Iulius magistrum suum non timebat, sed ipse a magistro timebatur!
Julius did not fear the teacher, but was himself feared by the teacher.
Julius was not afraid of the teacher, but the teacher was afraid of him.
In illo ludo discipuli a magistro timebantur.
In that school the teacher was feared by the students.
In that school the students were afraid of the teacher.
I’m confused by “feared by” which just doesn’t sound right. Could someone please check my translation and indicate whether I’m at least on the right track.
I’m also trying to wean myself off macrons - or is that too early at this stage?
In that school the students were feared by the teacher.
timebantur: imperfect, passive, third person plural.
discipuli: nominative, third person plural, subject of timebantur.
a magistro : ablative of the agent of the passive verb timebantur.
On macrons: I think that after you get confident with the forms, using the macrons, you’ll be able to read texts without them as well. And, the macrons definitely help in poetry.
I’m confused by “feared by” which just doesn’t sound right.
Hugh has answered your question and put you right on the second sentence, but to be clear: “the pupil fears the teacher” is active and “the teacher is feared by the pupil” is passive.
So in your first sentence you correctly translate " sed ipse a magistro timebatur" as a passive but then turn it into the active “but the teacher was afraid of him”. I am nor sure why you would want to do that. The Latin balances the two halves of the sentence as active / passive with an equal number of words in both. In English one is often advised to avoid passive forms as they can be somewhat cumbersome. In Latin its different and it seems a pity of lose the active/passive contrast in your translation as well as the full meaning of ipse.
In the second sentence you haven’t understood that the subject of timebantur is discipuli. Hugh’s analysis is correct.
It seems to me that you haven’t fully grasped the difference between active and passive and you might find it helpful to look in your textbook for some enlightenment. If you need help on this just ask again.
You put your finger on it: the English passive can sound awkward which is why I turned it into the active voice. But I take the point that by doing that one loses the full meaning and strays away from the Latin. As far as translating modern languages is concerned one often has to resort to transliteration rather than translation, but that doesn’t seem to quite work in Latin.
I actually did understand discipuli being the subject of timebantur. It was sheer carelessness and impatience which made me put down that nonsense.
I have also done the additional LL Exercitia Latina which provide plenty of practice on active and passive. And although I think I understand, I will have to go over it several times to make sure I recognise them straight away without having to think about it too much.