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A word that is not a word

Operative, you have been reading this one since Mission 1 without a rule for it. Look at the two texts in front of you.

Rōmānī Sabīnīque pācem fēcērunt.
Rōmulus Remusque condere urbem cōnstituērunt.

Both of those mean and, and neither of them uses et. Instead a small piece, -que, is stuck onto the end of the second word.

That is what makes it unusual. -que cannot stand on its own. You will never find it alone on the page, never at the head of a phrase, never with a space in front of it. It is called an enclitic, which means it leans on the word ahead of it and has no independent life. English has nothing quite like this; the closest thing is the 's in Marcus's, which is a real piece of grammar that cannot survive on its own.

Where it goes, and what that tells you

The rule of placement is fixed: -que attaches to the second of the two things being joined, never the first.

gladiōs et hastās → gladiōs hastāsque

Both of those say swords and spears. Notice what did not change: hastās is still accusative plural, exactly as it would be without the enclitic. -que joins; it does not alter the word it sits on.

This gives you a reading habit worth having. When you see -que on the end of a word, back up. Something just before it is being paired with it, and the two will match: same case, same number, same job in the sentence. In Rōmānī Sabīnīque, both are nominative plural, and both are the subject of fēcērunt. If you know the case of one, you know the case of the other for free.

Not just a stronger et

Roman writers reached for -que when the two things belonged together, or made one thing between them. Rōmulus Remusque is not two men who happen to be in the same sentence; it is a pair, the twins. When the Romans and the Sabines make peace, the text says Rōmānī Sabīnīque, and the very next words are ūnus populus factus est: one people. The enclitic is doing quiet work there. Two nations, written as one phrase, becoming one nation.

Compare Marcus's letter, where Salvius is stultus est et piger. Stupid and lazy are two separate complaints, and et keeps them separate. It is a light preference, not an iron rule, but it is real, and it is worth noticing when a writer chooses one over the other.

Joining more than words

-que can link whole clauses as well as single words. Your Recentius has already met this shape:

Sinistrus ē sellā surrēxit vōsque salūtāvit.
Sinistrus got up out of the chair and greeted you.

Same rule, larger pieces: the enclitic rides the first word of the second clause, and everything before it is the first half.

The trap

Here is the part that costs students marks. A great many Latin words simply end in -que without containing the enclitic at all, and you have been reading most of them since Mission 1.

These are single words. Nobody stuck anything onto anything.

The test takes two seconds: cover the -que and look at what is left. Rōmānī is a word, so Rōmānīque is Rōmānī + the enclitic. Quīn is not a word you know, and quīnque means five, so nothing was added to anything. Do this whenever the ending surprises you, and you will not read quoque as quō + and.

One note on sound

If you are reading aloud, the enclitic pulls the stress forward onto the syllable right in front of it: Rómulus, but Rómulus Remúsque. The word leans toward the piece hanging off its end. You will hear it if you listen for it.

Video briefing from Latin Tutorial:

How Livy wrote history

Operative, both of this episode's readings descend from one man: Titus Livius, whom we call Livy. He wrote the history of Rome from its founding down to his own day, and on his very first page he admits something surprising. The oldest stories, he says, rest on poets' tales rather than solid records, and he will neither confirm them nor deny them. Then he tells them anyway, in detail, with speeches.

That was not carelessness. Livy believed history existed to teach: the past sets up examples of every kind in plain view, and a reader takes from them what to imitate and what to avoid. So expect the reading to be confident about what people said and silent about whether they existed, and expect every figure in it to be an example of something. In fēminae Sabīnae, watch the women's speech near the end; what they threaten to do is the quality a Roman reader was meant to admire. And notice what the story never hides: Rome fills itself with outsiders, takes its wives by force, and then makes the Sabines citizens. Rome kept that uncomfortable story because it made a claim Rome needed: absorbing outsiders is what made it strong.

Tarpeia, told twice

The reading also gives you a girl who appears for one paragraph and dies. Tarpeia opens the citadel gate to the Sabines at night, and they crush her under their shields. The rock she is buried under kept her name, and Romans threw traitors from it for centuries.

Livy tells that version, then reports that other writers told it differently: Tarpeia asked for what the Sabines carried on their left arms, meaning their shields, planning to leave them defenseless, and died loyal to Rome. Same girl, same gate, opposite woman. Livy does not choose. The rock was real and its name needed explaining; what Tarpeia actually did was beyond recovering, so he kept both answers. As you read the key-text, check which Tarpeia its account of the gold gives you.

What Romans did about impossible things

Livy's history also records, year after year, reports of prodigia: stones falling from the sky, an ox speaking, a spring running with blood. He lists them beside elections and armies, because to a Roman a prodigy was a message from the gods, and a message is information. The procedure was calm: report the sign to the Senate, refer it to the priests, learn what it demands, do it, and carry on. A Roman who met something impossible treated it as a message: he worked out what it meant and acted on the answer. He did not run from it, and he did not fall down in front of it. This is what Mission Control means by acting Roman, and it is why the TSTT transmission gave you the verb legite: a message is there to be read. In epistula Marcī, watch what Salvius does with the strange mark on the letter, and ask whether a Roman of Livy's pages would have done the same.