Of course, as the book progresses, you do encounter ablative absolutes and subjunctives and such. |
It's about a lawyer circa 70BC, familiar to Latin students more for his ablative absolutes than his crowd-pulling charisma. |
Most ablative absolutes are best translated with clauses introduced by when, although, since, or if. |
The commentaries are not at all what they seem to the student puzzling over the ablative absolutes and indirect discourse. |
I don't believe in absolutes but I do believe in an idea that is agreed as wrong within a society. |
As in the abortion debate, a little awareness of ethics will make us mistrustful of sound-bite-sized absolutes. |