Expert: Maria - 8/10/2010

Question
Hi,

I am writing a book and would like to translate a phrase into Latin:

"King Leonidas' 300 held many!"
"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories. "

Are you able to help?

Thanks

Answer
Hello,

here’s the translation you asked me:

“Rex Leonidas eiusque trecenti milites multis restiterunt hostibus!
“Nosce te ipsum, nosce hostem. Mille proelia, mille victoriae!”

See below for grammatical analysis.

Best regards,
Maria
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GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

-King = REX (nominative, 3rd.declension)

-Leonidas = LEONIDAS (nominative, 1st.declension)

-300  = EIUSQUE TRECENTI MILITES . Note that Latin says “King Leonidas and his 300 soldiers”

-held = RESTITERUNT (past tense of RESISTO which takes the dative case)

-many = MULTIS (dative plural of MULTUS) HOSTIBUS ( dative plural of HOSTIS, enemy, 3rd.declension)

-Know = NOSCE (2nd.person singular, imperative of NOSCO)

-thy = TE (direct object, accusative of the 2nd. Person pronoun)

-self = IPSUM (accusative of  IPSE, agreed with TE)

-know =NOSCE (see above)

-thy =TUUM (accusative masculine singular of the possessive adjective TUUS agreed with HOSTEM)

-enemy = HOSTEM (direct object, accusative of HOSTIS)

-A thousand = MILLE (cardinal number)

-battles = PROELIA (nominative plural of the neuter noun PROELIUM, 2nd.declension)

-a thousand = MILLE (see above)

-victories = VICTORIAE (nominative plural of the feminine noun VICTORIA, 1st.declension)

As you can see, Latin word order can be different from English as Latin  is an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings of each term, not by the order of the words.