The Fall of Troy & Indirect Statement
- Recognize and translate indirect statement (accusative + infinitive) after verbs of speaking and thinking
- Match the infinitive’s tense to relative time (before, same, after the main verb)
- Translate the narrative of the Trojan Horse and Laocoön from Book II
Aeneas tells the tale
Book II is Aeneas’s first-person narration to Dido of Troy’s last night — one of Latin literature’s most gripping passages. It opens with his reluctance: Īnfandum, rēgīna, iubēs renovāre dolōrem (“Unspeakable grief, O queen, you bid me renew”). Note īnfandum … dolōrem framing the line (hyperbaton) around the vocative rēgīna, and renovāre, a complementary infinitive with iubēs. The book’s emotional weight — a survivor forced to relive catastrophe — depends on grasping how Latin reports speech and thought, which is the grammar of this lesson.
Indirect statement: accusative + infinitive
When Latin reports what someone says, thinks, knows, or perceives, it uses indirect statement: the subject of the reported clause goes into the accusative, and its verb becomes an infinitive — no “that.” Compare direct Equus dolōs cēlat (“The horse hides tricks”) with indirect Crēdunt equum dolōs cēlāre (“They believe the horse to hide tricks” = “that the horse hides tricks”). The trigger is a “head verb” of speaking/thinking/perceiving. English needs “that”; Latin needs the accusative subject and infinitive. Spotting the head verb is the key to unlocking these sentences.
Tense of the infinitive shows relative time
The infinitive’s tense in indirect statement is relative to the main verb. A present infinitive = action at the same time as the head verb; a perfect infinitive = action before it; a future infinitive = action after it. So Dīcit Graecōs discēdere = “He says the Greeks are leaving” (same time); Dīcit Graecōs discessisse = “He says the Greeks left/have left” (before); Dīcit Graecōs discessūrōs esse = “He says the Greeks will leave” (after). This relativity is essential: mistranslate the infinitive’s tense and you misplace the event in time.
Analyze the indirect statement and translate: “Crēdimus … avectōs (esse) Danaōs” (“We believed the Greeks had sailed away”), from the Trojans’ fatal misreading of the horse.
- 1.Identify the head verb: “crēdimus” (“we believe/believed”) is a verb of thinking, which triggers indirect statement.
- 2.Find the accusative subject of the reported clause: “Danaōs” (accusative plural, “the Greeks”).
- 3.Find the infinitive: “avectōs (esse),” the perfect passive infinitive of “aveho” used reflexively (“to have sailed away”).
- 4.Because the infinitive is perfect, the sailing happened BEFORE the believing: “We believed that the Greeks had sailed away.”
Do not translate the accusative subject of an indirect statement as a direct object. In putat hostēs venīre, hostēs is the subject of “to come,” so it means “he thinks that the enemy are coming,” not “he thinks the enemy.” The presence of an infinitive is your signal to switch from “object” to “subject of the reported clause.”
What two grammatical features signal an indirect statement in Latin?
When a passage contains a verb like dīcō, putō, crēdō, videō, sciō, spērō, expect indirect statement to follow. Translate the head verb, insert “that,” make the accusative the new subject, and render the infinitive by its relative tense. This template handles the majority of AP indirect-statement questions.
In “Nūntiat Danaōs urbem oppugnātūrōs esse,” how should the infinitive be translated relative to “nūntiat”?
Answer the 2 checkpoints as you read.
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