Addressing magistrates

Latest revision as of 11:23, 26 April 2022

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A quick Latin guide about how to use Latin expressions correctly regarding magistracies.

You can learn to pronounce the names correctly of key magistrates and senators of Nova Roma using this audio guide. NOTE: You must right-click and download the .pps file first - do not try to open in Google Drive as the audio will not work.

When you go to Nova Roma and think about making your first public speech "O, consul...", the doubt comes: after the salve, what do you use?

Well, you must use the vocative case, in Latin, the case used to call people. Usually, the words we know are in the nominative case.

Another case you must have always in mind is the genitive case, i.e., "of something". For example, the house of the consul is "domus consulis". Domus is in the nominative, but consul is in the genitive.

Below you can find the magistracies in nominatives and genitives. Most of the words for magistracies, however, have the same vocative and nominative as well.

The tables are organized as nominative, genitive. Since some of the offices are from the fourth declension, and others are from the first declension, it will be easy to have them by memory soon after some time in NR. The vocative of all is the same as the nominative, except "Tribunus" (/SG/ male) that becomes "Tribune" in vocative.

• (SG) Consul, Consulis "consul", "of the consul"
• (PL) Consules, Consulum "consuls", "of the consuls"

• (SG) Praetor, Praetoris (male)
• (SG) Praetrix, Praetricis (female)
• (PL) Praetores, Praetorum (male, and this is used for a group from both sex)
• (PL) Praetrices, Praetricum (females only)

• (SG) Censor, Censoris
• (PL) Censores, Censorum

• (SG) Aedilis Curulis, Aedilis Curulis
• (PL) Aediles Curules, Aedilium Curulium

• (SG) Aedilis Plebis, Aedilis Plebis
• (PL) Aediles Plebis, Aedilium Plebis

• (SG) Quaestor, Quaestoris (male)
• (SG) Quaestrix, Quaestricis (female)
• (PL) Quaestores, Quaestorum (male, and this is used for a group from both sex)
• (PL) Quaestrices, Quaestricum (females only)

• (SG) Tribunus Plebis, Tribuni Plebis (male)
• (SG) Tribuna Plebis, Tribunae Plebis (female)
• (PL) Tribuni Plebis, Tribunorum Plebis (male, and this is used for a group from both sex)
• (PL) Tribunae Plebis, Tribunarum Plebis (females only)

Magistrates and magistracies

Another very frequent doubt is the difference in Latin between the magistrate and magistracy. We know we have the consul, and the consul holds the consulship, the praetor the praetorship, the tribune the tribunate. But for the Latin, see below:

• Consul, Consulatus
• Praetor, Praetura
• Censor, Censura
• Aedilis, Aedilitas
• Quaestor, Quaestura
• Tribunus, Tribunatus

N.B. Those ending in "-ura" are in the first declension, those ending in "-us" are in the fourth declension, and aedilitas is in the third declension(aedilitas, aedilitatis, f.).