# Verres, qui genere nobili natus erat, semper cupiditate potius quam uirtute agebat



## Buonaparte

Dear Forum,

My textbook translates: 'Verres, qui genere nobili natus erat, semper cupiditate potius quam uirtute agebat' as 'Verres, who was born of a noble family, always acted from lust, rather than from courage.'

My question is why is the imperfect indicative active, 'agebat', used instead of the perfect, 'egit'? I had thought that an intrinsic quality of the imperfect was a sense on incompleteness, whereas in this context 'acted' seems to be complete, and therefore would be more accurately made perfect, to me. No?

And likewise, when my textbook translates: 'Diodorus, who possessed many beautiful cups, had gone away from Lilybaeum to Rome.' as: 'Diodorus, qui multa pocula pulchra habebat, Lilybaeo Romam abierat', why does the translation use the the imperfect 'habebat' instead of the perfect 'habuit'?

As usual, all help is much appreciated. Buonaparte


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## modus.irrealis

Hi,



Buonaparte said:


> My question is why is the imperfect indicative active, 'agebat', used instead of the perfect, 'egit'? I had thought that an intrinsic quality of the imperfect was a sense on incompleteness, whereas in this context 'acted' seems to be complete, and therefore would be more accurately made perfect, to me. No?


In this case it's because you're not talking about a specific, definite time when Veres acted that way, but about what he was accustomed to do. In this case, you can think of the "incompleteness" as being the open-endedness (in terms of time) of his acting that way. Notice that in English you could have translated it as "would always act" and "would" used this way is a clear sign that Latin uses the imperfect.



> And likewise, when my textbook translates: 'Diodorus, who possessed many beautiful cups, had gone away from Lilybaeum to Rome.' as: 'Diodorus, qui multa pocula pulchra habebat, Lilybaeo Romam abierat', why does the translation use the the imperfect 'habebat' instead of the perfect 'habuit'?


Again, you this is because it's not referring to a specific, definite action, but rather you're making a statement that would be true for a period of time, but more importantly a period that's not precise (so again you can see this as being "incomplete" in some sense). This is generally true of verbs that refer to states and aren't really actions (verbs like "have", "know", "live") -- English uses the simple past but Latin will generally use the imperfect.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Right,  and Romance languages use the same imperfect to translate these forms for the reasons given by Modus .irrealis :for instance "agebat", "habebat  are translated into French  by "agissait", "possédait" .


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## Buonaparte

Thanks for the explanations. Yes, I do see a subtle sense of incompleteness now you've explained it, although it is easy to miss. Buonaparte


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## virgilio

Buonaparte,
                There is one way in which your "egit" might have been used by Latin authors in the same sense as the more usual "agebat" in the context concerned. That is, if "egit" was being used not as a present perfect but as an aorist. The Latin aorist tense had become all but  extinct by the classical period but still survived in a  3rd person plural form distinct from the present perfect:
e.g.
habuerunt (present perfect)    habuere (aorist)

The aorist (literally "limitless") tense is seen more often in Greek but Latin used it too:
e.g.
adsensere omnes et quae sibi quisque timebat
unius in miseri exitium conversa tulere
(Virgil, Aeneid 2)

The effect of an aorist 'timeless' (otherwise indistinguishable from an ordinary preterite) tense is to imply that what happened was bound to happen and would always continue to happen given the same concomitant circumstances - as is seen in the English:
"Faint heart never won fair lady"
(though it must be admitted that the adverb "never" does give the aorist tense a fair shove in the direction of "timelessness" here).

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Buonaparte

Forum,

So if I used the perfect, 'egit', instead of the imperfect indicative active, 'agebat', could it be translated? Or would it be nonsensical?

Buonaparte


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## virgilio

Buonaparte,
               Since it seems we are starting from a given Latin text, I must say that the Latin imperfect (agebat) is perfectly correct and absolutely normal, given the obvious meaning of the sentence. The verb "egit" could replace it *only* if it was intended by the speaker/writer not as a "perfect" tense but as an "aorist" tense.
What Latin text-books usually refer to as the "Perfect" tense came to do the work of two tenses (Present Perfect and Aorist), because it came to be felt by native Latin speakers that the language didn't need both. So the Present Perfect tense was left to handle the Aorist's portfolio, so to speak, as well as its own.
e.g.
scripsimus = "we have written" (Present Perfect) and "we wrote" (Aorist)

However, the 3rd person plural of the old obsolescent Aorist still popped up occasionally even in classical and post-classical Latin and we see that the Aorist 3rd person plural ending was "-ere", whereas the Present Perfect's corresponding form was "-erunt".
e.g.
laudaverunt - they have praised         laudavere - they praised.

Re your comment:"I had thought that an intrinsic quality of the imperfect was a sense on incompleteness, whereas in this context 'acted' seems to be complete, and therefore would be more accurately made perfect, to me. No?"

I think that your impression of completeness in the verb "acted" may arise from the fact that English verbs - like German verbs - have only two tenses (Present and Past) and all other time dimensions have to be accommodated by the use of paraphrases:
e.g.
"was acting"    "used to act"   "will write"   "have seen".

. Consequently, whereas Latin distinguishes its imperfect (continuing, habitual past actions or states) from its aorists (single "one-off" past actions), English often leaves that nicety to the imagination of the hearer/reader to work out for himself.
e.g.
When I had dined, I went to the cinema last evening.   (single act of going)
When I was a child, I went to the theatre every Thursday evening. (habitual act of going).

I suspect that you may, with respect, simply be mistaking an habitual "acted" for a single "acted".  

Best wishes
Virgilio


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## Buonaparte

Another fantastic explanation, Virgilio. Many thanks.


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