 An ablative absolute is a dependent participial construction consisting of two or more words, usually a noun/pronoun and a participle, both in the ablative case, that are grammatically independent of the rest of the sentence.  Essentially, this means that the noun or pronoun in the ablative absolute CANNOT be referred to elsewhere in the sentence!!

 Based on the definition, which of these sentences CANNOT be an ablative absolute? 1) After the city was captured, the people rejoiced. 2) With Caesar as dictator, the Roman people feared Caesar. 3) With the enemies having been defeated, the soldiers cheered. 4) Since the students had done well, the teacher gave thanks.

 Based on the definition, which of these sentences CANNOT be an ablative absolute? 2) With Caesar as dictator, the Roman people feared Caesar. Since the word “Caesar” is repeated, the Romans would NOT use this as an ablative absolute.

Noun (Pronoun) + Perfect Passive Participle Urbe captā, Militibus victīs Noun + Present Active Participle Imperatore contradicente, poētā scribente 2 nouns Caesare duce, Tē consule

There are several ways to translate Ablative Absolutes. The first way to learn is the “vanilla” way…it’s kind of like playing Mad Libs. (In case I am getting older than I thought and you guys don’t know what Mad Libs are, they’re sort of a game in which you pick words at random to make funny stories) Let’s look at the ablative absolute “urbe captā” again. The vanilla way to translate this is “With the (noun) having been (verbed),” so in this case we would say “With the city having been captured.”

There are other ways that urbe captā can be translated apart from “with the city having been captured.” Ablative absolutes can be given different kinds of denotation, as seen below. Temporal – When the city had been captured … Causal – Since the city had been captured … Conditional – If the city had been captured … Concessive (less common) – Although the city had been captured …

 Translate the ablative absolute below into English in THREE different ways…  Latinā ā novō magistrō pulchrō hodiē doctā…

Translation for an ablative absolute that contains a present participle is very similar. Let’s look at “Virō fatuō imperium tenente.” Possible Translations 1) With a foolish man holding the power 2) When a foolish man holds power 3) Since a foolish man holds power 4) If a foolish man holds power 5) Although a foolish man holds power Look to the main clause of the sentence to determine the best translation, keeping in mind that there may not be one definitive right answer.

Why would it be possible for two nouns to comprise an ablative absolute? HINT!! Think of a phrase like “With Hadrian being the emperor.” That would be an ablative absolute in Latin. The Latin verb sum does not have a present participle, therefore the English word “being” is implied only, and will not be found in a Latin sentence.

Therefore, to say “With Hadrian being the emperor,” we simply put the name “Hadrian” and the noun “emperor” in the ablative case. Hadrianō imperatore Some similar examples from Latin literature …mē duce, carpe viam! (Ovid, Met ) …quamquam nec sapienter et me invito facit (Cicero, Pro Caelio, 7.16

In English, a pretty common thing to say might be, “Having finished the race, the athlete cried.” How would we say this in Latin? You got it. An ablative absolute. But, what’s the problem there? How do we form a perfect active participle?

YOU DON’T!!!

 Latin does not have a perfect active participle, so we must use an ablative absolute and a perfect passive participle. Let’s look at our example again…  “Having finished the race, the athlete cried”  Since the only perfect participle available to us is a perfect passive participle, we have to re-word the sentence in a passive way, so…

With the race having been finished, the athlete cried, or… Cursū perfectō, athlēta flēvit.