# The whole of the army perished of fever



## Lamb67

The whole of army perished of fever
Totus excercitus febre periit

I am hesitating between 'periit'or ' perierunt' because unsure of the subject should govern which here. 

Comments ?

Thanks


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## Cagey

It seems the Romans might use either, depending on whether they were thinking of the army as a unit or as a collection of individual people.  In this case, I would use the plural (_perierunt_), reasoning that the soldiers died one by one, not all together at once time.

Others may have other views.  I do not, at the moment, have examples from classical Latin.

Edit: I just noticed the English sentence.  Could you check whether there is typo? Normal English would be: "The whole army ...." without "of".


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## Lamb67

No, my old book WAS first published in 1932, THE CLARENDON LATIN COURSE
My copy of it was printed in Great Britain in 1958.And the particular section I am practising on is Prepostion: of.


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## Cagey

Is it "the whole of _the_ army" with "the"?  

That is another possible English construction.  The one you have isn't. It is a mistake that someone made.

In any case, it won't affect your Latin version, which is correct.  "Totus exercitus" does mean _the whole of the army,_ or _the whole army_. 

I was just wondering because I noticed the grammatical error in the title and I was about to correct it.


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## Lamb67

Very sorry for my rushing things here.
Correct English : The whole of the army.....


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## Cagey

Thanks, for getting back on this.  I'll fix the title.


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