Below are a few quotations from the authors where the imperfect tense is used. The best way I can explain my view of this is like "knocking on the door" of Latin literature, rather than going in like a bull in a grammatical china shop! Don't be distracted by word forms with which you're not yet familiar: focus on the verbs and the translations.
[1] Pliny, describing the effects of Vesuvius states:
Hunc identidem excutiēbāmus │ We repeatedly shook it off (i.e. the ash)
[2] Neque lēgātōs ad Caesarem mittere audēbant (Caesar) │ And they did not dare send envoys to Caesar. [i.e. this was a general state of affairs]
[3] Āra vetus stābat. (Ovid) │ An old altar stood [was standing] there. [i.e. It wasn't standing there and went off somewhere else. It's a general statement as to where it was.]
Three quotations from Cicero:
[4] Nēquam esse hominem sciēbam. │ I knew the man to be worthless [i.e. again, it wasn't something that he suddenly knew, but which he had known for some time]
[5] An tum erās cōnsul cum in Palātiō mea domus ārdēbat nōn cāsū aliquō │ Were you consul when my house on the Palatine Hill was burning, not by any accident ...
[6] tū illō ipsō tempore apud socrum tuam prope ā meīs aedibus ... sedēbās │ But you at that very time were sitting in the house of your mother in law, close to my house ...
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