(a) Why this lesson exists
Pliny's ghost letter (7.27) and his Vesuvius narrative (6.20) are both reported worlds: things heard, claimed, believed, denied. Latin marks every one of those claims with the same machine — accusative subject + infinitive verb — and then grades the claim's time with the infinitive's tense. Misread the machine and you'll attribute the wrong claim to the wrong person at the wrong time; the MC section is full of questions engineered to catch exactly that. Master one rule and its three dials:
The rule: a verb of saying/thinking/perceiving/hearing (dico, puto, credo, audio, scio, video, ais, narro) launches an indirect statement: its subject goes accusative, its verb becomes an infinitive.
The three dials:
| Infinitive | Time relative to the head verb | Example |
|---|---|---|
| present (esse, accipere) | same time | "ghosts exist" (now, as I wonder) |
| perfect (accidisse, adductum [esse]) | before | "it happened to Curtius Rufus" |
| future (iturum [esse], moriturum [esse]) | after | "you will go to Rome … will die there" |
One luxury feature: Latin loves dropping esse from perfect and future infinitives — iturum alone = iturum esse. The participle's case (accusative!) and the reporting verb tell you it's an infinitive in disguise.
(b) Drilled on your syllabus
Set 1 — Ep. 7.27.1: Pliny poses THE question to Sura.
Igitur perquam velim scire, esse phantasmata et habere propriam figuram numenque aliquod putes an inania et vana ex metu nostro imaginem accipere.
1. Find the head verb that launches the indirect statements. (Careful — there are two layers: velim scire … putes is an indirect question; the OO hangs from putes.) 2. First alternative: what is the subject-accusative, and what are its three infinitive claims? 3. Second alternative (an inania et vana … accipere): what do the ghosts do in this version — and what's the force of ex metu nostro? 4. Translate the whole sentence, keeping the two rival theories distinct.
Set 2 — Ep. 7.27.2: the ghost's prophecy to Curtius Rufus. The apparition — Africa herself — speaks his entire future:
Ego ut esse credam in primis eo ducor, quod audio accidisse Curtio Rufo. … Africam se futurorum praenuntiam dixit: iturum enim Romam honoresque gesturum, atque etiam cum summo imperio in eandem provinciam reversurum, ibique moriturum.
5. audio accidisse Curtio Rufo — tense of the infinitive and why; what's the (unexpressed) subject of accidisse? 6. Africam se futurorum praenuntiam dixit — there are two accusatives here, Africam and se. Who is the subject of the indirect statement, and who is the predicate? Whom does se refer to? (This is the hardest, most testable line in the letter.) 7. iturum … gesturum … reversurum … moriturum — parse the construction. What single word has Pliny omitted four times, and why is the future tense the whole point? 8. §3: eadem figura in litore occurrisse narratur. This one is different: figura is nominative. What construction is this, and how does it differ from the accusative pattern?
Set 3 — Ep. 6.20.1–3: reported fear.
Ais te adductum litteris … cupere cognoscere, quos ego Miseni relictus … pertulerim. … illa vero nocte ita invaluit, ut non moveri omnia sed verti crederentur.
9. Ais te adductum … cupere — unpack the chain: who says, who was persuaded, who desires? Which esse is omitted? 10. ut non moveri omnia sed verti crederentur — inside this result clause hides a passive version of indirect statement. What were "all things believed to be doing," and why is the contrast moveri/verti the scariest detail in the sentence?
Set 4 — Vergil does it in two words (Aen. 2.43–44):
creditis avectos hostis? aut ulla putatis dona carere dolis Danaum?
11. creditis avectos hostis — subject-accusative, infinitive (what's omitted?), and time-value. Why does the perfect infinitive carry Laocoön's sarcasm?
(c) The trap gallery
- The two-accusative ambush (#6's pattern): with verbs of saying, se always refers back to the speaker of the head verb's clause — the ghost says that she herself (se) is Africa… no — check the key. When two accusatives flank an understood esse, decide who's subject and who's predicate from sense and from se's reflexive rule. The exam builds distractors from every wrong pairing.
