A personal passive has an expressed or understood nominative subject that receives the action, and its finite verb agrees with that subject in person and number. In litterae mittuntur “the letters are sent,” litterae is not an object placed first: it is the nominative subject, and plural mittuntur agrees with it.
The construction is easiest to understand as a change in grammatical perspective. An active clause organizes the event around the actor; its personal passive organizes the same event around the affected participant. Latin uses case endings and verbal agreement—not fixed English-like word order—to show the new structure.
The core transformation
Begin with a transitive active clause:
Cōnsul litterās mittit.
The consul sends the letters.
Its ordinary personal passive is:
Litterae ā cōnsule mittuntur.
The letters are sent by the consul.
The transformation has three linked changes:
- Active accusative litterās becomes nominative litterae.
- Active mittit becomes passive mittuntur and agrees with its new plural subject.
- Active subject cōnsul, if retained as personal agent, becomes ā cōnsule.
The agent may be omitted: litterae mittuntur is complete. Passive voice is useful precisely when the actor is unknown, obvious, intentionally backgrounded, or less important than the affected participant.
Personal forms across the verbal system
The word “personal” does not mean that the subject must be a human being. It means that the verb is inflected for a subject—first, second, or third person—and agrees with it.
| Time | Example | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| present | vocor | I am called |
| imperfect | vocābar | I was being / used to be called |
| future | vocābor | I will be called |
| perfect | vocātus sum / vocāta sum | I was / have been called |
| pluperfect | vocātus eram / vocāta eram | I had been called |
| future perfect | vocātus erō / vocāta erō | I will have been called |
The synthetic present-system forms mark person and number through their endings. Perfect-system forms divide the work: the participle agrees in gender and number, while sum marks person, number, tense, and mood.
Vocāminī, sed respondēre nōn potestis.
You are being called, but you cannot answer.
Soror mea ad cēnam vocāta est.
My sister was invited to dinner.
The subject can be a person, thing, place, or abstract idea:
Haec sententia saepe laudātur, sed rārō intellegitur.
This opinion is often praised but rarely understood.
Agent and instrument are different roles
A personal agent normally takes ā before a consonant or ab before a vowel or h, plus the ablative. The choice is phonological, not semantic: ā puerō, ab amīcō, ab hostibus.
Oppidum ab hostibus captum est.
The town was captured by the enemy.
An inanimate instrument or means normally uses the bare ablative:
Porta magnā clāvī aperītur.
The gate is opened with a large key.
English uses “by” in both “by the enemy” and “by means of a key,” which tempts learners to add ā/ab mechanically. Latin distinguishes an acting participant from a means. Some border cases can be rhetorically personified, but ordinary composition should preserve the contrast explained in Ablative of Agent and Ablative of Means and Instrument.
What remains after promotion
Other complements generally keep the case required by their own function. A recipient remains dative when the thing given becomes subject.
Magister librum discipulō dat.
The teacher gives the student a book.
Liber discipulō ā magistrō datur.
The book is given to the student by the teacher.
English readily says “the student is given a book,” promoting an indirect object. Ordinary Classical Latin instead makes liber, the former accusative thing, nominative; discipulō remains dative. This is a major source-to-target difference.
With verbs that take two accusatives, one accusative may remain after the personal passive. With “teach,” the person promoted to subject can leave the subject matter as a retained accusative:
Puerī grammaticam ā magistrā docentur.
The boys are taught grammar by the teacher.
This retained grammaticam is not a second passive subject. Such patterns are lexical and cannot be extended to every verb merely because English allows two objects.
Predicate complements adjust to the new nominative subject:
Mīlitēs Mārcum ducem creāvērunt.
The soldiers elected Marcus commander.
Mārcus dux ā mīlitibus creātus est.
Marcus was elected commander by the soldiers.
Both Mārcus and predicate dux are nominative in the passive clause.
