Servus iurat se nummos ex sacculo non tulisse.

The slave swears that he did not take the coins out of the bag.

Breakdown of Servus iurat se nummos ex sacculo non tulisse.

• non: not
• se: himself
• nummus: the coin
• sacculus: the bag

Questions & Answers about Servus iurat se nummos ex sacculo non tulisse.

What grammatical construction is se nummos ex sacculo non tulisse?

It is an indirect statement (also called an accusative-and-infinitive construction).

After a verb like iurat (he swears), Latin often does not use a separate word for that. Instead, it puts:

• the subject of the reported statement in the accusative
• the verb of the reported statement in the infinitive

So here:

• se = the subject of the reported statement, in the accusative
• tulisse = the infinitive verb

So Latin literally looks like:

• The slave swears himself not to have taken the coins from the bag.

Natural English turns that into:

• The slave swears that he did not take the coins from the bag.

Why is it se and not is or eum?

Se is the reflexive pronoun, and it refers back to the subject of the main verb, here servus.

So:

• servus iurat se... = the slave swears that he...
• se specifically means that the person who supposedly did or did not do the action is the same person as servus

If Latin used eum instead, that would usually mean:

• the slave swears that he / that man / someone else...

So se tells you the statement is about the slave himself.