CODEX 4.3
Please make your selection from the above CODEX menu options for Episode 4.3
KEY-TEXT A
Trōia capta
decem annōs Graecī Trōiānōs obsidēbant, sed urbem capere nōn poterant. tandem Agamemnōn, rēx Graecōrum, dēspērābat. omnēs prīncipēs vocāvit et dīxit: "decem annōs iam Trōiam obsidēmus. saepe Trōiānōs in pugnā vincimus, sed urbem capere nōn possumus. ego dēspērō. quid facere dēbēmus? domumne redīre dēbēmus? quid vōs putātis?"
omnēs prīncipēs tacēbant, sed Ulixēs respondit: "nōn dēspērō. cōnsilium novum habeō. audīte mē!"
omnēs prīncipēs cōnsilium Ulixis audiēbant et laudābant. equum ingentem ligneum fēcērunt. tum multōs virōs fortēs in ventre equī cēlāvērunt. cēterī Graecī ad nāvēs iērunt et ad īnsulam prope Trōiam nāvigāvērunt.
prīmā lūce Trōiānī nāvēs Graecās nōn vīdērunt. gaudēbant, quod Graecī fūgerant; gaudēbant, quod pugnae tandem cōnfectae erant. ē portīs urbis ad lītus dēsertum cucurrērunt. ibi equum ingentem aspexērunt. aliī clāmābant: "dēbēmus equum ligneum in urbem dūcere!" aliī dīcēbant: "equō nōlīte crēdere! dōna Graecōrum timēmus. fortasse Graecī in equō sunt."
tandem cōnstituērunt equum in urbem trahere. mīlitēs equum per portās trāxērunt et in templō pōsuērunt. deinde cēnam magnam fēcērunt et multum vīnum bibērunt.
iam nox aderat. Trōiānī dormiēbant. Graecī, quī in īnsulā erant, ē nāvibus exiērunt et celeriter ad urbem Trōiam cucurrērunt. mīlitēs, quī in equō cēlātī erant, tacitī exiērunt et ad portās cucurrērunt.
custōdēs Trōiānī dormiēbant; ēbriī erant, quod multum vīnum biberant. Graecī illōs custōdēs interfēcērunt; portās celeriter aperuērunt et amīcōs accēpērunt. omnēs in viās urbis cucurrērunt. paucī Trōiānōrum restitērunt. mox Graecī tōtam urbem cēpērunt. tandem rēgiam Priamī oppugnāvērunt; Priamum et fīliōs eius interfēcērunt. paucī Trōiānōrum Graecōs ēvāsērunt. sīc Graecī tandem Trōiam cēpērunt et urbem dēlēvērunt.
Visual Walkthrough
KEY-TEXT B
Aenēas Trōiam fugit
eā nocte, dum Graecī urbem capiunt, Aenēas in domō suā dormiēbat. subitō imāgō Hectoris in somnō appāruit. Hector erat mortuus, et corpus eius erat cruentum et trīste. imāgō Aenēae dīxit: "fuge, Aenēā! hostēs iam intrā mūrōs sunt. Trōia ardet et omnēs Trōiānī sunt mortuī. necesse est tibi fugere. pete terram Hesperiam et conde novam Trōiam. tū eris pater magnae gentis." tum imāgō discessit.
Aenēas surrēxit et arma cēpit. ubīque erat clāmor et terror; Trōia flammīs ardēbat. prīmum pugnāre voluit, sed māter Venus eum servāvit. Venus dīxit: "nōlī pugnāre, mī fīlī. dī ipsī Trōiam dēlēre volunt. serva familiam tuam!"
Aenēas igitur patrem Anchīsam in umerīs portāvit, quod senex erat et īre nōn poterat. parvum fīlium Ascanium manū dūxit. uxor Creūsa post eōs veniēbat. ita Aenēas ex urbe fūgit.
sed in viīs erat magnus terror. subitō Aenēas Creūsam āmīsit. eam diū quaesīvit, sed nōn invēnit. tandem imāgō Creūsae appāruit et dīxit: "nōlī lacrimāre, dulcis uxor. ego in Trōiā manēre dēbeō. tū autem novam terram et novam patriam habēbis. valē!"
Aenēas trīstis erat, sed ē Trōiā discessit. multī aliī Trōiānī cum eō fūgērunt. omnēs ad montem iērunt et nāvēs parāvērunt. tum per mare nāvigāvērunt et novam patriam quaesīvērunt. multōs post annōs posterī Aenēae magnam urbem condidērunt. nōmen urbis erat Rōma.
