"Horatius pontes multas horas defendebat" Please explain how you would translate this sentence.
- It is best to identify the Subject, Object and any Verbs of the sentence first.
2) In this instance the Subject, in the Nominative case, is Horatius, the Object, in the Accusative case, is pontes and the Verb is defendebat, which in this instance takes the imperfect tense meaning 'was x-ing.'
3) Translation time! We have identified that the Subject is Horatius. Now we must go to the verb which is being done by the Subject, 'defendebat' meaning 'was defending'. The Object is 'pontes' which is in the plural so translates to 'bridges'. We must now address any other words in the sentence. We can see by looking at the endings of 'multas horas' that these words are in the dative or ablative case plural. The dative case takes the meaning 'to' or 'for' and the ablative case taking the meaning of 'by, with' or 'from'. It would be silly to say the phrase 'to, by, with' or 'from many hours' so the best translation would be: "Horatius was defending the bridges for many hours.'
