identical to the nominative: Venīte, puerī! · Adjectives in -er with a syncopated stem: pulcher, pulchra, pulchrum · is, ea, id widens out: ea, id, eō, eā, iī (= eī), eae, eōs, eās, eōrum, eārum, iīs (= eīs)
26 words
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Capitulum VI
Via Latīna
The eight prepositions taking the accusative: ad, ante, post, inter, prope, circum, apud, per · The preposition decides the case: ad vīllam (acc.) ↔ ab vīllā (abl.) · ā or ab? ab before a, e, i, o, u, h; either ā or ab before other letters · Names of towns take no preposition: Rōmam it, Tūsculō venit · The locātīvus, a new case shaped like the genitive: Rōmae, Tūsculī (= in oppidō) · The three place questions: ubi? (locative) — quō? (accusative) — unde? (ablative) · Verbum āctīvum and passīvum: -t / -nt become -tur / -ntur · The passive across the four conjugations: -ātur/-antur, -ētur/-entur, -itur/-untur, -ītur/-iuntur · The agent of a passive verb: ab / ā + ablative (portātur ā servō) · The bare instrumental ablative: equō vehitur, umerīs portat, baculō verberat · Comparison with tam… quam, and quam in questions (Quam longa est?) · The irregular verb īre: it (sing.) / eunt (plur.) · Connectives: nam and itaque come first, autem always stands second · The relative pronoun in the masculine plural: quī (subject) and quōs (object)
40 words · + 1 proper nouns
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Capitulum VII
Puella et rosa
The datīvus, the case of the receiver: the third participant of verbs of giving · The dative in the 1st and 2nd declensions: servō, ancillae, oppidō — servīs, ancillīs, oppidīs · Three cases in one sentence: nominative + dative + accusative (Iūlius servō mālum dat) · Cui …? “to whom?” — and the relative in the dative: puer cui pater mālum dat · The dative of the pronoun is: eī in the singular, iīs (= eīs) in the plural · The reflexive sē in the accusative: sē vertit, sē videt, ad sē vocat, post sē · The near demonstrative in the nominative singular: hic saccus, haec rosa, hoc mālum · in + accusative (motion into) ↔ in + ablative (place where) ↔ ex/ē + ablative (motion out of) · ē or ex? ex before a, e, i, o, u, h; either ē or ex before other letters · Nōnne …? expects “yes”, num …? expects “no”, and immō contradicts · plēnus + genitive: saccus plēnus mālōrum, oculī plēnī lacrimārum · Correlatives: et… et; neque… neque; nōn sōlum… sed etiam · Irregular imperatives beside the indicative: es! este! — dā! date! — ī! īte! · Compounds of esse and īre: inest / īnsunt, adit, exit / exeunt, advenit · quam before an adjective, in exclamations: Ō, quam pulchrum est hoc speculum!
29 words
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Capitulum VIII
Taberna Rōmāna
The pronominal declension: ONE genitive singular in -īus and ONE dative singular for all three genders (cuius, eius, illīus, huius; cui, eī, illī, huic) · The pronominal neuter in -d: illud, id, quod, aliud — beside the -um of adjectives (magnum, pulchrum) · ille illa illud: the far demonstrative, full table (illum, illīus, illī, illō/illā; illī illae illa, illōs, illōrum, illīs) · hic haec hoc: the near demonstrative completed (hunc/hanc/hoc, huius, huic, hōc/hāc; hī hae haec, hōs hās haec, hōrum hārum hōrum, hīs) · Deixis: hic = “the one that is hīc” ↔ ille = “the one that is illīc”; is remains the plain reminder, with no pointing · Interrogative pronoun or adjective: quis? quid? standing alone, but quī? quae? quod? before a noun · The relative quī quae quod in full: quō / quā, quibus (dative AND ablative plural), quōrum / quārum, quās · The relative with no antecedent: quī = is quī, quae = ea quae, quī (pl.) = iī quī — “the one who”, “those who” · The ablative of price: cōnstāre, emere, vēndere + ablative (vīgintī sēstertiīs cōnstat) — beside the price as predicate of pretium · The correlatives of size: tantus = tam magnus, quantus = quam magnus, and the pair tantus… quantus · The plural imperative of -ere verbs: -ite against the -e of the singular (aspice! aspicite! — accipe! accipite!) · Two uses of ab + ablative: the SOURCE (accipere ab amīcō) and the AGENT of a passive (ā servō portātur) — plus the ablative of means with no preposition (margarītīs ōrnātur) · alius -a -ud, an adjective with pronominal endings, and the pairing aliī… aliī “some… others” · The chapter's numbers: vīgintī (XX), octōgintā (LXXX), nōnāgintā (XC), the ordinal quārtus, the abbreviation HS — plus satis / nimis before an adjective · One more compound of īre: ab-it ↔ ad-it, with the 3rd person plural in -eunt (abeunt)
