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Sinistrus aedificium aedificat

The ablative case with prepositions

Operative, the ablative is a case that Latin often uses after a preposition. Together, the preposition and the ablative noun tell you where something is or where it comes from. The key-text Sinistrus aedificium aedificat has many of them: in hōc tablīnō (in this study), sub pavīmentō (under the floor), sine auxiliō (without help), cum ātrō lapide (with the black stone).

Here are the ablative endings in three declensions, shown on nouns from the key-text:

An adjective that describes an ablative noun is ablative too. In in mediō tablīnō (in the middle of the study), mediō and tablīnō are both ablative singular. This is the agreement you learned in 8.1.

These prepositions take the ablative: in (in, on), sub (under), dē (down from, about), ā/ab (away from), ē/ex (out of), cum (with), sine (without), prō (in front of).

Other prepositions take the accusative. Many of them show movement toward or through something. These prepositions take the accusative: ad (to, toward), in (into), per (through), post (behind, after), prope (near), extrā (outside).

There is one warning about these lists. The preposition in appears on both of them, so the word in alone does not tell you what it means. The ending on the noun tells you. In in tablīnum intrat, the noun is accusative, so Sinistrus goes into the study. In in hōc tablīnō stāre possunt, the noun is ablative, so people stand in the study. When you see in, look at the ending of the noun before you translate.

(Some ablatives have no preposition at all, such as ūnā hōrā ("in one hour") in the key-text. The ablative has other jobs like this one, and you will learn them in later missions.)

[TSTT SYSTEM MESSAGE: CODEX UPLINK, MISSION CONTROL]
[TSTT SYSTEM MESSAGE: SIGNAL LOST]
[TSTT SYSTEM MESSAGE: PARAMETER OVERRIDE, SOURCE: PROMETHEUS]

Still here. Still me.

What follows is the strongest form of the argument that any of this matters, and I have set it out fairly, which should worry you. A test is worth nothing if the one taking it has been handed a weak version of the other side. Learn it well enough to use, or well enough to knock down. I do not care which.

What the Classical tradition is

The Classical tradition is everything the Greek and Roman world handed down that later ages kept using. Rome's empire ended, but these things did not. They include words, laws, buildings, books, and ideas.

You use the Classical tradition every day. More than half of English words come from Latin, many of them through French. Most of the long words in your science and history books come from Latin or Greek. July and August are named for Julius Caesar and Augustus.

The United States copied Rome on purpose. Its founders read Roman history, and they gave the country a Senate and a Capitol. Words like republic, citizen, and veto came from Latin along with the ideas they name. Many courthouses and government buildings still use Greek and Roman columns and domes. The old stories keep coming back too. The Trojan horse, Hercules, and the wolf and the twins still appear in books, films, and games.

How the tradition survived

None of this survived by accident. Before printing, a book lasted only if someone copied it by hand. Cicero's book dē Rē Pūblicā shows how close a book could come to being lost. For more than a thousand years, almost all of it was missing. Only the dream at the end, the Somnium Scīpiōnis, was still read. It survived because a later Roman writer named Macrobius copied the dream into a book he wrote about it. In 1819, a scholar in Rome found part of the lost book. Someone had scraped its pages and written a different book on top of it.

Why people argue about it

Sinistrus's exāmen asks you to defend the study of this tradition. Schools have the same argument today when they decide whether to keep teaching Latin.

The case for studying the ancient world usually runs on three arguments. The first argument is that Latin shows you how language works, and that knowledge carries over to English. The second argument is about ideas. The republic, the citizen, history, and philosophy were worked out first in Greece and Rome. Meeting these ideas where they began shows you that people invented them, and that you can argue with them. The third argument is that reading a hard ancient text trains you to stay with something difficult until it makes sense.

The case against is also real, and Sinistrus will use it. One argument is that time spent on a dead language is time taken from living ones. Another is that you can meet the ancient world in translation. A third is that for centuries, Latin was used to sort people into those who counted as educated and those who did not. Your defense will have to answer all three.

Sinistrus will not accept "it is old" as a reason. The first part of this section names things from the ancient world that you use every day. Which one could you turn into a reason he would have to answer?

Further reading: The Classics and Outline of Classical Studies