Expert: Maria - 3/1/2006

Question
I have a speech on the fall of the roman empire coming up, and as part of the introduction, I would like to say "Rome was not built in a day, nor in a day did it fall." in latin, then go on with the Speech.  Please help me with this if you can.

                Gratefully,
                     Christopher Eric Carleton

Answer
Hello,

Here's the translation of "Rome was not built in a day, nor in a day did it fall" :

“Nec uno die condita  est Roma, nec uno cecidit die”.

Best regards,
Maria
___________________________________
NOTA BENE
-Rome = ROMA
-was …built = CONDITA  EST
-not = NEC
-in a day = UNO DIE (ablative of time)
-nor = NEC
-in a day =UNO DIE
-did it fall = CECIDIT

Finally I must add that  word order in Latin differs from English, as you can see.In fact word order  can be variable in Latin and often depends on writing style of an author.
This however is not a problem  as Latin declension by case gets everyone to  discern the case of a word.