Month: January 2019

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Tentative Slack Composition Topics

  1. Greetings and valedictions; wishes for health (Week 1-2)
  2. Paratactic sentences: tenses; indicative except for set phrases (cura ut valeas) (Week 3)
    a. Activities
    b. Health
  3. Relative clauses (Week 4)
  4. Paraphrase a proverb: (Week 5)
    a. To another student in the class
  5. Subjunctive: final and consecutive clauses (Week 6)
  6. Conditions: all types (Week 7)
  7. Oratio Obliqua: turn simple letter into indirect discourse (Week 8)
  8. Letter to another student
    a. Modeled on Cicero ad Terentiam?
  9. Horace Letter exemplum
    a. Write a very simple letter based on the premise of Horace’s ethical principle
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Exercitium Primum

Exercitium Grammaticum Primum

This exercise is based on Cicero’s letter to Curio (Ad Fam 9.21)

1. See Alan and Greenough on indirect commands and, in case you have forgotten, on sequence of tense.

Change to indirect command by predicating the sentence on rogat, then imperat (If you have forgotten the constructions required by rogo and impero, I suggest you check in the dictionary.)

huius generis litteras a me profecto non exspectas.

Anglice (i.e.: translate into English):
 Rogo
Impero
Rogabam
Imperabam

2. Indirect Questions: See Alan and Greenough on indirect questions.

Make these indirect questions direct:

a. utro me minus deceat uti non intellego.
[1] Anglice:
[2] Rewrite the sentence as a direct question (i.e. take out ‘non intellego‘)
[3] Rewrite the indirect question, changing intellego to past tense (and then making other necessary changes).
 

b. nullam enim apud me reliquisti dubitationem quantum me amares

[1] Anglice: 
[2] Rewrite the indirect question, changing reliquisti to present tense (and then making other necessary changes).

c. Quaerenti mihi iam diu quid ad te potissimum scriberem

[1] Anglice:
[2] Rewrite the clause as a direct question (hint: make the participle a verb)

Make these direct questions indirect (NB: deliberative subjunctive questions follow the same rules as indicative questions in o.o.):

a. iocerne tecum per litteras? (deliberative subjunctive)
Also: read about disjunctive questions here
Cicero Curionem rogat
Cicero Curionem rogavit
b. an gravius aliquid scribam?
Cicero Curionem rogat
Cicero Curionem rogavit

3. A series of examples of relative clauses of characteristic (generic relative clause) follows. These examples are here as a warm up for the questions below. You can put the composition sentences in your letter assignment.

Relative Clauses of Characteristic (generic clauses) (keep reading here )

  • quid esset quod eos scire aut nostra aut ipsorum interesset
  • civem mehercule non puto esse, qui temporibus his ridere possit
  • quid est quod possit graviter a Cicerone scribi ad Curionem nisi de re publica?
  • Nihil habebam quod scriberem
  • ut certiores faceremus absentis si quid esset quod eos scire aut nostra aut ipsorum interesset

So, how would you say (in Latin)

  • There is never anything fun to do at Davidson. 
    • ‘at Davidson’ = hic, apud nos; or hic, Davidsoniensi (locative)
    • fun: iucundus, a,um; (there are other words you could use too–just a suggestion)
  • I think there is no Davidson student who would mock people who speak Latin.
    • Davidson: Davidsoniensis, -e (adj of 2 endings)
    • mock: deridere, inridere (both transitive)
    • ‘people who speak Latin’: try using a participle agreeing with “people” instead of a relative clause 
    • speak Latin: Latine loquor, loqui, locutus sum (i.e. Latin is an adverb)
    • “I think” : Remember how to do indirect statement?  sat superque: good luck and have fun.
  • You may use print and web resources (lexica, grammars), but the only human resource permitted is the instructor (you can’t work together on this). 
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Salutationes

Ancient salutations were quite simple. Greek letter writers, exempli gratia, satisfied themselves with variations of Πλάτων τῶ Δίωνι εὖ πράττειν (or instead of εὖ πράττειν: χαίρειν): Plato (hopes) Dion flourishes (or is happy). A typical Latin salutation is: M.Tullius Cicero M. Varroni S.D (Marcus Tullius Cicero greets Marcus Varro). S.D. = Salutem dicit. SPD = Salutem Plurimam dicit. Pliny in the first century AD added ‘suus’ : C.Plinius Sabino suo SD.

In the medieval period and on into the renaissance, the salutation gained greater weight and length, full of scraping and bowing. Erasmus in de epistolis conscribendis gives us a few examples for fun:

Perspicacissimo domino, septem artium liberalium calendabro aureo.
Radianti theologorum apici.
Religioniis lucernae semper fulgenti.   

Using the “Salutationes” link in Slack, and the greetings on the “Cicero on Letters” page as well as the sheets I handed out in class, please send a couple of your classmates a note. Say hi, in whatever way you want; ask how they are; say goodbye. Seriously. If you see someone has not been addressed, write to them. Will this be a bit random and out of control? Yup.

” page as well as the sheets I handed out in class, please send a couple of your classmates a note. Say hi, in whatever way you want; ask how they are; say goodbye. Seriously. If you see someone has not been addressed, write to them. Will this be a bit random and out of control? Yup.

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