Latin 7: King Tarquinius

Before having read any of this Latin language material, I was not familiar with the evil king Tarquinius. Tarquinius was an Estruscan, but he was also king over the Romans.

I am going to pull a small excerpt from the reading in Lectio Tertia in the book Latin By The Natural Method 1:

In primis annis Romani habuerunt reges. Reges fuerent Estruci. Estrusci erant in throno Romano. Estruci regnaverunt in terra Romana.

This passage seems to translate to the following:

In the first years the Romans had kings. The kings were Estrucans. The Estrucans were in the Roman throne. Estrucans reigned in the land of Rome.

Again, if my translation is off, just let me know, so I can correct it. I'm not claiming to be some Latin expert, I am just enjoying what I am learning, and hoping to gain some meaning from what has been written.

I like this next part:

Primi reges fuerent boni. Sed rex ultimus fuit malus. Hic rex ultimus fuit Tarquinius. Romani non amaverunt Tarquinium.

Alright, so the first part "primi reges," I was unsure if this meant "the first kings," or the "first king." However, the verb "fuerunt" seems to indicate that this is a plural. So I think this is saying the "the first kings were good." Then we get:

But the last king was bad. This last king was Tarquinius. The Romans did not love Tarquinius.

It is interesting to me that a name, in this case Tarquinius, can change forms whether it is in the nominative form or the accusative form. So if Tarquinius is the subject, it is Tarquinius. If he is the object of the sentence, it is Tarquinium.

Another observation, the word "malus," according to the book, means "bad." This word seems to be close with our English word "malice," which also means "bad." So we can see some direct ties back into some of the Latin roots that we use today. Apparently due to the Norman conquest, we have been given lots of Latin and French words.

Side note; there are people who attempt to use the pure Anglo-Saxon or Germanic version of English, and avoid using the French words that were brought in. I don't remember the group or the term for this, possibly just "purists." An AI search yields the concept in this example:

Examples of Word Choices:

• Instead of "purchase, they might use "buy."
• Instead of "assist," they might use "help."
• Instead of "transportation," they might use "carrying" or "moving."

I haven't looked into those exact words, but you get the point. I think I read one time that many of our words with multiple syllables probably come from one of these non-Germanic sources.

Valete!

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