Puer, veritatem dicere conatus, tandem matri fatetur se nummos cepisse.

The main finite verb is fatetur = he admits / confesses.

A helpful way to divide the sentence is:

• Puer — the subject, the boy
• veritatem dicere conatus — a participial phrase describing the boy, having tried to tell the truth
• tandem matri fatetur — finally admits to his mother
• se nummos cepisse — what he admits, that he took the coins

So the core structure is:

Puer ... fatetur ... se nummos cepisse.

Everything else adds detail.

Conatus is a participle, not the main verb here.

It comes from the deponent verb conor, conari, conatus sum, meaning to try.
Here conatus agrees with puer and means something like:

• having tried
• after trying

So puer, veritatem dicere conatus means the boy, having tried to tell the truth.

If the sentence had conatur, that would mean tries as a main verb in the present tense.
If it had conatus est, that would mean tried as a full perfect-tense verb.

But this sentence already has a main verb, fatetur, so Latin uses the participle conatus to add background information.

Because conor regularly takes an infinitive to show what someone is trying to do.

So:

• dicere = to say / to tell
• veritatem dicere = to tell the truth

This is very natural Latin. English also uses an infinitive after try:

• He tried to speak
• He tried to tell the truth

So veritatem dicere conatus literally means having tried to tell the truth.

Because veritatem is the direct object of dicere.

• veritas = truth
• veritatem = accusative singular, the truth

Since dicere means to say / tell, the thing being told goes in the accusative.

So:

• veritatem dicere = to tell the truth

English says tell the truth, and Latin expresses that with the accusative object veritatem.

Because fatetur is from a deponent verb.

A deponent verb has passive-looking forms but an active meaning.

Here the verb is fateor, fateri, fassus sum = to admit, confess.

So:

• fatetur looks like a passive form
• but it means he admits / he confesses

This is one of the big things Latin learners have to get used to: form and meaning do not always match in the way you first expect.

Matri is dative because it means to his mother.

With fateor, the person to whom the admission is made can be put in the dative.

So:

• mater = mother
• matri = to/for the mother

Therefore:

• matri fatetur = he admits to his mother

This is similar to English admit to someone.

Latin often leaves out possessive words like his, her, or their when the possessor is obvious from the context.

Since the subject is puer, matri naturally means to his mother.

Latin could say suae matri, but it often does not need to.
Adding suae would make the possession more explicit or more emphatic.

So the absence of his is normal Latin style.

This is an indirect statement, also called an accusative-and-infinitive construction.

After verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, perceiving, and also admitting, Latin often says:

• accusative subject + infinitive

Here:

• se = accusative subject of the infinitive
• nummos = object
• cepisse = infinitive

So se nummos cepisse literally means:

• himself to have taken the coins

In smoother English:

• that he took the coins
• that he had taken the coins

This is the standard Latin way of reporting a statement.

Because se is reflexive: it refers back to the subject of the main verb.

The subject of the main verb is puer, so:

• se = himself, referring to the boy

Thus:

• fatetur se nummos cepisse = he admits that he took the coins

If Latin used eum, it would normally mean that some other male person took the coins, not the boy himself.

So se is necessary here to show that the boy is admitting his own action.

Because the action of taking happened before the action of admitting.

In indirect statement, the tense of the infinitive is relative to the main verb:

• present infinitive = action happening at the same time
• perfect infinitive = action happening earlier
• future infinitive = action happening later

Here the boy first took the coins, and only afterwards admitted it.
So Latin uses the perfect infinitive:

• cepisse = to have taken

That is why capere would be wrong here: capere is the present infinitive, which would suggest simultaneous action.

Because capio is irregular in its perfect stem.

Its principal parts are:

• capio
• capere
• cepi
• captum

So the perfect stem is cep-, not cap-.

From that perfect stem we get:

• cepi = I took
• cepit = he took
• cepisse = to have taken

This is just something you have to learn with the principal parts.

Tandem means finally, at last, or in the end.

It suggests delay, hesitation, or buildup. In this sentence, it tells us that the boy did not confess immediately; he confessed only after some time or inner struggle.

So tandem adds an emotional or narrative touch:

• Puer ... tandem matri fatetur = The boy ... finally admits to his mother

Literally, capere means to take, seize, or get hold of.

So nummos cepisse literally means to have taken the coins.

But in context, if someone is confessing this to his mother, English will often understand it as stole the coins or took the money in a guilty sense.

So the Latin itself gives took, while the context may strongly suggest stole.

Latin word order is much freer than English word order because endings show the grammatical relationships.

English relies heavily on position:

• The boy took the coins

Latin can move words around more freely because case and verb form already tell you who is doing what.

In this sentence:

• Puer is clearly the subject
• matri is clearly dative
• se is the accusative subject of the indirect statement
• nummos is the object of cepisse

So Latin can place the participial phrase in the middle and put tandem where it sounds effective.

A very literal order-based reading would feel strange in English, but the grammar is perfectly clear in Latin.