39 words
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Capitulum IX
Pāstor et Ovēs
The dēclīnātiō tertia: two types under one set of endings — pāstor pāstōris [A] and ovis ovis [B] · The endings: sg. -em, -is, -ī, -e; pl. -ēs, -ēs, -um/-ium, -ibus, -ibus — and a nominative singular with NO ending of its own · Why a word is quoted with its genitive: mōns montis, arbor arboris, nūbēs nūbis — the genitive is what gives the stem · The one cell that tells the two types apart: genitive plural -um (pāstōrum, arborum, timōrum) against -ium (ovium, montium, dentium, collium, vallium, nūbium) · Shared by both types: ablative singular in -e (pāstōre, ove, monte, arbore) and dative singular in -ī (pāstōrī, ovī, canī) · Nominative and accusative plural both in -ēs (ovēs, pāstōrēs, montēs, arborēs): the verb and the sense decide which is which · Gender in the 3rd declension cannot be read off the form: feminine ovis, vallis, nūbēs, arbor — masculine pāstor, pānis, collis, mōns, dēns, sōl, timor, clāmor · Nominatives that hide their stem: mōns < *monts, dēns < *dents (nom. sing. -s < -ts), and nūbēs -is (nominative in -ēs, genitive in -is) · The exception the book flags itself: canis declines “ut ovis”, but its genitive plural is canum, not *canium · The recap of the first two declensions (īnsula; servus / verbum, plus puer, vir, liber “sine -us”) with the Latin names of the cases · Latin grammatical metalanguage: dēclīnātiō, dēclīnāre / dēclīnātur / dēclīnantur, modus — and the ablātīvus modī hōc modō · Two opposite prepositions: suprā + ACCUSATIVE (suprā campum) ↔ sub + static ABLATIVE (sub arbore) · ipse, ipsa, ipsum: the intensive pronoun (“himself”), introduced only in the nominative and accusative singular, masculine and feminine · dum + present indicative, with two values in the one chapter: “while” and “until” · Comparative ut (“like, as”) + nominative — the first appearance of ut, with no subjunctive · The irregular imperative dūc! (plural dūcite!), with no -e — and the chapter's imperatives: quaere!, reperī!, pete!, age! · The irregular verb “to eat”: ēst / edunt, and the macron trap ēst ≠ est (ēsse ≠ esse) · Word-building: assimilated prefixes (ac-currit < ad-currit, im-pōnit < in-pōnit) and nouns drawn from verbs (timor < timet, clāmor < clāmat, dēclīnātiō < dēclīnat) · The passive of cap. VI applied to the new nouns: ovēs ā pāstōre numerantur, nūlla nūbēs vidētur
49 words
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Capitulum X
Bēstiae et Hominēs
The īnfīnītīvus praesentis āctīvī: a single form in -re, the same for all four conjugations — the verb named instead of conjugated · The four flavours of the active infinitive: [1] vocā|re, [2] vidē|re, [3] pōn|ere, [4] audī|re — the vowel before -re tells you the conjugation · The īnfīnītīvus praesentis passīvī: -ārī, -ērī, -īrī in conjugations 1, 2 and 4 — but a bare -ī in the 3rd (pōnī, emī, claudī) · The two irregular infinitives, differing by one macron only: esse “to be” (< sum) ≠ ēsse “to eat” (< edō, = edere) · Three verbs that call for an infinitive: potest / possunt (can), vult / volunt (want), audet / audent (dare) · posse and velle enter in the 3rd persons only: potest / possunt, vult / volunt — the full paradigms wait for capitula XV and XX · necesse est + DATIVE of the person + infinitive: “one must…” — necesse is an indeclinable neuter; esse carries the inflection · Accusative + infinitive after verbs of perception (vidēre, audīre, aspicere): used everywhere here, but formally taught only in cap. XI · Passive infinitive + ā/ab + ablative of agent: the passive of cap. VI carried over to the infinitive (ā Iūliō portārī, ab hominibus vidērī) · The dēclīnātiō tertia continued: avis and piscis decline “ut ovis” (gen. pl. -ium), mercātor “ut pāstor” (gen. pl. -um) · Nominatives that hide their stem, as the book itself states: leō < leōn, vōx < vōcs, pēs < peds — hence leōnis, vōcis, pedis (and hominis, on the leō pattern) · Three 3rd-declension neuters enter the vocabulary — flūmen, mare, animal — but the book itself defers their paradigm to capitulum XI · The -iō verbs of the 3rd conjugation (mixed type): capere, facere, parere — capit but capiunt, like the 4th conjugation · The imperative of the mixed type: cape! capite! (bare stem, like the 3rd conjugation) — and the apocopated fac!, beside dīc! and dūc! · Causal quod (= quia) + indicative, always postposed: the book glosses it itself, “quod = quia” · Two connectives with fixed, opposite positions: explanatory enim ALWAYS second (= nam at the front), consecutive ergō ALWAYS first · cum as a CONJUNCTION + present indicative (“when, whenever”) — not to be confused with cum the PREPOSITION + ablative from capitulum V · nēmō < ne- + homō (“no man”, acc. nēminem, dat. nēminī) — plus the chapter's homographs: volō/volō, parere/pārēre, fera/ferus
59 words
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Capitulum XI
Corpus hūmānum
The dēclīnātiō tertia in the NEUTER: cap. IX gave the masculines and feminines, cap. XI closes the 3rd declension · The neuter's golden rule, true in all five declensions: accūsātīvus = nōminātīvus, singular and plural alike — and the plural ends in -a · Consonant type (corpus, flūmen): sg. —, -is, -ī, -e; pl. -a, -um, -ibus — the pattern of corpus, crūs, caput, ōs, pectus, iecur · I-stem type (mare, animal): abl. sg. in -ī, not -e, plural -ia / -ium — the counter-model the book sets against corpus · The list the book itself declines “ut corpus”: pectus -oris, ōs ōris, crūs crūris, iecur -oris, (cor cordis, caput -itis), plūrālis viscera -um · Recap of the masculines and feminines: in each list a semicolon separates the consonant stems (gen. pl. -um) from the i-stems (-ium) · The accūsātīvus cum īnfīnītīvō: the subordinate subject goes to the ACCUSATIVE and its verb to the INFINITIVE — Iūlia dormit → Iūliam dormīre · The six classes of verbs that govern the AcI, as the book lists them: [1] vidēre, audīre, sentīre; [2] iubēre; [3] dīcere; [4] putāre; [5] gaudēre; [6] necesse esse · AcI with esse: the predicate goes into the accusative too — puer aeger est → puerum aegrum esse (two accusatives, one subject) · The AcI's infinitive can itself govern an infinitive, posse included: medicum puerum sānāre posse putat — three verbs, one finite form · The infinitives of the esse compounds arrive: posse (< potest, possunt), adesse, abesse — the margin tabulates est/potest, sunt/possunt, esse/posse · necesse est changes construction: in cap. X, DATIVE + infinitive (avī volāre necesse est); here, ACCUSATIVE + infinitive (puerum dormīre necesse est) · iubēre = imperāre in meaning, never in syntax: iubēre + ACCUSATIVE + infinitive, imperāre + DATIVE — the book glosses one by the other; do not merge them · Three new prepositions, given in pairs: super + acc. ↔ sub, īnfrā + acc. ↔ suprā, and dē + abl. = “down from” (ab with a downward arrow) · The ablative of respect, glossed by the book itself: pede aeger est = pedem aegrum habet — extended to capite and bracchiō · The ablative of means applied to organs: oculīs vidēre, auribus audīre — the organ is the instrument, with no preposition · Compound verbs drop the preposition, and the book gives the equation: cubiculum intrāre = in cubiculum intrāre, equum ascendere = in equum ascendere · The genitive of content: pōculum aquae, glossed by the book “= pōculum cum aquā” — the genitive says what is inside · The chapter's restrictive and negative correlations: nōn modo… sed etiam, nec modo… sed etiam, neque… neque — with modo = tantum = sōlum, and nec = neque · manus -ūs f, a 4th-declension word introduced BEFORE its declension (cap. XII): the book gives only ūna manus, duae manūs
59 words
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Capitulum XII
Mīles Rōmānus
