What does sē here means? (Lingua Latina per se Illustrata: Colloquia Personarum: 19)
"It is not necessary for him to praise himself" seems strange in the context.
What does sē here means? (Lingua Latina per se Illustrata: Colloquia Personarum: 19)
"It is not necessary for him to praise himself" seems strange in the context.
It is impersonal: se ipsum laudare = "to praise oneself." In English you could say:
One must not praise oneself like that.
English rarely uses the impersonal "one," though, and it can easily sound stilted. Instead of it, you are liable to often find the impersonal "you" like so: It is not right to praise yourself like that. That might create some ambiguity in this case, however. In the Latin, there is no ambiguity here: Fabia is giving a general rule and not only talking about Cornelius specifically.