Salvēte, sodālēs.
Up until now, I haven’t commented on the name of Capitulum Prīmum, which is Imperium Rōmānum. It may surprise you to know that imperium in ancient Rome was a type of authority, and only gradually came to mean ‘empire’.
Similarly, a prōvincia began life as a realm of responsibility (it could be for water supply to Rome, for example), and only gradually came to mean ‘province’ after magistrates where given geographical regions as their prōvinciae. You may already know that the French region of Provence takes its name from its earlier role as a prōvincia Rōmāna.
All of which I mention as a preamble to today’s reading, lines 55-61 of Capitulum Prīmum.
Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata : Capitulum Primum : lines 55-61. To be fair to the publisher, after Capitulum Secundum extracts will not be given - you will need a copy of the textbook of your own.
Note: Way back in Lesson Six, we saw that nouns change their endings when following the word in; Italia became in Italiā and Eurōpa became in Eurōpå. This is true of all -a nouns. Here we learn that -um nouns (and the adjectives describing them) also change their endings after in, but to -ō. In imperiō Rōmānō multae sunt prōvinciae.
Well, this brings us to the end of the geographical outline contained in Capitulō Prīmō. Capitulum Prīmum continues, however, with an introduction to litterae (letters) and numerī (numbers). We’ll get to that in a few lessons time. For now, I recommend rereading the sections on geography as often as you are able.
Satis est. See you next time.