Ablative of Separation
When Cicero writes that Oedipus oculīs sē prīvāvit — "deprived himself of his eyes" — oculīs is the ablative of separation: the thing the subject is parted from, freed from, or deprived of. It's the figurative cousin of place from which: same form, but the motion is out of an abstraction or possession rather than out of a location.
"from X", "of X", "free of X" — figurative removal.
Separation is the figurative cousin of place from which. The form is identical; what differs is whether the noun names a location (place) or an abstraction / possession (separation).
See It In Action
— A&G §401
prīvō is one of the canonical separation verbs — "I deprive (someone) of something." The thing the subject is parted from goes in the bare ablative. Notice the English needs "of" while Latin uses no preposition.
— common Caesar / Cicero idiom
līberō with the bare ablative for the thing one is freed from. The construction echoes English "freed from" — but Latin omits the preposition where English keeps one. This is the figurative-motion ablative: no physical place, just a state being escaped.
Close twins. Both can show up as ab / ex / dē + abl. or as a bare ablative. The difference is what the noun names.
figurative removal — fear, eyes, kingdom, attempt, debt; the thing one is deprived of or freed from
metū līberī sumus
"we are free from fear"
physical motion — city, mountain, river, region; the location one moves out of
ex urbe profectus est
"he set out from the city"
Tip: Ask: is the ablative a physical place? Then it's place from which (with the §427 town-name preposition-drop). Is it an abstraction or possession (fear, eyes, kingdom)? Then it's separation. The verb often disambiguates: līberō / prīvō / careō → separation; prōficīscor / discēdō / ēgredior → place from which.
In metū līberātī sumus, why is metū in the ablative without a preposition?
Study Tips
- •Memorize the verb-set first: līberō, prīvō, careō, egeō, indigeō, vacō, abstineō, dēsistō, dēsinō. Plus the impersonal interdīcō ("forbid X to Y," with the thing forbidden in the ablative).
- •Adjectives of freedom and want trigger the ablative too: līber, vacuus, expers, plēnus (sometimes), immūnis. vacuus metū "free from fear," līber cūrīs "free of cares."
- •Compounds with ā / ab / dē / ex split based on usage: figurative takes the bare ablative (cōnātū dēsistere "to give up the attempt"); literal motion requires the preposition again (ex castrīs ēgressus "having gone out from camp").
- •Separation vs. place from which: the form converges. Separation is figurative (fear, eyes, kingdom, debt); place from which is physical (city, mountain, river).