APPENDICES 141
II.— HOW TO TRANSLATE ENGLISH PREPOSITIONS INTO LATIN.
Where EngHsh has a Prcposition Latin generally has one also.
Most of these Latin Prepositions take the Accusative Case, but
sonie of them (especially ab or ^, ciint, de, ex, in whcn it means
- in' or 'on,' pro, suh when it means 'under,' and sine^ take the
Ablative : it should be noted that no Latin Prepositions take the
Dative or the Genitive. But it has been scen that 'of is generally
expressed by the Genitive alone, and ' to ' very often by the Dative
alone; also that 'from,' 'at,' 'in,' ' with,' 'by,' and ' by means of
are sometimes expressed by the Ablative alone. The foUowing
rules, based upon examples wliich have occurred in this book,
will give some guidance as to when the above Prepositions are to
be translated by Prepositions in Latin and when by a Case without
any Preposition; but the rules are only an outline, to be fiUcd up by
future reading, and they deal only with the most important usages.
OF is generally translated by the Genitive, as in ' the door of
the country-house,' ianua villae (§1), *the courage of sailors,'
audacia jtautarum (§2), ' traces of the Romans,' vesiigia Roman-
orum (§9), 'a task of great labour,' ^/>«,y viagni laboris ( = 'very
laborious,' §31), 'an abundance of plants,' copia planiarum (§3), 'a
great number of coins,' magnus numerus nuinmorum (§9).^
But (i.) in such phrases as 'some of,' ' many of,' the 'of ' may be
translated by ex with the Ablative; thus 'some of the
vessels ' may be translated nonnulla ex navigiis (§ 1 1),
- many of the tribes,' jnulti ex populis (§ 1 8).
(ii.) when the phrase ' of ' describes a quality of the
person or thing spoken of, it is sometimes translated by the Ablative without a Preposition ; thus 'men of robust body' is homines robusto corpore (§30) : cf. § 43, note on p. 99.
' It may be noted that the ' of ' in many of these examples does not denote possession.