Visual Walkthrough
Informational Text A
Aenēās
ōlim Venus erat dea superba, quod deōs cōgere poterat hominēs amāre. Juppiter ergō cōnsilium cēpit. Venus, dum prope montem Īdam errābat, pulchrum pāstōrem cōnspexit. pāstor erat hērōs nōmine Anchīsēs. statim Venus eum ex voluntāte Jovis dēsīderābat.
Venus, quae in fōrmam puellae pulchrae sē mūtāvit, Anchīsae appropinquāvit. Anchīsēs tamen timēbat, quod fōrma puellae erat dīvīna. sed Venus dīxit: "nōlī timēre! ego sum fīlia rēgis Otrēī, quī omnem Phrygiam regit. Mercurius mē ā templō Diānae abdūxit. ego volō esse uxor tua."
Anchīsēs, quī pulchritūdinī Veneris resistere nōn poterat, cōnsēnsit. mox fīlium nōmine Aenēās habuērunt. Aenēās erat fortis hērōs, quī in Trōiānō bellō pugnābat. Aenēās urbem fortissimē dēfendit. ipse etiam contrā Diomēdem pugnāvit, sed eum vincere nōn poterat. tum Venus fīlium suum ā proeliō abdūxit. sed tandem Trōia cecidit.
Aenēās cum mātris auxiliō ex Trōiā fūgit. patrem in umerīs ferēbat et fīlium Ascanium in manū dūcēbat, sed uxor sua Creūsa in ruīnā periit. Aenēās per mare et per terrās errābat, quod urbem novam petēbat. tandem in Ītaliam advēnit. rēx Latīnus Aenēae amīcus erat, sed Turnus, rēx Rutulōrum, bellum parāvit.
Aenēās post bellum magnum Turnum superāvit. fīliam rēgis Latīnī, Lāvīniam, in mātrimōnium dūxit. Aenēās et Trōiānī urbem Lāvīnium condidērunt. Ascanius, cui secundum nōmen est Jūlus, urbem nōmine Albam Longam condidit. ab hāc urbe Rōmulus et Remus vēnērunt. igitur hominēs dīcunt: "Aenēās erat pater Rōmānōrum."
Text originally written by Sean Minion, revised 7/26
Informational Text B
Pietās
inter omnēs virtūtēs Rōmānās, pietās ūna ex maximīs erat. pietās nōn sōlum "religiō" significābat, sed etiam officium quod Rōmānus deīs, familiae, et patriae dēbēbat. vir aut fēmina quī pietātem habēbat "pius" aut "pia" appellābātur.
pietās prīmum ad familiam pertinēbat. līberī parentēs suōs amāre et eīs pārēre dēbēbant. parentēs autem līberōs suōs cūrāre et dēfendere dēbēbant. Rōmānī quoque maiōrēs suōs, id est parentēs parentum quī iam mortuī erant, semper honōrābant.
pietās etiam ad deōs pertinēbat. deī, ut Rōmānī crēdēbant, cīvitātem et familiam servābant, sī hominēs officia sua bene faciēbant. cīvēs igitur ad templa ībant, ad ārās ōrābant, et mōrēs maiōrum cōnservābant.
pietās dēnique ad patriam pertinēbat. cīvis quī pietātem habēbat rem pūblicam dēfendēbat, lēgibus pārēbat, et prō patriā labōrābat.
exemplum nōtissimum pietātis Aenēās erat. in fābulīs Rōmānīs Trōia ardēbat, et Aenēās patrem suum Anchīsam, quī iam senex erat, in umerīs ex urbe portāvit. Vergilius, poēta clārus, Aenēam saepe "pium" appellāvit. Aenēās enim semper deīs, familiae, et patriae fidēlis erat.
GRAMMATICA
The superlative: "the ___est," "the most ___," "a very ___."
Operative, you have been meeting superlative adjectives since the war council. At 4.1 and 4.2 you were told to recognize them as an intensified "most / very ___" form and read on. Now you learn them properly, because this episode's readings are built on them.
A superlative sits at the top of the scale. English marks it two ways: sometimes with -est (bravest, highest), sometimes with most (most beautiful). Latin does the whole job with a single ending:
Sextus erat fortis. → Sextus erat fortissimus.
Sextus was brave → the bravest (very brave).
mūrus erat altus. → mūrus erat altissimus.
The wall was high → the highest.
malus est īrātus. → malus est īrātissimus.
The bad man is angry → very angry.
The -issim- is your clearest signal: when you see it built into an adjective, read that adjective as a superlative.
