Reus supplicium timet.

Reus means the accused person, the defendant, or more generally the guilty party / prisoner, depending on context.

In this sentence it is in the nominative singular, which tells you it is the subject of the verb. So reus is the one who is doing the fearing.

• reus = subject
• nominative singular masculine noun

The ending -um shows that supplicium is accusative singular here.

That matters because the accusative case is often used for the direct object. In this sentence, supplicium is the thing being feared.

So:

• reus = subject
• supplicium = direct object

The basic pattern is:

• subject
  • object
    • verb

Timet means he fears, she fears, or it fears.

It is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood

It comes from the verb timeo, timere = to fear.

Because Latin often leaves the subject pronoun unstated, timet by itself already means he/she/it fears. The noun reus tells us exactly who the subject is.

Latin has no definite article and no indefinite article.

So Latin does not have separate words for:

• the
• a / an

That means reus could be translated as:

• the defendant
• a defendant

and supplicium could be translated as:

• the punishment
• a punishment

Which one sounds best depends on context and on the translation already given.

Latin word order is more flexible than English word order because case endings show each word's job in the sentence.

So Reus supplicium timet means the same basic thing as:

• Supplicium reus timet
• Reus timet supplicium
• Timet reus supplicium

However, the usual order can affect emphasis or style.

In this sentence, placing timet at the end is very natural in Latin. Ending with the verb is especially common.

You know from the case ending.

• reus is nominative singular
• supplicium is accusative singular

In Latin, the nominative is typically the subject, and the accusative is typically the direct object.

In English, word order usually tells you who does what. In Latin, case endings usually do that job.

Supplicium is a neuter second-declension noun.

Its dictionary form is usually given as:

• supplicium, supplici(i), n.

It can mean:

• punishment
• penalty
• sometimes even execution or severe punishment, depending on context

Because it is neuter singular, its nominative and accusative singular forms are the same: supplicium. In this sentence, you know it is accusative because it is the object of timet.

Latin often does not use subject pronouns unless they are needed for emphasis or clarity.

The ending of timet already tells you the subject is 3rd person singular: he/she/it fears.

So Latin can simply say:

• timet = he/she fears

Then adding reus identifies who that he/she is.

Yes. In English, a natural translation of timet in context is often:

• fears
• is afraid of

Both can work.

Latin timeo commonly takes a direct object in the accusative, so supplicium timet literally means he fears punishment, but idiomatic English might say he is afraid of punishment.

A common classroom pronunciation would be roughly:

RAY-oos soop-PLIH-kee-oom TIH-met

More carefully, in restored Classical pronunciation:

• reus ≈ REH-oos
• supplicium ≈ soop-PLIH-kee-um
• timet ≈ TIH-met

A few helpful points:

• eu in reus is pronounced as two vowels together, not like English rooz
• c in supplicium is always hard, like k
• ti in timet is just ti, not English time-t

The sentence follows a simple pattern:

• Reus = subject (nominative)
• supplicium = direct object (accusative)
• timet = verb

So structurally it is:

Subject + Object + Verb

This is a very useful beginner pattern to recognize in Latin, even though Latin can vary its word order more freely than English.

Not necessarily. This is a very common point of confusion.

In legal Latin, reus often means the accused person or the defendant, not automatically someone who has already been proven guilty.

Depending on context, English translations can include:

• defendant
• accused
• prisoner
• sometimes guilty man or culprit

So you should not assume the word always means a person whose guilt has already been established.

A good set of dictionary forms would be:

• reus, rei, m. = accused person, defendant
• supplicium, supplici(i), n. = punishment, penalty
• timeo, timere, timui = fear

For a beginner, the most useful thing is to notice:

• the noun's nominative form
• the genitive form, which helps identify the declension
• the verb's present infinitive, which helps identify the conjugation

So from timeo, timere, you can tell this is a 2nd-conjugation verb.