A construction confusion

Latin Learning Latin
1

I have a little problem.Ive come accross one sentence in Ciceros text Tusculanae Disputationes and I`m not sure would sentence

Traditum est Homerum caecum fuisse

be NCI or ACI.I first tought that it is NCI because Traditum est is in perfect passive but when I expected to see a noun in Nominative I see Homerum caecum and it is in Accusative.So I translated it as a Accusative with infinitive,but I would ask if somebody can explain me how can a verb in passive be in a ACI construction.



P.S.Im pretty sure that I recognized the ˝Traditum est ˝wrong but I still consider myself as a begginer so Ill be ashamed just a little :blush:

2

Traditum est is impersonal. That’s why you will not find a nominative.

Well, I guess, fuisse is a nominative of a verbal noun. But in English you will have a construction with “it”.

3

Well Nitrogen Chloride would have to be NCl3 for a start. I don’t know whether the name would still be the same with Cl3. Can some one elaborate on this ?

4

Traditum esse introduces the indirect statement “Homerum… blah, blah.” The entire clause is treated as a neuter singualr noun, hence the “traditum.”

5

In other words, “it has been passed down (that…)”