HSC Latin Extension cheat sheet

Identify the main verb first; in prose the finite verb usually closes its clause, and every subordinate clause needs its own verb.

Map cases to function before translating: nominative subject, accusative direct object or motion towards, genitive possession or partitive, dative indirect object or agent with gerundive, ablative separation, means, or absolute.

Recognise ablative absolute as noun plus participle in the ablative agreeing in case, number, and gender; render as a subordinate clause with 'when', 'since', or 'after'.

Indirect statement uses accusative plus infinitive after verbs of saying, thinking, and perceiving; keep the tense of the infinitive relative to the main verb.

Purpose clauses take ut or ne plus the subjunctive; result clauses take ut or ut non with a correlative such as tam, ita, or tantus in the main clause.

Indirect questions are introduced by interrogative words such as quis, quid, cur, ubi, num and take the subjunctive; translate as a noun clause, not a question.

Cum clauses: cum plus imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive is usually circumstantial ('when', 'since'); cum plus present subjunctive is often adversative ('although').

Gerundive of obligation (passive periphrastic) with esse expresses necessity or duty: 'must be done'; the dative marks the person obliged.

Watch for historical infinitive in narrative prose, where a present infinitive replaces an imperfect indicative for vividness; translate as a past tense.

Read the line aloud to locate the metre; the ictus and the natural word accent often clash, and word order is shaped by metrical necessity.

Dactylic hexameter: six feet, each a dactyl (long-short-short) or spondee (long-long); the fifth foot is almost always a dactyl and the sixth a spondee.

Elegiac couplet: a hexameter followed by a pentameter, whose pattern is two half-feet, a long syllable, two half-feet, a long syllable.

Hyperbaton, the separation of an adjective from its noun across several words, is a deliberate emphasis device; reunite the pair before translating.

Enclitics -que, -ne, and -ve attach to the second word of a group, not necessarily the word they logically modify; attach them to the preceding word.

Apostrophe and invocation shift the addressee; identify who is being addressed in the vocative before assigning second-person verbs.

Ellipsis of esse is common in verse; supply the missing form of the verb to complete the sense.

Greek accusative plurals in -as and alternative genitive plurals in -um appear in verse for metrical convenience; treat them as standard case forms.

Syncopated perfect forms such as audisti for audivisti and contempsere for contempserunt are metrical contractions; expand them before translating.

Locate each passage within its book and poem; context of speaker, addressee, and narrative position governs the tone of the translation.

Track recurring imagery across the prescribed set, since examiners reward connections between passages rather than isolated observation.

Note shifts between narrative voice and character speech; direct speech often carries emotional and thematic weight that framing narrative does not.

Epic similes are introduced by qualis, velut, or ceu; identify the tenor (narrative situation) and vehicle (image) and state the point of contact.

In love elegy the servitium amoris and militia amoris motifs invert Roman values; flag them where the lover calls himself slave or soldier.

Divine intervention and prophecy in epic foreshadow later events; comment on how the narrator's foreknowledge shapes the reader's response.

Identify the metre and any metrical anomalies, such as a spondaic fifth foot or a hiatus, and connect them to emphasis or emotion.

Mark emphatic word placement, especially the first and last words of a line, which frame the sense of the hexameter.

Establish the historical or forensic occasion of each passage: whether it is a speech in court, a history, a letter, or a philosophical dialogue determines its rhetoric.

In Ciceronian periodic style, hold the main verb in suspense and identify the subordinate clauses nested within the period before rendering the whole.

Rhetorical questions, apostrophe, and praeteritio are argumentative moves, not decoration; state what each achieves in the passage.

Asyndeton (omitted conjunctions) quickens pace; polysyndeton (repeated conjunctions) slows and emphasises each item.

Tricolon and tricolon crescendo structure clauses in threes, often increasing in length; note the climax in the third member.

Historiography uses sententiae and speeches to characterise agents; assess whether the narrator endorses or ironises the speaker's words.

Anaphora and chiasmus are frequent in prose climaxes; identify the repeated opening words or the ABBA arrangement precisely.

Watch for rhetorical exaggeration and partisan framing in invective; distinguish the speaker's claim from the narrator's own judgement.

Dactylic hexameter feet: dactyl (- ∪ ∪) or spondee (- -); the caesura is a word break within a foot, most commonly after the first syllable of the third foot (penthemimeral).

A strong caesura after the fourth foot trochee is the hephthemimeral; a break after the first foot is trihemimeral.

Elision occurs when a word ending in a vowel or -m is followed by a word beginning with a vowel; the final syllable is not scanned.

Synizesis fuses two adjacent vowels into one syllable; diaeresis separates vowels normally pronounced together.

Elegiac pentameter is catalectic: it lacks the final syllable of the second half of the hexameter pattern.

Stylistic terms to name precisely: anaphora (repetition at clause start), chiasmus (ABBA), hyperbaton (displaced word order), zeugma (one verb governing disparate objects), hendiadys (one idea in two nouns).

Sound effects: alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia should be tied to sense, not merely listed.

Metrical rhythm can enact meaning, for example spondees slowing a line describing labour or a heavy gait, dactyls quickening motion.

Roman rhetorical education (the rhetor) trained students in the progymnasmata and declamation; this shapes the structure of literary speeches.

Clientela and patronus defined social obligation; poems and prefaces often negotiate patronage and gratitude.

Augustan ideology of pietas, auctoritas, and the Pax Augusta provides the frame for reading Virgil and Horace.

Intertextuality: identify the earlier model (Homer, Ennius, Callimachus, Lucretius) and state what the later poet changes, not merely echoes.

Recusatio is the poetic refusal of epic in favour of lighter genres; it signals generic positioning rather than modesty.

Roman religious practice, including sacrifice, augury, and the state cult, informs scenes of ritual and prodigy.

The recitatio and the circulation of texts among amici shaped how literature addressed its audience.

Chronology anchors: Cicero's consulship 63 BC, Caesar's dictatorship and death 44 BC, Actium 31 BC, and the Aeneid published after Virgil's death in 19 BC.