Tenses in Indirect Discourse
Tense in ōrātiō oblīqua is RELATIVE, not absolute. The infinitive doesn't say when the action happened on the calendar — it says when it happened relative to the verb of saying. Present infinitive = same time. Perfect infinitive = before. Future infinitive = after.
So dīcit Caesarem venīre means "he says Caesar IS coming" but dīxit Caesarem venīre means "he said Caesar WAS coming" — same infinitive, different absolute time, because both report a simultaneous event.
Flip to dīxit Caesarem vēnisse and now Caesar's arrival is BEFORE Caesar's saying-it: "he said Caesar HAD come." English drags the tense back automatically ("said he was coming"); Latin doesn't, and that mismatch is the AP exam's favorite trap.
The one ragged edge: Latin has no future passive infinitive and no future infinitive for verbs without a supine.
For those, Latin substitutes futūrum esse ut (or fore ut) plus a subjunctive — the periphrasis that lets you say "that it will come about that…" when the form you'd want doesn't exist.
Infinitive tense marks WHEN relative to the saying, not when on the calendar. The fore ut periphrasis fills the gap when a true future infinitive can't be formed.
English shifts tense backward after "he said" ("said he WAS coming"); Latin does not. The infinitive stays the same — only the surrounding logic changes.
See It In Action
— B. G. i. 14
Two relative-time moves in one report. Ferre (present inf.) means "is/was bearing it" — same time as respondit. Accidissent (plpf. subj.) is a subordinate clause inside, prior to respondit and pulled into secondary sequence. English needs three different tenses to render what Latin handles with two.
— B. G. i. 34
Velle is a present infinitive even though mīsit is past — relative time, not absolute. The wishing happened at the same time as the sending; English flips it to past ("he wanted") because English can't keep an infinitive synced to a past main verb the way Latin does.
— B. G. i. 42
The pure fore ut periphrasis. Dēsistere is intransitive and has no clean future infinitive ("he-was-going-to-desist"), so Caesar reaches for fore ut + impf. subj. instead. Read it as "that-future" + subjunctive — the whole package equals one missing future infinitive.
— B. G. i. 3
Posse is technically present infinitive, but Latin reads it as future here — "that they will be able." A&G § 584. b flags this as routine: posse sidesteps the need for a true future infinitive by leaning on the verb's natural "about-to" semantics.
"that X is/was [doing / being done] Y" — simultaneous with the verb of saying, whatever tense that verb is
dīcit / dīxit Caesarem venīre = "he says Caesar is coming" / "he said Caesar was coming"
"that X did / has done / had done Y" — prior to the verb of saying; pick the English past tense from context
dīxit Caesarem vēnisse = "he said Caesar had come" (or "came," or "was coming" — vēnisse covers all)
"that X will / would do Y" — subsequent to the verb of saying; the form is the same after primary or secondary main verbs
dīcit / dīxit Caesarem ventūrum esse = "he says/said Caesar will/would come"
"that it will come about that X…" — used when a clean future infinitive can't be formed (passive future, defective verbs)
veniēbat in spem fore uti pertinaciā dēsisteret (B. G. i. 42) — "he came into the hope that (Ariovistus) would give up his stubbornness"
Latin's infinitive tense locks to the verb of saying. English's "that"-clause locks to the moment of speaking. Same event, different anchor.
infinitive's tense = position relative to verb of saying
dīxit Caesarem venīre
he said Caesar was coming (present inf. = same time as dīxit, which is past — so English reads as past)
verb tense in "that"-clause shifts back automatically after past reporting
He said that Caesar was coming.
English drags "is" → "was" mechanically; Latin keeps the present infinitive and lets context do the shifting
Tip: Ask yourself: when is this event happening relative to the verb of saying — same time, before, or after? Pick the infinitive's tense from THAT, then translate the whole package into whatever English tense the surrounding sentence demands.
In Caesar's Caesar respondit sē grave ferre quod accidissent (paraphrased B. G. i. 14), how does the present infinitive ferre relate in TIME to the past main verb respondit?
Study Tips
- •Translate the infinitive's tense relative to the verb of saying, not relative to now. Present inf after a past main verb still means "at the same time as the saying," which is a past time in English.
- •Memorize the three-step shift: present inf → simultaneous, perfect inf → prior, future inf → subsequent. Drill all three under both dīcit and dīxit until the relative-time read is automatic.
- •When you see fore ut or futūrum esse ut + subjunctive, parse it as a future infinitive in disguise. It's the workaround for verbs that can't form a clean future participle.
- •Watch the perfect infinitive's range: it can stand for any past tense of the original (imperfect, perfect, or pluperfect). Context decides which English tense to land on.