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Can I pluralize letters of the alphabet?
In English, it's very common to talk about letters of the alphabet in the plural: he writes his R's backwards, for example, is a perfectly natural sentence. But the Latin names for the letters don't seem to follow any declension pattern.
If I wanted…
Draconis
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Do non-Attic-Ionic dialects distinguish the accusatives of the ἀσπίς and χάρις types?
In Attic-Ionic Greek, nouns with dental stems show two types of accusative singular endings, depending on the position of the accent:
If the accent is on the final syllable of the stem, the accusative
ending is -α, e.g. ἀσπίς, acc. sg.…
TKR
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8
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How would I talk about supernatural "possession"?
Many stories, both ancient and modern, concern "possession": a supernatural entity of some sort takes over a human or animal body and controls it.
Is there a Classical Latin word for this phenomenon? Or, failing that, an Ecclesiastical one?
Draconis
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8
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Translation of a phrase "Catch the moment, ..." to Latin
I hope someone who speaks Russian could help me in translating a phrase "Лови момент. Цени мгновение." into Latin. I'm afraid the original meaning could be lost or transformed if I translate it to English, first. But I guess in English the phrase…
Alexander Zhak
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When and where to use which construction expressing purpose
To the best of my knowledge, the following constructions are used to express purpose in Latin:
ut + [subjunctive clause]
ad + [accusative gerund]
ad + [accusative gerundive] + [accusative noun]
[genitive gerund] + causā
[genitive gerundive] +…
Ethan Bierlein
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When did the infinitive of purpose arise?
In Classical Latin, purpose would normally be expressed with ut, or ad with a gerund, or a supine with a verb of motion, or numerous other ways.
However, in later and vulgar Latin (most notably the Vulgate Bible), a bare infinitive could be used…
Draconis
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Did any Ancient Greek words have intervocalic /h/?
Ancient Greek (some dialects at least) had a phoneme /h/, written with a rough breathing mark on vowels. Did this phoneme ever occur between two vowels, or only word-initially and after consonants?
Answers from any dialect and any point in time (at…
Draconis
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About Sappho Edmonds 89 Campbell 48
General background
What I gather from Edmonds is that the fragment at hand is found in a letter written by Iulianus (Julian the Apostate?) to Iamblichus, and the "offending" part of the letter reads thus:
Ἦλθες καὶ ἐποίησας ἦλθες γὰρ δὴ καὶ ἀπὼν…
MickG
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8
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What is a good deed?
Suppose I wanted to talk about good deeds. Generally this means acts done by someone for selfless reasons, solely to benefit others.
For a literal translation I could go with bona facta, but the phrase in English is very idiomatic, and you seldom…
Draconis
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In: Ablative or accusative
In chapter 4 LLPSI it says "sacculum suum in mensa ponit". Ponit means put or sets, so indicates a movement. As far as I know in in Latin in the meaning of into or onto (as is the case here) takes the accusative, so in mensam (Like it would be the…
L4a1963
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Is this translation of a note in a map correct?
I just saw this tweet. It contains this image:
(taken from here, where we gather that the map was drawn in the early 1700s)
with the following Latin sentence:
ex septentrione longissimeque dissitis regionibus venisse ductuque mirabili migrasse…
Federico
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8
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Elementary word order question
Why is this word order correct, as opposed to putting the verb at the end of the sentence?
Frater meus habet unum filium.
This site supplied this quote.
Luke Sheppard
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How common was synizesis in classical poetry?
In synizesis two vowels that would normally be pronounced separately are pronounced as one without any change in spelling.
This happens sometimes in Latin poetry and it can be recognized from the metric — sometimes proper scansion is impossible…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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8
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Are there literary attestations of werewolves in the Classical period?
The modern idea of werewolves seems to have arisen somewhere in the Middle Ages, after the spread of Christianity. But I vaguely remember a story in the Satyricon (specifically at Trimalchio's dinner) about a man turning into a wolf at the full…
Draconis
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How do you parse "futurum est" in Matthew 2:13?
I'm a little confused about a verse in Matthew 2 of the Vulgate Bible.
Futurum est enim ut Herodes quærat puerum ad perdendum eum.
(Matthew 2:13)
Douay-Rheims translates this as, "For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the child to…
ktm5124
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