Greek Accusative of Respect

The Greek accusative of respect specifies the part, feature, or respect in which a description applies: Vergil's os umerosque deo similis means “like a god in face and shoulders.” Ōs and umerōs are not objects acted upon; they limit the scope of similis. The construction is especially characteristic of (literary) poetic Latin influenced by Greek, while ordinary Classical prose generally prefers an ablative or a prepositional phrase.

The core logic: whole person, affected part

The predicate describes the grammatical subject as a whole. A separate accusative identifies the body part or feature to which that description applies:

In its full sentence, Aenēās is the subject and similis is nominative masculine singular because it describes Aeneas. Accusative os umerosque answers “with respect to what features?” The dative deo identifies the standard to which he is similar. The quotation is reproduced in its edition's unmacronized spelling.

This structure is common with adjectives and participles describing appearance, exposure, injury, binding, or clothing:

Body parts with adjectives and participles

Vergil describes Venus disguised as a huntress with two respect accusatives:

Nūda and collēcta describe the woman, not genū and sinūs. The accusatives specify the knee left bare and the folds gathered. There is an honest morphological difficulty here: singular genū has the same form in the accusative and ablative. The parallel accusative sinūs ... fluentīs and the Greek poetic pattern guide the traditional analysis; the ending genū alone cannot prove it.

The construction is clearer when accusative and ablative have different forms:

Saucius is nominative and describes the lion; neuter accusative pectus identifies the affected part; ablative vulnere expresses the wound or means by which he is injured. English distributes the information into “wounded in the chest by/with a wound,” but Latin uses two distinct case relations.

Ovid gives an especially transparent pair:

Accusatives pedem and comās specify the parts affected by nūda and inreligāta. The feminine nominatives describe Ariadne. A prose writer would normally recast these details rather than imitate the compressed pattern.

Middle or passive-looking participles

Latin poets often combine an accusative with a passive participle that has a middle or reflexive sense: the subject is “bound as to the hair,” “clothed in spoils,” or “wreathed as to the temples.” Vergil's personified Discord appears as:

Innexa agrees with Discordia, understood from the context; crinem is the part affected; vittis cruentis is ablative of means. The English possessive “her” is not a separate Latin pronoun: the body-part relation is understood from the subject.

A related poetic pattern retains the thing put on after a passive-looking participle:

Accusative exuviās states what Hector has put on; indūtus is passive in form but functions like “having clothed himself in, wearing.” This is often grouped with the Greek accusative because Greek models encouraged precisely such retained accusatives. It is better learned as a poetic construction than generated from a rule that all passive verbs may keep objects.

Poetic accusative versus prose alternatives

Classical prose normally expresses respect with the ablative, an agreeing body-part phrase, or in + ablative. Compare a deliberately poetic line with a prose-style report:

English translation is identical, but Latin register and syntax are not. Umerum is accusative of respect; in umerō is an explicit prepositional location. An ablative of respect can be even more compact:

The choice is not between interchangeable endings. The accusative evokes elevated poetic diction and often compresses a visual detail; the ablative is the ordinary prose resource. See ablative of respect.

Why it is called “Greek”

“Greek accusative” names the syntactic model and its literary history, not the noun's morphology. Pectus, umerum, pedem, and comās have ordinary Latin accusative forms. They are unrelated to retained Greek-looking noun endings such as Aenēān or Orphea, which belong to the morphology of borrowed names and are treated under Greek third-declension nouns.

Augustan poets use the construction freely because educated Roman readers recognized Greek epic and lyric style. It is therefore productive within (literary) poetic diction, not in everyday Classical prose. The boundary is not absolute: Quintilian observes that saucius pectus had become common even in official records by the first century CE. That is lexical diffusion into (formal) imperial prose, not proof that any adjective could govern any accusative of respect.

Parsing diagnostic

When you meet a surprising body-part accusative:

1. Identify the subject and the word that describes it.
2. Check what that adjective or participle agrees with.
3. Ask whether the accusative denotes a part or feature of the subject.
4. Test the translation “in respect to,” then replace it with natural English: “barefoot,” “wounded in the chest,” “with her hair bound.”
5. Check register. Verse and elevated description favor the Greek construction; ordinary prose favors ablative or a prepositional phrase.

Do not use this label when an active transitive verb genuinely acts on the body part:

Here umerum is simply the direct object of mōvit. The fact that it is a body part does not create an accusative of respect.

Common Mistakes

1. Using a poetic Greekism as neutral prose

2. Making the predicate agree with the body part

3. Translating English “in” as in + accusative

4. Calling every body-part accusative a respect accusative

Key Takeaways

The Greek accusative of respect names the body part, feature, or item of clothing to which a description applies. The adjective or participle agrees with the whole person, not with that accusative. It is chiefly poetic, though a few formulas spread into imperial prose; ordinary Classical prose prefers an ablative or prepositional alternative. “Greek” describes the syntactic influence, not a Greek noun ending.