Fama de bello cives terret.

Fama is nominative singular. It is the subject of the verb terret.

So structurally:

• fama = the thing doing the frightening
• terret = frightens
• cives = the people being frightened

Because fama is singular, the verb is singular too.

A learner might first think cives is the subject because it comes right before the verb, but Latin does not rely mainly on word order the way English does.

Here is the key point:

• terret is singular
• cives is plural

A plural subject would normally take a plural verb, such as terrent. Since the verb is singular, cives cannot be the subject here.

So cives is the direct object: the ones being frightened.

Here cives is accusative plural, the direct object of terret.

This can be confusing because cives can also be nominative plural. In other words, the form by itself is ambiguous. You tell which it is from the rest of the sentence:

• fama works as the subject
• terret is singular
• therefore cives must be the object

So in this sentence, cives = accusative plural.

Because it follows the preposition de.

The preposition de takes the ablative case, so:

• bellum = nominative/accusative singular
• bello = ablative singular

That is why the phrase is de bello, not de bellum.

De bello is a prepositional phrase. It modifies fama and tells you what the report, rumor, or talk is about.

So the structure is roughly:

• fama de bello = report/rumor/news about the war

It is not the object of the verb. The direct object is cives.

Terret is:

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

It comes from the verb terreō, terrēre, meaning frighten or terrify.

Because the subject is fama and that subject is singular, Latin uses terret = it frightens.

Because in Latin, the verb agrees with the subject, not with the object.

Here:

• subject = fama = singular
• object = cives = plural

So the verb must be singular: terret.

This is exactly like English in a sentence such as The rumor frightens the citizens. Even though citizens is plural, frightens is singular because rumor is singular.

Not in the usual English sense of celebrity or renown.

Latin fama can mean several related things, including:

• report
• rumor
• talk
• reputation
• fame

In this sentence, with de bello, it means something like report, rumor, or news about the war, not fame.

Classical Latin has no articles. There is no separate word that directly matches English the or a/an.

So a noun like fama can mean, depending on context:

• a rumor
• the rumor
• rumor
• news/report

Likewise cives can mean citizens or the citizens, depending on context.

English has to choose an article; Latin usually does not.

Yes. Latin word order is much freer than English word order because case endings show the grammatical roles.

For example, these could still mean essentially the same thing:

• Cives fama de bello terret.
• De bello fama cives terret.
• Fama cives de bello terret.

The endings still show that:

• fama is the subject
• cives is the object
• de bello is a prepositional phrase

That said, different word orders can change emphasis or style, even if the basic meaning stays the same.

With de, the most natural sense is about or concerning.

So fama de bello is best understood as:

• report about the war
• rumor concerning the war
• news of the war

English sometimes uses of in phrases like news of the war, but the Latin grammar here is specifically de + ablative, which usually has the sense about/concerning rather than a simple possessive of.