Somehow I only saw this now -- I found it very well-written and helpful (at least to me personally, and I'm sure to others as well!) Thank you Pacis puella for writing this!
Normal, it was moved here only about half an hour ago.Somehow I only saw this now --
Thanks.-- I found it very well-written and helpful (at least to me personally, and I'm sure to others as well!) Thank you Pacis puella for writing this!
Odd, I would've thought they'd find Seneca & most poetry harder than De re publica (at least the bit that I read...)We usually start out with texts focusing on Europe (Hyginus, Ovid, Boccaccio..) and then go on to analyze one or two outstanding Romans/Greeks.
After that we rush through Ovid's Ars and Catullus' poems and translate one complete speech by Cicero focusing on the figures of speech and such.Then on to Seneca's work.We usually end up with Cicero, de re publica.
Yep, that would be meBut on this forum, we do meet a few weirdos
Ohhhhhh...here I thought I'd just not checked the Latin Beginners forum enough or something.Yeah, out of the blue a long thread appears to which just the *pink members* wrote : P
That really makes a lot of sense to me.Thus, what moderns call "imperfect," they called "past imperfect(ive).
You are welcome although I am not sure who actually moved the threadThanks, Cinefactus (I think it was you who moved the thread).
Oh, so it wasn't you? I thought it was you because I saw you were viewing this forum ("Latin Grammar") when the thread was moved. Maybe it was Aurifex then... Anyway, thanks to whoever it was.You are welcome although I am not sure who actually moved the thread
Right, that's along the lines that I was thinking. So either could be right, then. It's too bad the author didn't make it clearer which he wanted (or give both in the answer key...)Either the perfect or the imperfect could be used there, but they have different nuances. Here with admirabantur we're like going back to some point during his life, describing what was going on when he was alive. With the perfect we'd be stating the fact that he was admired as a single event; we'd be looking at it from a different, more "detached" perspective, considering it in its entirety as one event, while with the imperfect we're describing what was going on at a certain point.
Orator fuit praeclarissimus, quem omnes maxime admirati sunt = He was a most famous orator. They admired him. These are two things that happened once, two punctual events that I'm reporting. Period.
Orator fuit praeclarissimus, quem omnes maxime admirabantur = He was a most famous orator. This is something that happened once, a punctual event I'm reporting. Something that was going on while he was alive is that he was admired.
A brilliant answer! I would just add that I asked some Spanish guys out of curiosity (before we would get an answer from a native speaker of French here) and the first option they gave me was "Fue un orador brillante, quien todos admiraban." or "Fue un brillante orador, al que todos admiraban." <- which is pretty much the same Arnold proposed (fue = fuit; admiraban = admirabantur). And it seems PP would be rather inclined for that option too.Either the perfect or the imperfect could be used there, but they have different nuances. Here with admirabantur we're like going back to some point during his life, describing what was going on when he was alive. With the perfect we'd be stating the fact that he was admired as a single event; we'd be looking at it from a different, more "detached" perspective, considering it in its entirety as one event, while with the imperfect we're describing what was going on at a certain point.
Orator fuit praeclarissimus, quem omnes maxime admirati sunt = He was a most famous orator. They admired him. These are two things that happened once, two punctual events that I'm reporting. Period.
Orator fuit praeclarissimus, quem omnes maxime admirabantur = He was a most famous orator. This is something that happened once, a punctual event I'm reporting. Something that was going on while he was alive is that he was admired.