Morituri - Grammar

Question

Basic, I'm sure, but I've read that this form is infinitive - to die - but also can mean 'we who are about to die'. I'm newish to Latin grammar - what is the name of the form/case(?) that could express this 6 word phrase by itself?

Answer 1

This is the future active participle. It is not the infinitive, which would be mori for this verb.

The reason it takes so many words to express this concept is simply because English lacks a future participle. In general, English only has two participial forms: present active (-ing, such as "these trying times") and past passive (often, but not always -ed, such as "tried and true methods).

Latin has another for actions which would occur in the future. That's the –tur- part of the word you see. It also often, but not always, indicates time in the near future: "dying [in the near future]". A common way to express that is "about to X".

The word by itself doesn't necessarily encode for we, but it is masculine plural¹, which is more information than you can get from English participles. In context of a very famous phrase (morituri te salutant, for which also see this question), the subject is technically third person plural ("they about to die salute you"), but it was spoken by gladiators who went off into the arena, so the "they" in the sentence refers to the ones speaking it. This is why you'll often see "we" used to translate it.

_{1. Technically, it could be masculine or neuter singular genitive as well, but not in the context of the phrase from which it is known in English. Regardless, the point stands.}