LATIN DICTIONARYLexicon Latīnum
Allen & Greenough · Part Second — Syntax › Syntax of the Verb

§474. Tenses of the Indicative

The Perfect is sometimes used emphatically to denote that a thing or condition of things that once existed no longer exists:

  • fuit ista quondam in hāc rē pūblicā virtūs (Cat. 1.3), there was once such virtue in this commonwealth.
  • habuit, nōn habet (Tusc. 1.87), he had, he has no longer.
  • fīlium habeō ... immo habuī; nunc habeam necne incertumst (Ter. Haut. 93), I have a son, no, I had one; whether I have now or not is uncertain.
  • fuimus Trōes, fuit īlium (Aen. 2.325), we have ceased to be Trojans, Troy is no more.

Special Uses of the Perfect

J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn, 1903). Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.