Yes. If the final syllable of the original word is long, either by nature or by position after the enclitic has been added, then that final syllable -- now the penult -- is accented.

If the final syllable of the original word is short, and the word was previously accented on the penult, it keeps its original accent (now the antepenult).

If the final syllable of the original word is short, and the word was previously accented on the antepenult, the word keeps its original accent and adds a second, equal accent on the final syllable of the original word.

Note that the enclitic itself is never accented.

As with any other verb, "fui" refers to finished action; "eram" to action which may or may not be unfinished.

Fessa fui. I was tired. (And now I'm not.)
Fessa eram. I was tired. (And maybe I still am.)

The Romans used distributives when they spoke of a number of singular-expressed-as-plural things. Distributives are numbers that mean "one by one", "two by two", "three by three," etc.

Bernd's answer:

This letter made me wonder what these distributives are, after all!

I found ...

• singuli, -ae, -a (one-by-one; one each)
• bini, -ae, -a (two-by-two; two each; two in a group)
• terni (trini)
• quaterni
• etc.

So I guess "2 letters" translates as "binae litterae".

Meredith's answer:

*nods* They go up indefinitely, just like other numbers, always (except for "singuli", with a -ni ending in the masculine. They're declinable three-ending adjectives, masculine, feminine and neuter.

Viri singuli veniunt -- the men came one at a time.
Feminae ternae veniunt -- the women came in groups of three.
or, in the Noah's Ark story,
Animalia septena veniunt -- the animals came seven by seven.

Just to complicate matters further, Bennett's says that "uni" and "trini" would be used to modify plural form-singular meaning words instead of the more usual "singuli" and "terni".

Kirk's answer:

I would use "epistulae" for multiple postal letters, "epistula" for just one.

David Goldfarb's answer:

"alterius filae" looks to me like a genitive case. "RatiOnEs alterius filae" == "the other daughter's reasons".

David Goldfarb (goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu)'s answer:

David Goldfarb's answer:

David Goldfarb's answer:

It could be neuter plural either nominative or accusative, or it could be feminine singular nominative. I leave it to you to look at the sentence and figure out what makes the most sense. (Hint: "fuit" is a form of "sum"; stuff being compared in this way ['X is Y'] agrees in case, number, and gender.)

It's a possessive genitive, just as it is in English (that place's nature). Ablative of place would be used for "in that place", but not for something like this.

Joe Ireland's answer:

The imperfect tense of a verb sometimes has an "iterative" sense -- i.e. it reports something that happened on a recurring basis. The imperfect of "to send" most often means "was sending", but can also mean "used to send", or "kept sending".

Michael's answer:

Seneca was a Stoic philosopher, presenting his ideas on what makes a life one that he (and he hopes, we) could say that was lived well. It's one thing to live and just exist; another to live life to the fullest. -- as he would interpret it.

In his essay ("Dialogus"), "de brevitate vitae" (on the brevity of life -- c. 31 pages long), he leads up to the point that only a wise man or woman can be said to have truly lived. Now, this is a normative definition of what a constitutes living a "worthwhile life". Agree with it or not, we have to accept it as his view.

Section VII, line 10 of this essay reads in its entirety:

"non est itaque quod quemquam propter canos aut rugas putes diu vixisse : non ille diu vixit, sed diu fuit. quid enim, si illum multum putes navigasse quem saeva tempestas a portu exceptum huc et illuc tulit ac vicibus ventorum ex diverso furentium per eadem spatia in orbem egit? non ille multum navigavit, sed multum iactatus est."

[Preceding this (VII, 9) he is writing about men who enjoy all the pleasures of life without a thought to the next day. They eat like men who have already had their fill of food and drink; they devour even more than they have a desire for.]

Now for the *gist* of the translation of the above Latin:

VII, 10

"You can't think that just because a man has white hair and wrinkles that he has lived a long time : he hasn't *lived* for a long time; he merely *existed* for a long time. Would you say that a man has sailed for a long time simply because a furious storm seized him as he left port, tossing him here and there and turning him in circles in the same place? He hasn't *sailed* for a long time, but he has been tossed about a lot."

Well, this metaphor made a good deal of sense to the Romans. And, if anyone wishes to correct or improve on my translation, feel free to.

The problem with presenting the line in the subject title as a stand-alone SA is, as you all have pointed out, that it lacks context.

I hope this helps.

Eduardus' answer:

"Solum" here acts as an adverb not an adjective. There are many such accusative adverbial forms in Latin (multum, verum, etc.)

"Multus, -a, um" is an adjective, like any other, so it needs to agree with "sapientiam". And sapientia is singular just as wisdom is singular in English. We don't say "much wisdoms". Neither did the Romans.

Yes, dI is the subject of both verbs. But "nostrA" is an adjective modifying "urbe". It's feminine because "urbs" is feminine. When the object of a preposition is modified by an adjective, you'll often find that adjective placed right before the preposition.