About the Historical Infinitive

In the following passage from Sallust, Sallust writes sentences where the main verb is an infinitive, not an indicative. This use of the infinitive is called the historical infinitive.

The historical infinitive derives its name from its presence in many historical works, but this use of the infinitive may appear in any genre of Latin literature.

An author may choose to use the historical infinitive in place of an imperfect indicative to provide descriptive details. The historical infinitive presents the idea that multiple actions are occurring simultaneously. When translating a sentence containing one or more historical infinitive, it is often easiest to treat them like imperfect indicatives. In fact, the historical infinitive can almost always be replaced with an imperfect indicative.

The subject of the historical infinitive is usually the same as the subject of the most recent indicative verb. For this passage from Sallust, Catiline is the subject.

Consider the following example of the historical infinitive.

“Parāre incendia.”

“He prepared fires.”

In the above example, parāre is an infinitive, but it is translated like an imperfect indicative and not like an infinitive. The following example, using an imperfect infinitive would be translated the same way.

“Parābat incendia.”

Practice

For the following sentences, replace each infinitive with an imperfect indicative verb, then provide a translation.

1. Cōnsulibus īnsidiās tendere.

2. Loca hominibus obsidēre.

3. Diēs noctēsque festīnāre.

4. Nōn labōre fatīgārī.

5. Romae multa mōlīrī.