Capitulum II — Familia Rōmāna
After the map of the Empire, you step through the front door of a house: a father, a mother, children — and slaves, because the Roman familia is the whole household, slaves included. Beneath this domestic scene the chapter installs two big mechanisms: the three genders get their names, and a new case appears, the genitive.
The three genders: masculīnum, fēminīnum, neutrum
The chapter names what you have been observing all along — and it does so in Latin: masculīnum (m), fēminīnum (f), neutrum (n). Every noun has a fixed gender, usually readable from its ending:
| gender | typical ending | examples |
|---|---|---|
| masculine | -us (sometimes -r) | servus, dominus; vir, puer, liber |
| feminine | -a | fēmina, puella, ancilla |
| neuter | -um | oppidum, vocābulum, neutrum |
Memorize the three masculines in -r: vir (man), puer (boy), liber (book). They decline like servus, but their nominative has no -us.
In passing: the book spells genetīvus, with an e — the spelling we follow throughout.
The genitive: saying whose it is
The genitive is the case of the possessor; it answers the question cuius? ("whose?") and stands next to the noun it completes:
Līvia fīlia Cornēliī est. — Livia is Cornelius's daughter. Lȳdia ancilla dominae est. — Lydia is the mistress's maidservant.
The endings of the first two declensions:
| gen. singular | gen. plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st decl. (-a) | ancillae | ancillārum |
| 2nd decl. (-us, -um) | servī | servōrum |
Two endings are ambiguous — context decides:
- -ae = genitive singular or nominative plural: fīlia dominae ("the mistress's daughter") but dominae sunt ("they are mistresses");
- -ī = genitive singular or masculine nominative plural: liber puerī ("the boy's book") but puerī sunt ("they are boys").
The book also hands you an equivalence worth memorizing: magnus numerus + genitive plural ≈ multī — magnus numerus servōrum = multī servī; likewise parvus numerus ≈ paucī.
The chapter's trap: liber, librī (short i, the book, with the e dropping out: librī, librōrum) is not līberī, līberōrum (long ī's, the children, plural only). The macrons do all the work.
quis, quae, cuius, quot: asking questions
The interrogative pronoun agrees with the expected answer:
| you ask about | form | example |
|---|---|---|
| a man | quis? | Quis est pater puerī? |
| a woman | quae? | Quae est māter puellae? |
| several men | quī? | Quī sunt fīliī dominī? |
| the owner | cuius? | Cuius liber est? — Titī. |
| a number | quot? | Quot līberī sunt? — Duo. |
Note the answer to cuius?: a bare genitive is enough (Titī — "Titus's"). Quot is indeclinable and calls for a numeral in reply.
meus and tuus
The possessives meus ("my") and tuus ("your") decline and agree exactly like magnus -a -um: dominus meus, domina mea, oppidum meum; Ubi est pater tuus? The possessor is the person speaking (meus) or spoken to (tuus) — but the agreement follows the noun possessed.
duo, duae, duo — trēs, tria — centum
The small numerals agree in gender:
| with a masculine | with a feminine | with a neuter |
|---|---|---|
| duo puerī | duae puellae | duo oppida |
| trēs puerī | trēs puellae | tria oppida |
Centum (100) is indeclinable: centum servī, centum ancillae, centum oppida.
-que: the enclitic "and"
-que, attached to the end of a word, links that word to the one before — it is equivalent to et placed in front:
Titus Līviaque = Titus et Līvia.
Like -ne in chapter I, -que cannot stand alone: it always attaches to the second member of the pair.
One-line takeaway: three genders (-us/-r, -a, -um); possessor in the genitive (-ae/-ārum, -ī/-ōrum); quis/quae/cuius/quot for questions; liber ≠ līberī; X Y-que = X et Y.