- The vanished esse: avectos [esse], adductum [esse], iturum [esse] — an accusative participle after a verb of saying is almost never "just a participle." Supply esse first; ask questions later.
- Accusative vs. nominative reporting: narratur with a nominative subject (#8) is the personal passive ("she is said to have…"); the same idea with narrant would take accusative + infinitive. Both are syllabus-attested; both are tested.
(d) Summary drill (skill 1.C)
One English sentence each: (i) the two theories of ghosts in 7.27.1; (ii) the Curtius Rufus story (7.27.2–3) — prophecy and fulfillment; (iii) what Tacitus asked for, per 6.20.1.
(e) Answer key
1. putes ("do you think…?") launches the OO; it itself sits inside the indirect question governed by velim scire ("I'd very much like to know whether you think…"). Layered reporting — Pliny's signature. 2. Subject-accusative: phantasmata. Claims: esse ("exist"), habere propriam figuram ("have a shape of their own"), [habere] numenque aliquod ("and some divine power"). Three predicates, one accusative subject. 3. They are inania et vana ("empty and unreal") and merely imaginem accipere — "receive their image from our fear" (ex metu nostro, source/cause). Theory two: ghosts are projections. 4. "And so I would very much like to know whether you think that ghosts exist and have their own shape and some divine power, or that they are empty, unreal things that take their image from our fear." (Two theories, cleanly opposed: the whole letter hangs on this sentence.) 5. Perfect infinitive — the event happened before Pliny's hearing of it: "I hear that (it) happened to Curtius Rufus." The subject is the understood id/hoc (the experience about to be narrated); Curtio Rufo is dative ("to/for Curtius Rufus"). 6. Head verb dixit; the speaker is the apparition. Subject-accusative: se (the apparition herself); predicate accusatives: Africam … futurorum praenuntiam: "she said that she was Africa, foreteller of his future." se is reflexive to the subject of dixit — the ghost. Wrong pairing ("he said that Africa…") wrecks the story: it's the apparition identifying herself. ⭐ Prime MC bait. 7. Four future active infinitives with esse omitted, still inside dixit: "(she said) that he would go to Rome, would hold offices, would return to that same province with supreme command, and would die there." Future tense IS the prophecy — the grammar performs the clairvoyance. (And facta sunt omnia — "all of it came true" — lands in three flat words.) 8. Personal passive (nominative + infinitive) with narratur: "the same figure is said to have appeared to him on the shore." Subject stays nominative because the reporting verb itself is passive. Compare: narrant figuram occurrisse (active head → accusative). 9. Chain: Ais ("you say") → te … cupere ("that you desire") → cognoscere ("to learn") — and te adductum [esse] litteris ("that you were persuaded by my letter"). Speaker: Tacitus (via Pliny's report of his letter). Omitted: esse after adductum. 10. "Things were believed not (just) to be shaking but to be turning over" — crederentur is the passive belief-verb, moveri/verti the passive infinitives. The contrast is the terror: shaking is an earthquake; turning over (verti) is the world capsizing. Pliny grades catastrophe by infinitive. 11. "Do you believe that the enemy has sailed away?" — hostis (= hostes) accusative subject, avectos [esse] perfect infinitive. The perfect is the sarcasm: the departure would be a completed, done fact — exactly what Laocoön thinks is absurd to assume.
Summary models (d): (i) "Pliny asks Sura whether ghosts are real beings with shape and power or empty images projected by our fear." (ii) "An apparition calling herself Africa foretold that Curtius Rufus would gain office, return to Africa with supreme command, and die there — and every detail came true." (iii) "Tacitus, moved by the first letter, asked Pliny to describe what he himself endured at Misenum."
⭐ Exam strategy: when an MC stem asks "according to the passage, who claims X?", the answer is decided by the head verb and se, not by word order. Find the verb of saying, trace se back to its subject, and only then read the answer choices — the wrong options are the other pairings.