Thanks for the help. Just one question about the second translation: you said that
To the king is: regi, on its own.
But I thought that if the sentence has a personal agent, then it has to be preceded by preposition a/ab? So shouldn’t it be “Agri veteres a regi dati erunt”?
Thanks for the help. Just one question about the second translation: you said that
To the king is: regi, on its own.
But I thought that if the sentence has a personal agent, then it has to be preceded by preposition a/ab? So shouldn’t it be “Agri veteres a regi dati erunt”?
Ab of course takes the ablative, so you could never have “a regi” together. A roman would think that is as ungrammatical as “The man was hit by he”.
Ab rege: by the king (personal agent)
regi: to the king (indirect object)
If you wanted to say the old fields will have been given by the bad farmer to the king you would say:
Agri veteres = the old fields
a malo agricola = by the bad farmer
regi = to the king
dati erunt = will have been given.
In truth, your sentence contains no personal agent, just an indirect object.