Four Wrong Answers to One Grammar Question

A: right case, wrong reason. quibus is dative plural, but not because it 'goes with erat'. In quibus nulla erat fuga the dative is a dative of possession: the thing possessed, fuga, is nominative and is the subject of erat, while the possessor stands in the dative. Translate 'who had no means of escape'. The same construction underlies est mihi liber, 'I have a book'. Partial credit at most, because the label is right and the analysis is not.

B: wrong case, wrong construction. An ablative of means needs a verb whose action is performed by means of the thing; here the verb is erat, a copula, which has no such action. The ending -ibus is shared by dative and ablative plural, so the case cannot be decided by shape. It is decided by the construction: fuga is nominative, erat links it to the relative, therefore the possessor is dative. 'With which there was no flight' is neither idiomatic English nor a possible Latin analysis.

C: wrong label, and the reason matters. expugnandum is a gerundive, not a gerund. The test is the presence of oppidum. A gerund is a verbal noun and does not take a direct object in the accusative in classical prose; where an object is present, Latin uses the gerundive agreeing with that object: ad oppidum expugnandum, 'to storm the town'. The form happens to look identical to the gerund's accusative, which is exactly why the decision must be made syntactically, not visually. The gerundive agrees with oppidum in case, number and gender: neuter singular accusative.

D: dictionary habit. profecti sunt is the perfect indicative of proficiscor, proficisci, profectus sum, a deponent: 'they set out'. proficio, proficere, profeci, profectum means 'make progress, accomplish' and does not yield profecti sunt in this sense. The error is choosing a lookalike lemma without checking the perfect stem and the deponency. Because D cites a real verb, the examiner can see the reasoning, but the mark is still lost.

Translation. 'When he said this, the soldiers ... set out.' Or 'while he was saying this'. The imperfect diceret supports either 'said' or 'was saying'; English narrative usually prefers the simple past.

The grammar. cum + imperfect subjunctive is a circumstantial clause. In past narrative the subjunctive is obligatory in a cum clause even when the sense is purely temporal, so the mood alone proves nothing about cause. 'Since' needs a positive reason from context: a main clause that is an inference, a reaction, or a consequence of what was said. Here the main clause, profecti sunt, is simply the next event, so the relation is temporal.

What the examiner wants. Not a lucky guess but a visible test. State the construction (cum + imperfect subjunctive, circumstantial), state the contextual evidence (main clause expresses the next action, not a consequence of the content of the speech), then commit. Candidates who write 'because he said this' without argument often lose the mark even when the translation is acceptable, because the reasoning cannot be seen.

Two further details worth marks. haec is neuter plural accusative, 'these things' or 'this'. The clause is subordinate, so it must not be turned into a main clause in English ('he said this and the soldiers set out' changes the emphasis and the syntax).

Why 'empire' is wrong. imperium is the power of command, particularly military authority, held by a magistrate. It is something a man holds, not a territory a state possesses; the territorial sense belongs to later Latin and to modern English. provincia is the sphere of duty or command assigned to a magistrate, not necessarily an annexed administrative region. So imperium ei provinciae dedit means 'he gave him command of that province' or 'he assigned that province to his command'.

The habit to replace it with. English words in -tion, -ment, -y and -e often descend from Latin with a narrowed or shifted sense: imperium to empire, provincia to province, consilium to council when it usually means plan or advice, res to thing when res publica means the state. The derivative is a clue to the general area of meaning, never to the specific one.

The three-question test. What verb governs the word? What case is it in and therefore what role does it play? Does the derivative fit that role in this sentence? If it does not, choose the institutional sense and add a brief gloss: 'command (military authority)'. Candidates lose marks not because they never learned the word but because they accepted the first English word that came to mind.