Not every superlative uses -issim-. Adjectives whose masculine form ends in -er build the superlative differently: they double the r and add -imus.
urbs est pulchra. → Rōma est pulcherrima.
The city is beautiful → Rome is the most beautiful.
So pulcher gives pulcherrimus, never pulchr-issimus. The ending looks different, but the job is identical. When you meet -errimus, treat it exactly as you treat -issimus.
You will also meet this ending on adverbs, not only adjectives: fortissimē means "very bravely / most bravely." Read it the same way.
A few are irregular. A small set of very common adjectives forms the superlative unpredictably, and you simply learn them: bonus → optimus ("best"), multus → plūrimus ("very many / most"), magnus → maximus ("greatest"). You have already met optimus. These are still superlatives; only the stem surprises you.
For now, two things are enough: recognize both endings on sight, and pick the English rendering ("the ___est" or "the most / very ___") that reads most naturally in the sentence.
VERBA
| Latin | English | Part of Speech |
| ante | before, in front of | preposition |
| corpus | body | noun |
| domus | house, home | noun |
| nox | night | noun |
| vult | she/he wants | verb |
CULTURALIA
Operative, you have just watched Troy fall and Aeneas walk out of the fire carrying his father. Everything you read at 4.1 and 4.2, the cause of the war, the writers of Rome, was preparing you for this moment, because this is where a Greek tragedy becomes a Roman beginning.
The Aeneid: Rome's national epic. Late in the first century BCE, the poet Vergil wrote the Aeneid, twelve books following Aeneas from the ruins of Troy to the founding of the Roman line. Romans considered it the greatest work in their literature, and it is easy to see why: it gave Rome an origin story on the scale of Homer's, half wandering like the Odyssey, half war like the Iliad, but wholly Roman. Before Vergil, Rome had no single national epic that told it who it was. After him, the Aeneid was Roman identity set in verse, and it stayed on every schoolroom desk, including Caecilius', for centuries. This is Vergil's great contribution: he did not just write a poem, he wrote Rome its soul.
From the ashes of Troy. For a Roman, the fall of Troy is not an ending but a seed. Watch how Aeneas leaves the city: his aged father Anchises on his shoulders, his small son Ascanius by the hand, the household gods carried with them. Past, future, and the gods of the hearth, all carried out of the fire together. Ascanius (also called Iūlus) will found Alba Longa; from that line come Romulus and Remus, and centuries later the family of Julius Caesar and Augustus, who traced their blood back through Iūlus to Aeneas and to his mother, the goddess Venus. So the Trojan War runs straight into Roman identity: Rome is Troy reborn, and Rome's rulers are Aeneas' heirs.
pietās, the Roman virtue above all. Aeneas' defining quality is pietās, a word English cannot quite catch: devoted duty to the gods, to family, and to one's destiny, held to even when it costs everything. Aeneas would rather have died fighting in the streets of Troy, and he takes up his sword to do exactly that, but his mother and the ghost of his wife Creūsa turn him toward his real duty: to survive, and to build. He loses Creūsa in the escape and cannot save her. That is the weight of pietās, and it is the trait Romans most admired in themselves.
Myth doing work. One last thing to carry with you. Vergil did not stumble on this story; he composed it deliberately, at a precise political moment, for an emperor who happened to claim descent from its hero. A myth is not a neutral record of the past. It is a story a people tells about itself in the present, to say who they are and why they matter. The clip from the Matrix asks the same question in a different key: what power does a story hold over the people who believe it? Hold that question. Your mission will keep asking it.
ATTUNEMENT
Attunement, Episode 4.3
Preview each exercise, then copy it into your own Google Drive to complete it.
4.3.a - The Fall of Troy, in Order
comprehension · KEY-TEXT A4.3.b - Superlatives: Spot Them, Then Build
form · superlatives4.3.c - Aeneas Leaves the Fire
comprehension · KEY-TEXT B4.3.d - Then and Now
form · 6 items4.3.e - Why a Refugee? Why pietās?
perspective · synthesisMemorātiō
reflect · recall your pathYou stood in Troy on the night it fell, and you watched a single man walk out of the fire carrying his father on his shoulders and leading his son by the hand. Whom did he lose in the streets, and why did he leave when every instinct told him to stay and fight? You learned the name Romans gave the virtue that made him go: what was it, and to what three things did a Roman owe it? Hold on to why a defeated refugee, and not a conqueror, became the father Rome claimed. His road out of Troy is only beginning, and it runs toward you.
Hold on to what you write here. It will help you recall your path to the Lapis as the operation continues over the weeks and months ahead.