Why writers choose the passive
The passive is not merely an exercise in mechanical transformation. It manages information. Latin authors use it when the affected entity is already the topic, when the actor is recoverable, or when naming an actor would distract from a procedure or result.
Prīmum frūmentum colligitur; deinde ad urbem portātur.
First the grain is gathered; then it is carried to the city.
This (formal/technical) style keeps frūmentum as topic across two stages. Repeating an indefinite actor such as “workers” would add no useful information.
Mihi dictum est tē iam advēnisse.
I was told that you had already arrived.
The Latin literally organizes this as “it was said to me”: mihi is dative and dictum est is impersonal, despite the natural English personal translation. It is included here as a warning: an English passive subject does not guarantee a Latin personal passive subject. Latin structure must be diagnosed from nominative agreement.
Limits on the personal passive
Only a verb with an accusative object can normally promote that object into an ordinary personal passive subject. Intransitives such as currō “run” and veniō “come” have no accusative patient; Latin uses impersonal curritur or ventum est when it passivizes the activity. Verbs governing the dative likewise preserve that dative and use an impersonal passive: mihi persuādētur “I am being persuaded,” literally “persuasion is being done to me.”
Deponents are another lexical limit. Sequor tē means “I follow you”; passive-looking sequor is active in meaning, and there is no ordinary personal passive sequeris ā mē meaning “you are followed by me.” The principal parts identify the deponent class.
The passive of faciō in the present system is supplied by fīō: domus fit “the house is made / comes into being.” In the perfect system the regular participle appears: domus facta est. These forms are (neutral Classical). Legal and administrative texts often favor agentless passives (formal); poetry may separate subject, agent, and verb (literary), but agreement still defines the structure.
A parsing checklist
When reading a possible personal passive:
- Identify passive morphology or a perfect passive participle plus sum.
- Find the nominative expression that agrees with the verb.
- Treat that nominative as receiver, not automatically as actor.
- Identify ā/ab plus ablative as a likely personal agent and a bare ablative as possible means.
- Preserve any dative, prepositional phrase, or retained complement according to its own function.
- Translate naturally only after the Latin relations are clear.
Flexible word order can place the agent first or split a perfect passive form. Endings and agreement remain safer than position.
Common Mistakes
1. Leaving the former object accusative
❌ Litterās ā cōnsule mittuntur.
Incorrect — litterās is accusative, but the receiver must become the nominative passive subject.
✅ Litterae in prōvinciās mittuntur.
The letters are sent to the provinces.
2. Failing to make the verb agree with the new subject
❌ Litterae mittitur.
Incorrect — the plural subject requires a plural passive verb.
✅ Litterae mittuntur.
The letters are sent.
3. Promoting an English indirect object in Latin
❌ Discipulus librum datur.
Incorrect for ‘the student is given a book’ — discipulus cannot be promoted from Latin dative recipient in this pattern.
✅ Liber discipulō datur.
The book is given to the student.
4. Adding ā/ab before an instrument
❌ Iānua ā clāvī aperītur.
Incorrect in the ordinary instrumental sense — the key is a means, not a personal agent.
✅ Iānua clāvī aperītur.
The door is opened with a key.
5. Forcing an intransitive verb into a personal passive
❌ Mīlitēs curruntur.
Incorrect for ‘the soldiers are running’ — currō is intransitive and this would not be a personal passive.
✅ Mīlitēs currunt.
The soldiers are running.
Key Takeaways
A personal passive promotes an active accusative object to nominative subject and makes the passive verb agree with it. The former actor may appear as ā/ab plus ablative; instruments take the bare ablative, and other complements normally retain their functions. English can passivize structures that Latin cannot, so diagnose Latin case and agreement before imitating an English sentence.
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Start learning Latin →Related Topics
- Perfect-System Passive FormsA2 — See the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect passive as one system built from an agreeing participle and forms of sum.
- Impersonal Passive ConstructionsA2 — Recognize subjectless third-person singular passives and translate the activity naturally instead of inventing a nominative subject.