Arx supra urbem stat.

the city

Breakdown of Arx supra urbem stat.

• stare: to stand
• supra: above
• arx: the citadel; summit

Questions & Answers about Arx supra urbem stat.

Why is urbem in the accusative?

Because supra takes the accusative case here. In Latin, some prepositions regularly govern a particular case, and supra is one of the prepositions that normally takes the accusative.

So:

• urbs = city (dictionary form, nominative)
• urbem = city in the accusative singular

In this sentence, supra urbem means above the city.

What is the basic grammatical structure of the sentence?

The sentence breaks down like this:

• Arx = subject, the citadel / fortress
• supra urbem = prepositional phrase, above the city
• stat = verb, stands

So the structure is:

Subject + prepositional phrase + verb

Latin word order is more flexible than English word order because the endings show what each word is doing.

Why is it arx and not something like arcem?

Because arx is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative case.

Here are two forms of the noun:

• arx = nominative singular, the citadel as subject
• arcem = accusative singular, the citadel as direct object

Since the citadel is the thing doing the standing, Latin uses arx.