Highlights Wed. 11/30

Translations of the assigned Sententiae Antiquae:
1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. In his triumphal procession Cicero displayed this placard (poster): "I came, I saw, I conquered."
4. A young person wishes to live for a long time; an old man has lived for a long time.
7. Sophocles made (composed) tragedies at the height of old age / in extreme old age.
8. Those men poured forth not only money but also life for their homeland.
9. Kings held/ruled Rome from the beginning; Lucius Brutus gave freedom to the Romans.

We'll go over the Exercitationes in class.

Let's review the differences among the four past tenses. Imperfect and perfect are in bold because they are the most important:

Imperfect
-translate with "was" and a participle: bellum gerebat, "he was waging war"
-describes continued or repeated action


Perfect
-translate usually as a simple past tense, sometimes with "has" or "had": bellum gerit, "he waged war" or "he has waged war" Usually it doesn't matter what translation you use, occasionally it does.
-describes completed, single occasion actions


Pluperfect
-translated with "had"
-describes action that happened before another action in the past: bellum gererat, "he had waged war (before doing something else)"


Future Perfect
-translated with "will have"
-describes action that will be completed before something else happens: bellum gererit, "he will have waged war (by the time he conquers that city)."