Bradley's Arnold Question Thread; Ex. 6B, Part 1

[Paulus Prezzia]

Hi, my name is Paul, and I have a question about Ex. 6B, part 1. in Bradley's Arnold (I am working through the Mountford edition on my own, using an answer key from an older edition to check my work).
The sentence to translate begins "You and I were, he replied, in the country with your brother, and would not return to Naples on the first of August. . . ."
The answer key starts the translation to Latin in this way: "Respondit ille me et te ruri esse apud fratrem tuum nec Neapolim Kalendis Sextilibus redituros esse. . . ."
I am wondering two things:
1) I am quite sure that "ille" is not necessary, but is it better style to add it than to just use "respondit" alone for some reason?
2) Why is it "esse" and not "fuisse?" It seems to me that "fuisse" would be better because the speaker is referring to a time previous to the time he is speaking in.
I hope this makes sense, thanks to all who give this a shot.

 

[cinefactus]

for 2, the were is an artifact of the English grammar. What he would have said is, "I am in the country and I am not coming back".

for 1. I never seem to be able to get the pronouns the same as they have in the answer guide, so I am not entirely sure!

 

[Dantius]

The ille is probably to indicate that you're back to talking about a different person than you were talking about in the previous sentence. Maybe there wasn't a previous sentence here, but since it's a reply I assume it's meant to be part of some story where the previous sentence was someone else speaking. It's fairly common when there's a shift in subject to use something like ille.

 

[Paulus Prezzia]

First of all, thanks to both of you for replying.
Dantius, interesting suggestion; as you surmise, the sentence is standalone in Arnold. I have been wondering if Arnold took examples verbatim from original sources. Not a well-enough read to know right now.
Cinefactus, you say that "ille" is an "artifact;" I am sorry but I am not familiar with a technical meaning for "artifact" in the context of grammar. Would you be able to explain more?

 

[cinefactus]

Not ille but were. It is just the way that English expresses this tense in indirect speech.