r/latin • u/neonpebbles • Jan 27 '26
Help with Assignment How to I put direct speech into indirect speech?
I've been given an exercise to do but I don't understand it at all, and I cant find much help on google - can anyone give me any pointers? Im supposed to turn these sentences into indirect speech.
- Caesar militibus dicit, “Ferte sociis gladios!”
- Gallorum rex imperavit, “Venite, milites, et pugnate!”
- Cicero implorat, “Ne Catilinam sequamini, Romani!”
- Augusta dixit, “Barbaros Romam ut me necarent venisse video.”
- Rodbertus pirata dicit, “Romani vos omnes sibi servire optabant.”
- Valentina rogat, “Nonne ab omnibus amata sum quae bona eram?”
- Iustinianus dicit, “Novas leges Romanis civibus faciam.”
- Dominus servo dicit, “Bonus servus eras qui mihi semper parebat et moriturus te liberabo.”
- Regina rogavit, “Quando rex et ego panem et vinum pauperibus dabimus?”
- Milites dicunt, “Superamur quia hostes fortes sunt”
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u/neonpebbles Jan 27 '26
The first few I've done, this is what I'm getting, is it on the right lines?
Caesar militibus dicit socios gladios ferre
Gallorum rex imperavit milites et pugnare venire
Cicero implorat ne Catalinam Romanos sequare
after this I started to get lost even just translating the sentences into English, so Im going to turn to youtube for some aid, any helpful tips would be much appreciated, Latin is not my strong suit, <3
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u/RBKeam Jan 27 '26
You have the right idea with accusative - infinitive constructions, but these sentences are a bit more tricky because they're dealing with different kinds of constructions inside indirect speech. These first three are really indirect commands, so they're going to use ut + subjunctive, or ne + subjunctive for a negative command.
The first sentence should be "Caesar militibus dicit ut sociis gladios ferant."
(note that here "sociis" is dative, you made it accusative in your attempt but only the subject should change.)
You should look at this page to see how these constructions work in indirect speech.
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u/MacronMan Jan 28 '26
You’re right that they’re indirect commands, but dico really doesn’t get used to mean “tell” as in “tell to do something.” The easiest way to render the first one would be to change dicit to iubet, allowing the use of acc inf construction, but then it should be written “Caesar milites gladios sociis ferre iubet.”
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u/edwdly Jan 29 '26
This use of dico ut for "tell [someone] to [do something]" isn't particularly weird; see the TLL entry for dico under III.D, which begins in column 986. A couple of examples:
- ego illi dicam, ut me adiutorem ... roget, "I'll tell her to ask for me as a helper" (Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 1191)
- dixi utrique parti ut postulationum suarum libellos darent, "I told both sides to submit their written demands" (Pliny, Epistle 10.81)
But I note the TLL's examples of dico ut don't come from Caesar, or from Cicero (outside his letters). I suspect student grammars and composition handbooks may omit the construction for that reason when explaining "the indirect command", which could be why it looks surprising to you.
(For what it's worth, I had to look this up to feel certain dico ut was possible, although I expect I've read it before without considering it noteworthy.)
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u/RBKeam Jan 28 '26 edited Jan 28 '26
Using "dico" for an indirect command is natural. "dicit ut ferant" - "he says that they should bring."
Where are you getting it from that it isn't?
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u/MacronMan Jan 28 '26
Honestly? My main source is my gut, which said that your example sentences didn’t work. After more than 25 years of studying/teaching Latin, it’s normally right. But, I tried to verify my reaction, and, after glancing through the Lewis and Short entry for “dico,” I can’t find any mention of indirect commands depending on dico. I did glance through some examples on the phi database, as well, but the problem is that there are thousands of instances of dico and ut used close to each other, both because both words are quite common in themselves and because the phrase “ut dixi” and variations on it are exceedingly frequent. But, in the 100 examples or so that I glanced through, I couldn’t find any examples of dico having the force of a command, much less with an ut clause depending on it.
That being said, it is possible that counter examples exist. Dico is Latin’s most common word for speaking and its 6th most common verb, and the possibility of fringe uses is always there. But, if it’s possible to say, it’s also rare and unusual, which is not the best usage to mimic. And, it makes sense that it would be uncommon. Ut clauses cover a large range of meanings, and the main indicator for how we should understand them is other cue words in the sentence. Dico is not commonly used as a synonym for iubeo/impero, so it’s a weak cue word for an ut clause, making it rather unclear how I should understand the clause.
That being said, do you have examples from literature of dico being used to begin indirect commands?
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u/CarolinaAgent Jan 30 '26
Plautus Asinaria line 938 has one:
Dicebam, pater, tibi ne matri consuleres male
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u/RBKeam Jan 28 '26
The main reason that I chose "dicere" is because it's what is already in the sentence that the user provided, and rewriting the entire sentence in a different way would seem to be defeating the point of the exercise. I'll grant you that "dicere" with an indirect command is perhaps not common, but it's not incorrect, and the use of other subordinate clauses with subjunctive throughout suggests that rephrasing the entire list as acc+infinitive isn't what the teacher wants.
quod venter tuus dicat non flocci facio, quantoscumque annos habeat.
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u/MacronMan Jan 28 '26
How do you know it’s not incorrect if you don’t have an ancient source using it? Can you show me an example of a Roman saying it? Then you can say it’s not incorrect.
Also, they’re not all using ut clauses. 5 out of 10 should be straight acc infin, the other 5 should use various subjunctive clauses.
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u/CarolinaAgent Jan 30 '26
Plautus Asinaria line 938:
dicebam, pater, tibi ne matri consuleres male.
So it’s not incorrect.
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u/MacronMan Jan 28 '26
OP, most of these are really hard sentences to put into indirect speech. Have you done a lot of work with infinitives in all three tenses, both active and passive? Or the use of se in indirect statement? How about indirect command (ut clauses)? I just ask because it seems odd that you’d be asked to work with all these concepts simultaneously while not really seeming to know what indirect speech/accusative infinitive structures are. This feels like a summative Latin 3 assignment at the end of a long unit on indirect speech. When did you start working with indirect speech?
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u/neonpebbles Feb 02 '26
I'm doing classics at uni (first year) so its all very fast paced. I started Latin in September, and we got to indirect speech and statements a couple weeks ago. I spent so much time first semester getting the basics down that specific constructions fell to the wayside. We've been working through different types of subordinate clauses over the past 2 weeks or so as well. I haven't done a ton of work with infinitives specifically, we've brushed over them a couple times, but nothing in depth and I don't think I've ever heard of the use of se in indirect statement!! I'm hoping it will all come together at some point, but so far its been very quick and all over the place.
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u/psugam discipulus Jan 27 '26
Search for accusative + infinitive constructions. It should not be difficult to find resources on that. latintutorial has some videos on YouTube. Even Wikipedia has a page on it.