The dēclīnātiō quārta, on the model of exercitus -ūs: sg. -us, -um, -ūs, -uī, -ū; pl. -ūs, -ūs, -uum, -ibus, -ibus · The macron does all the work: exercitus (short u) is the nominative singular, exercitūs (long ū) is genitive singular, nominative plural AND accusative plural · The masculines the book itself lists — arcus, passus, equitātus, impetus, metus, versus — and the one feminine, manus (already met in cap. XI); the neuter genū waits for cap. XXI · The accusative trap: exercitum looks like a 2nd-declension servum, but the genitive exercitūs says otherwise — it is the genitive, never the nominative, that gives the declension · The FIRST full tabulation of the 1st-class adjective: altus -a -um declined in all three genders like servus / fēmina / oppidum — the adjective finally gets its table, and its Latin name (adiectīvum) · The -er -ra -rum sub-type with SYNCOPATED stem, listed by the book: pulcher, aeger, niger, ruber, noster, vester — one -e- in the masculine nominative, never elsewhere · The two-ending 3rd-declension adjective, on the model brevis -e: masc./fem. like ovis, neuter like mare — the book's list: brevis, fortis, gravis, levis, tenuis, trīstis · This positive is a FULL i-stem, and that is what sets it apart from the noun ovis: abl. sg. brevī (not brevē), gen. pl. brevium, nom./acc. pl. n. brevia, acc. pl. m/f brevēs · The comparātīvus: stem + -ior for masculine and feminine, + -ius for the neuter — altior/altius, brevior/brevius, fortior/fortius, gravior, levior, longior, pulchrior · THE CHAPTER'S CONTRAST: the comparative declines as a CONSONANT stem — abl. sg. -iōre, gen. pl. -iōrum, nom./acc. pl. n. -iōra — against the i-stem positive (-ī, -ium, -ia) · One form for masculine AND feminine alike: hasta longior, gladius longior — the comparative has only two nominative singular forms, -ior and -ius · Comparison: comparative + quam + second term IN THE SAME CASE — gladius brevior est quam hasta (two nominatives) · Equality and its negation with tam… quam / nōn tam… quam (cap. VI); and the superlative does NOT yet exist: it arrives in cap. XIII · The datīvus possessīvus: dative of the person + esse — Cornēliō duo līberī sunt = Cornēlius duōs līberōs habet; the thing possessed is the SUBJECT · Its commonest use, naming: Quod nōmen est puerō? — Puerō nōmen est Titus (dative of the person, name in the NOMINATIVE) · Two verbs from cap. IV finally get their case: pārēre + DATIVE and imperāre + DATIVE — mīlitēs ducī pārent, dux mīlitibus imperat · The partitive genitive: pars exercitūs, caput imperiī — and, with a numeral, mīlia passuum, mīlia pedum, duo mīlia mīlitum · mīlia -ium n pl, the suppletive plural of mīlle: mīlle hominēs (numeral adjective) but duo mīlia hominum (noun + genitive plural) · The accusative of extent with adjectives of dimension: fossa trēs pedēs lāta est, castra mīlle passūs absunt — question Quam longus / altus / lātus est…? · contrā + accusative, the only new preposition — and the HOSTILE sense of in + accusative, glossed by the book “in (+acc) = contrā”: impetum facere in hostem, pīla iacere in hostēs · The ablative of means without a preposition, systematised on weapons: gladiīs, pīlīs, hastīs, sagittīs, armīs, pugnīs — and on the camp's works: fossā et vāllō · The passive of cap. VI returns in force with the ablative of AGENT ā/ab + ablative of a person: castra ā mīlitibus dēfenduntur, oppida ā Rōmānīs expugnantur · The irregular verb ferre, introduced IN PIECES: fert, ferunt, fertur, feruntur and the infinitive ferre — the full paradigm is deferred to cap. XXII · Two more MIXED verbs, flagged in the margin by the notation “-it -iunt”: iacere (iacit, iaciunt, passive iacitur, passive infinitive iacī) and fugere (fugit, fugiunt) · The 2nd-person PLURAL possessive, vester -tra -trum, glossed “= tuus et tuus”: the system meus / tuus / suus / noster / vester is now complete · Three plūrālia tantum at once — castra -ōrum, arma -ōrum, mīlia -ium — and the book itself names the category: “vocābulum plūrāle tantum” · Consolidation of the 3rd declension through the genitive plural: -um for mīlitum, peditum, equitum, ducum, frātrum, sorōrum, nōminum; -ium for hostium, partium, fīnium · The Roman naming system, the cultural fact that opens the chapter: praenōmen (the first name, abbreviated A., C., D., L., M., P., Q., Sex., T.), nōmen (the gēns), cognōmen (the branch) · An explicit rule of pronunciation and spelling, the only one in the first twelve chapters: atque before a, e, i, o, u, h; ac (or atque) before every other letter · Roman measures, given by the book: I passus = V pedēs [1.48 m]; mīlle passūs = quīnque mīlia pedum; and the numerals M, MM/ĪĪ, CL
61 words
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Coming soon
23 more chapters in the works.
XIII · XIV · XV · XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX · XXI · XXII · XXIII · XXIV · XXV · XXVI · XXVII · XXVIII · XXIX · XXX · XXXI · XXXII · XXXIII · XXXIV · XXXV