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The enclitic -que

Operative, you have been reading this small word since Mission 1 without a rule for it. Here are two lines from this episode's texts:

Rōmānī Sabīnīque pācem fēcērunt.
Rōmulus Remusque condere urbem cōnstituērunt.

Both of those mean and, and neither of them uses et. Instead a small piece, -que, is attached to the end of the second word.

-que cannot stand on its own. You will never find it alone on the page, never at the head of a phrase, never with a space in front of it. It is called an enclitic, which means it leans on the word ahead of it. English has nothing quite like this; the closest thing is the 's in Marcus's, which is also a piece of grammar that cannot stand alone.

Where -que attaches

The rule of placement is fixed: -que attaches to the second of the two things being joined, never the first.

gladiōs et hastās → gladiōs hastāsque

Both of those say swords and spears. Hastās is still accusative plural, exactly as it would be with et. -que joins; it does not alter the word it sits on.

When you see -que on the end of a word, look at the word or phrase just before it. That word is being paired with this one, and the two will match in case, in number, and in their job in the sentence. In Rōmānī Sabīnīque, both are nominative plural, and both are the subject of fēcērunt. If you know the case of one, you know the case of the other.

When Romans chose -que over et

Roman writers used -que when the two things belonged together, or made one thing between them. Rōmulus Remusque is not two men who happen to be in the same sentence; it is a pair, the twins. When the Romans and the Sabines make peace, the text says Rōmānī Sabīnīque, and the very next words are ūnus populus factus est: one people. The two nations are written as one phrase because they are becoming one people.

Compare Marcus's letter, where Salvius is stultus est et piger. Stupid and lazy are two separate complaints, and et keeps them separate. This is a preference, not a rule.

Joining more than words

-que can link whole clauses as well as single words. Your Recentius has already met this shape:

Sinistrus ē sellā surrēxit vōsque salūtāvit.
Sinistrus got up out of the chair and greeted you.

The rule is the same with clauses: the enclitic attaches to the first word of the second clause, and everything before it is the first half.

Words that only end in -que

Many Latin words end in -que without containing the enclitic, and you have been reading most of them since Mission 1.

These are single words with no enclitic in them.

Cover the -que and look at what is left. Rōmānī is a word, so Rōmānīque is Rōmānī + the enclitic. Quīn is not a word you know, and quīnque means five, so nothing was added to anything. Do this whenever the ending surprises you, and you will not read quoque as quō + and.

The stress shift

If you are reading aloud, the enclitic pulls the stress forward onto the syllable right in front of it: Rómulus, but Rómulus Remúsque.

Video briefing from Latin Tutorial:

How Livy wrote history

Operative, both of this episode's readings descend from one man: Titus Livius, whom we call Livy. He wrote the history of Rome from its founding down to his own day, and on his very first page he says that the oldest stories rest on poets' tales rather than solid records, and that he will neither confirm them nor deny them. Then he tells them anyway, in detail, with speeches.

That was not carelessness. Livy believed history existed to teach: the past sets up examples of every kind in plain view, and a reader takes from them what to imitate and what to avoid. So expect the reading to be confident about what people said and silent about whether they existed, and expect every figure in it to be an example of something. In fēminae Sabīnae, watch the women's speech near the end; what they threaten to do is the quality a Roman reader was meant to admire. The story never hides that Rome fills itself with outsiders, takes its wives by force, and then makes the Sabines citizens. Rome kept that uncomfortable story because it made a claim Rome needed: absorbing outsiders is what made it strong.

Tarpeia, told twice

The reading also gives you a girl who appears for one paragraph and dies. Tarpeia opens the citadel gate to the Sabines at night, and they crush her under their shields. The rock she is buried under kept her name, and Romans threw traitors from it for centuries.

Livy tells that version, then reports that other writers told it differently: Tarpeia asked for what the Sabines carried on their left arms, meaning their shields, planning to leave them defenseless, and died loyal to Rome. In the two stories the same girl stands at the same gate, and she is a traitor in one and a loyal Roman in the other. Livy does not choose. The rock was real and its name needed explaining; what Tarpeia actually did was beyond recovering, so he kept both answers. As you read the key-text, check which Tarpeia its account of the gold gives you.

What Romans did about impossible things

Livy's history also records, year after year, reports of prodigia: stones falling from the sky, an ox speaking, a spring running with blood. He lists them beside elections and armies, because to a Roman a prodigy was a message from the gods, and a message is information. The procedure was calm: report the sign to the Senate, refer it to the priests, learn what it demands, do it, and carry on. A Roman who met something impossible treated it as a message: he worked out what it meant and acted on the answer. He did not run from it, and he did not fall down in front of it. This is what Mission Control means by acting Roman, and it is why the TSTT transmission gave you the verb legite: a message is there to be read. In epistula Marcī, Salvius receives a letter with a strange mark on it. Would a Roman of Livy's pages have done what Salvius does with it?