Repotia post nuptias parantur.

The subject is repotia.

Even though repotia could look ambiguous at first, here it must be nominative neuter plural, because it agrees with the plural verb parantur. So the sentence means that the repotia are prepared or, more naturally in English, the repotia is prepared / a feast is prepared depending on how the meaning has been given.

Parantur is:

• 3rd person plural
• present tense
• passive voice
• from the verb paro, parare = to prepare

So literally it means they are prepared.

Because the subject is repotia, the full sense is repotia are prepared.

Latin often uses the passive where English might also use a passive, especially when the doer is unimportant or obvious.

So Repotia post nuptias parantur focuses on the event or feast being prepared, not on who prepares it.

An active version would be something like aliqui repotia post nuptias parant = someone / people prepare the repotia after the wedding. But Latin does not need to mention the agent here.

Here repotia is nominative plural.

A useful thing to notice is that neuter plural nouns often have the same form in the nominative and accusative, so repotia could in theory be either. But in this sentence it is nominative because it is the subject of parantur.

The preposition post takes the accusative case when it means after in time or place.

So:

• post
  • accusative
• nuptias is accusative plural

That is why Latin says post nuptias = after the wedding.

Yes, nuptiae is one of those Latin nouns that is normally used in the plural when referring to a wedding.

This is called a plural-only noun or plurale tantum. So even though English says the wedding in the singular, Latin commonly says nuptiae in the plural.

That is why you get:

• nominative: nuptiae
• accusative: nuptias

So post nuptias literally looks like after the weddings, but it really means after the wedding.

Latin word order is much freer than English word order. Putting repotia first gives it prominence as the topic or focus.

The sentence could also be written as:

• Post nuptias repotia parantur
• Parantur post nuptias repotia

All of these are grammatically possible, though they may sound slightly different in emphasis. The original puts attention first on repotia.

Grammatically, post nuptias simply means after the wedding. The exact timing comes from context.

In Roman cultural context, repotia refers to a feast or celebration associated with the wedding, often on the following day. But the grammar itself only tells you after the wedding, not precisely how long after.

Yes, that can happen in translation.

Grammatically, repotia is plural in Latin, but English may translate it in different ways depending on what meaning has been supplied:

• as a plural: wedding banquets
• as a collective idea: the wedding feast
• as a technical cultural term left untranslated: repotia

So the Latin form is plural, but natural English may not always sound equally plural.

There are two main clues:

1. Case
   After post, Latin uses the accusative, so nuptias must be the object of the preposition, not the subject.

2. Structure
   The phrase post nuptias works together as a prepositional phrase meaning after the wedding.

That leaves repotia as the noun that matches the verb and serves as the subject.

The pattern is:

• subject: repotia
• prepositional phrase: post nuptias
• verb: parantur

So the structure is basically:

Repotia + after the wedding + are prepared

This is a very common Latin pattern: subject, then an added phrase, then the verb at the end.