able to do this, I do not doubt- that the whole multitude would have turned to you.
(b) Adĕō aequă postŭlāstis ŭt ultrō vōbīs dĕferendă fŭĕrint you have asked things so fair that they would have been offered you without asking; ventum ĕrăt ĕō ŭt, sī admōtŭs extemplō exercĭtŭs fŏrĕt, căpī castră pŏtŭĕrint matters had come to this, that, if the army had been moved up at once, the camp would have been taken.
ORATIO OBLIQUA.
§ 421. Speeches and messages of any considerable length are not usually reported in the words of the speaker (called Direct Discourse), but in a peculiar form of indirect construction to which the name of ōrātiō obliquă' (or Indirect Discourse) is specially applied.
For the most part speeches (and messages) are reported by "third persons" (that is, not by the persons speaking or addressed at the time), and some time after their delivery.
Hence the changes involved in converting Direct Discourse (Ōrātiō Rēctă, O. R.) into Indirect Discourse are generally threefold,[1] and are due to—
(A) Change of Construction, Direct Quotation becoming indirect.
(B) Change of Person.
(C) Change of Time.
§ 422. (A) Changes of Construction. Finite Verbs are changed to the Subjunctive' or Infinitive (with Ace.) as follows:
Principal Sentences according to their kinds, § 109.
Statements. Always Infinitive.
Questions. Infinitive or Subjunctive.
Commands. Always Subjunctive.
Wishes. The Infinitive of a Verb of wishing with another Verb depending on it. See § 430, ex. (7).
Dependent Sentences. Always Subjunctive.
- ↑ See, however, § 429.
