Latin · Chapter 10 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
The ablative absolute
Urbe capta, with the city having been captured - two words where English needs a clause. The construction Caesar built a career on, and the last big step to reading real Latin.
The short version
Two words in the ablative, standing outside the sentence
A noun in the ablative plus a participle agreeing with it, with no grammatical connection to the main clause: urbe capta, milites redierunt, once the city had been taken, the soldiers went back. The hard condition is the absolute part. The noun must have no other job in the sentence, so if it is already the subject or the object you want a plain agreeing participle instead. Caesar built his narrative out of these.
urbe capta
It works with no participle at all
Latin has no present participle of sum, so the construction runs on two nouns instead. Cicerone consule is in Cicero's consulship, Caesare duce is with Caesar in command, me puero is when I was a boy. Translating any of these well means refusing the literal version and picking a real English conjunction: when, after, because, although, or a plain and then.
me puero
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