05.09.24: Level 2; declension of numbers (2); mīlle (1000)

Below are some notes outlining the forms of mīlle (1000) and the changes in endings that you will come across when reading. If the aim is to read the language, then the target is to recognise the word – mīlle (Fr. mille; Engl. millennium; mile – notes on that below) – which is straightforward enough.

A common occurrence of mīlle is in expressing distances. The English noun ‘mile’ is from Old English mīl, originally a Germanic borrowing from Latin mīlle (passūs) i.e. a thousand paces. 1000 paces = 1 Roman Mile: “a thousand paces as measured by every other step—as in the total distance of the left foot hitting the ground 1,000 times” calculated at approximately 1481 metres = 0.92 English miles.

[1] Refer to the image: mīlle (singular)

[i] mīlle in the singular does not decline i.e. it is exactly the same as the English ‘one thousand’

mīlle equī │ a thousand horses

mīlle militēs │ one thousand soldiers

In those examples we say that mīlle is a numeral, no different from an adjective except that it does not agree with the noun which it is counting

[ii] The noun itself which mīlle is counting will continue to decline:

Ita cum mīlle equitibus Māgōne, mīlle peditibus dīmissō … (Livy) │  Mago and / (together) with his thousand cavalrymen and thousand infantrymen having been thus dispatched, …

[iii] As you have already seen, certain other numbers decline and, if used with mīlle, they will continue to decline even though mīlle itself doesn’t:

cum mīlle [no change] ducentīs [ablative] virīs (Livy) │ with 1,200 men

ipse ab hostium castrīs nōn longius mīlle [no change] et quīngentīs [ablative] passibus abesset (Caesar) │ He himself was no further away than a mile and half [= 1,500 paces] from the enemy’s camp

[iv] What you will also often come across is mīlle acting like a noun and functioning in the same way as the genitive construction ‘thousands ¦ of soldiers’;  English cannot say a thousand *of soldiers* whereas Latin can:

Mīlle ¦ militum [genitive plural] │ a thousand soldiers [ = a thousand ¦ (of) soldiers]

quod mōns suberit circiter mīlle ¦ passuum spatiō (Caesar) │ as there was a mountain nearby about a mile [ = 1000 ¦ (of) paces] off

That is plain sailing for a Russian speaker; the Russian number tysyacha (1000) is also followed by a genitive plural.

The example below shows a combination of [1] and [2] above:

Ipse cum mīlle [1] equitibus [2] peditumque  (Quintus Curtius Rufus)│ He himself with a thousand horsemen and footmen

[2] Refer to the image: mīlia (plural) which may also be written with a double /l/

When the number is a multiple of 1,000 it will become plural with its own case endings, but the noun that it is counting is in the genitive plural

sex mīlia [nominative plural] ¦ peditum [genitive plural] │ 6,000 infantry [ = 6,000 (of) foot soldiers]

fuērunt tria mīlia [nominative plural] ¦ equōrum [genitive plural] │ there were 3,000 horses [ = 3,000 (of) horses]

septem mīlia octingentī [nominative plural] ¦ hostium [genitive plural] ¦ occīsī, duo mīlia et centum vīgintī [nominative plural] captī (Livy) │ seven thousand eight hundred ¦ of the enemy ¦ were slain, two thousand one hundred and twenty taken prisoners

cum Viridovix contrā eum ¦ duōrum mīlium [genitive plural] ¦ spatiō cōnsēdisset (Caesar) │ while Viridovix encamped over against him at a distance ¦ of two miles [ = 2,000 (paces)]

cum tribus mīllibus [ablative plural] ¦ equitum [genitive plural] (Cicero) │ with 3,000 cavalry [= (of) horsemen]

As I mentioned at the start, the main aim is to recognise the number – especially when it’s in combination with other numbers – rather than pondering too much about the endings.

Image: mīlliārium, -ī [2/n]: milestone