I have read that fore is used for “futurum esse” but how do you
know when to use one or the other?
Would the following sentences be translated in the same way? :
\
Also, would “Dixi eum futurum esse tutum” be the same as sentence one?
Usage of fore:
My grammar informs me that fore is a one word alternative to the future infinitive ‘futurum esse’. I’ve never seen it.
There is also a second usage - an alternative to using the normally unacceptable future passive infinitive (amatum iri).
When you would normally use the future passive imperative (for example, in indirect statement), you can use a periphrasis instead:
Dicit fore ut castra capiantur (He says the camp will be captured)
Dixit fore ut castra caperentur (He said the camp would be captured)
That’s the present and imperfect subjunctive respectively. Using this is, as you might imagine, compulsory whereever the verb has no fourth principal part.
If you’re trying to say ‘I said he would be protected’, then you can say:
Dixit fore ut eum tutaretur.
or, rare and perhaps impossible:
Dixit eum tutatum iri
I’m reasonably certain those conjugations are correct - other members of this board, who are more than capable of correcting me, may expand on this explanation.
the fore ut construction can also be used to facilitate a future meaning in indirect discourse for verbs that lack a future participle, such as posse and fieri. fore is identical to and can be replaced by futurum esse, though fore may be more loosely used.
I came across this passage in Cornelios Nepos’ Life of Hannibal and am wondering how the dative/ablative magno praemio might fit with fore here
“MAGNO IIS POLLICETUR PRAEMIO FORE”
I thought perhaps “a great prize would be promised to them”, but this doesn’t match the case endings very well.
quem [i.e., regem Eumenem] si aut cepissent aut interfecissent, magno iis pollicetur praemio fore.
magno praemio is ablative of “price” or “value”. “If they took captive or killed the king, it was promised that it would be of great value to them” i.e., a promise was made to them that the killing or capture of the king would fetch them a big reward.
iis could go either with pollicetur (historic present; “it was promised to them”) or fore (“it would be of great value to them”).