2
tense marker eats up the thematic vowel. So there’s no thematic vowel at all in third-conjugation
future.
But a thematic vowel returns in the imperative mood. The imperative singular in third
conjugation uses -e-. So for instance, the imperative singular of scribo is scribe (with a short ĕ)
meaning “Write!” But just to be perverse as far as I can tell, the plural uses -i- plus -te the ending
you would expect from first and second conjugation, producing scribite, “Y’all write!” And as if
that weren’t enough there are four irregular verbs, two of them third-conjugation, which have
irregular imperative singulars, dico, duco, fero, and facio, producing four imperative forms
which, said one after another, sound like a nursery rhyme: dic, duc, fac, fer … “gently down the
stream…”
Finally in comparison with all that, the infinitive will look like an old friend. It uses a -e-
thematic vowel producing an ending -ere as in scribere “to write.”
Let’s end this lesson by looking at the vocabulary in Chapter 8.
The first word is copia, copiae, f., meaning “abundance” or “supply.” It’s a first-declension
feminine noun. Like mores and animi the plural of this word provides insight into Roman
psychology and society. The plural, which means literally “supplies,” meant to the Romans
“troops, forces.” That shows what they cared about being supplied with an assumption that drips
with a militarism that made the Romans the success and the terror they were in the ancient world.
The next word, ratio, rationis, f., is a third-declension feminine noun meaning “calculation,”
“reason,” “judgment,” “consideration,” “system,” “manner,” and “method,” an impressive array
of definitions which become comprehensible when you look at the etymological meaning of the
word: ra- means “reckoning” and -tio means “the process of.” So the word means “the process of
making any kind of reckoning,” in particular, a calculation which of course involves reason. If
it’s ethical then “judgment” which entails careful consideration and a systematic manner and
method of proceeding. To the Romans it really was a very simple word; it meant “what you do in
your mind when you add up 1 and 1 and get 2.” Let’s practice a little rationem. What would be
the genitive plural of this word? Remember, it’s third declension. That’s better: rationum.
The next two words are prepositions.
The first one, ad, means “to,” “toward,” “up to” or “near to.” And its object is always in the
accusative case. So if you wanted to say, for instance, “toward the fatherland,” as in, “I looked
toward the fatherland,” you would say ad patriam.
The second preposition, e or ex, means the opposite, “out of,” “from,” and also, “by reason of,”
“on account of.” It takes an ablative object. The forms e and ex are interchangeable. So a Roman
could say e patriā or ex patriā and in either case mean, “from the fatherland.” “From” is the
literal meaning of ex but ex also has a figurative meaning, “by reason of,” or “on account of,” a
sense it shares with our preposition “out of,” as in, “They did it out of fear,” meaning “on
account of fear.” For this preposition to have this sense the object must be an abstract noun. So