Please excuse this really simple grammer quest.

Latin Learning Latin
1

I’m almost embarrased to ask but somehow I got stuck on it whilst working through the
first four lessons in “Latin for Beginners” - even though it’s not an exercise.

In the following sentence,
“Caesar sent cavalry to the city with catapults.”

What is “with catapults” ?

By which I mean if “Caesar” is the subject(nominative) and “cavalry” the direct object(accusative)
and “to the city” the indirect object(dative) than “with calvary” ought to be ablative but what is it?
All I can say on my own is that it is “a preposition”. But I get a little confused (did that to myself :laughing: )
by thinking that the sentence could be worded as, “Caesar sent calvary and catapults to the city.” and
wouldn’t that mean there were two direct objects ?

Now that I look at it I could see where you might want to know - Is that the city with catapultsin it ?
Or the calvary with catapults to the city? :confused: It’s supposed to be the second one. So I guess this is
a pretty clumsy sentence but I’d still like an answer if you can.

I’d appreciate any help but please try not to laugh too loud.

TIA,

Cathexis

2

The catapults are for the cows.

You know… “Fetchez la vache”.

3

Mr. Biggus Dickus, use cum …plus the ablative. :smiley: Also the city is not the indirect object but motion toward. Us ad or in. If you were speaking to or giving something to Incontinentia Buttocks, you would need the indirect object. If something were moving in the direction of Buttocks, you would need ad or in, depending on the movement.

4

Ah-Ha !

Now that I look it up in my .pdf of BLD I clearly see I failed to understand
what was being taught in Lesson V, part 43, pg. 20. My problem wasn’t
in “with catapults”, but in “to the city”, so to speak.

At least I learned the lesson this time and won’t forget it. :wink:
Grateful thanks to you.

“Alms for an ex-leper!”,

Cathexis