Cum consul e curia exiret, turba ante rostra breve tempus tacuit; deinde iterum clamavit.

Because this is a very common Latin construction: cum + imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive to give the background circumstance for another past action.

So cum consul e curia exiret means something like:

• when the consul was coming out of the senate-house
• as the consul came out of the senate-house

This is not just a bare time-marker; it sets the scene for what happened next. In that kind of clause, Latin regularly uses the subjunctive.

The imperfect shows an action that is in progress or ongoing in the past.

So exiret suggests:

• the consul was in the act of coming out
• the crowd fell silent while that was happening

That fits the sense of a background action. If Latin had used a perfect form instead, it would feel more like a single completed event: when he came out. The imperfect makes the scene more fluid: as he was coming out.

The perfect here presents the main actions as completed events:

• tacuit = fell silent / was silent
• clamavit = shouted

This is very typical when Latin narrates a sequence of past actions.

In this sentence, the contrast is:

• exiret = background, ongoing action
• tacuit, clamavit = main events in the story

Also, tacuit works well with breve tempus: the crowd kept silent for a short time, and then that silence ended.

Here cum means when or as.

It does not mean with here. Latin cum can mean different things depending on how it is used:

• as a preposition with the ablative: with
• as a conjunction introducing a clause: when, since, although, etc.

In this sentence it is clearly the conjunction, because it introduces a full clause: cum consul e curia exiret.

E and ex are the same preposition. Both mean out of or from and take the ablative.

So:

• e curia
• ex curia

both mean out of the senate-house.

Latin often uses e before consonants and ex before vowels or sometimes before certain consonants, but the choice is not completely rigid. In many texts both forms are possible.

Here curia is ablative singular after e/ex.

It is ablative singular.

The preposition e/ex always takes the ablative, so:

• nominative: curia
• ablative: curia

In the first declension, the nominative singular and ablative singular often look the same, so you identify the case from the preposition.

Thus e curia = out of the senate-house.

After ante, Latin uses the accusative. So rostra here is accusative plural.

A few points matter here:

• ante = before / in front of
• it takes the accusative
• rostra is a neuter plural form

Historically, rostra means beaks/prows, but in Roman political language the Rostra was the public speaking platform in the Forum. So ante rostra means in front of the Rostra.

Even though English may treat the Rostra almost like a singular place-name, Latin keeps the plural form.

Breve tempus is an accusative of duration of time.

Latin often puts a length of time in the accusative to mean for that amount of time:

• multos annos = for many years
• paucos dies = for a few days
• breve tempus = for a short time

So turba breve tempus tacuit means the crowd was silent for a short time.

Here:

• tempus is neuter singular
• breve agrees with it

Because turba is a collective noun. Grammatically, it is singular even though it refers to many individuals.

So Latin says:

• turba tacuit
• turba clamavit

with singular verbs.

This is similar to English the crowd was silent, where the grammar can be singular even though many people are involved.

The subject is still turba.

Latin often leaves out a repeated subject when it is easy to understand from the context. So after:

• turba ... tacuit

the next verb:

• deinde iterum clamavit

still refers to the crowd, not to the consul.

English often repeats the subject more often than Latin does.

They are close in sense, but they do different jobs:

• deinde = then, next, after that
• iterum = again

So deinde iterum clamavit means:

• then it shouted again
• after that, it began shouting again

Together they show both sequence and repetition.

It is normal Latin word order, even if it feels less natural to an English speaker.

Latin word order is more flexible than English word order, because endings show the grammatical relationships. This lets Latin arrange words for emphasis and flow.

A few features here are very typical:

• Cum consul e curia exiret puts the whole background clause first.
• ante rostra comes near turba to locate the crowd.
• breve tempus is placed before tacuit, which nicely highlights the short silence.
• deinde iterum before clamavit builds up the restart of the shouting.

So the order is not strange; it is good idiomatic narrative Latin.

Yes. In context, tacuit can naturally be understood either as:

• was silent
• kept silent
• fell silent

Because the sentence says breve tempus tacuit; deinde iterum clamavit, the sense is that the crowd stopped shouting, remained quiet briefly, and then started again.

So in English, fell silent for a short time is often an excellent translation, even though the Latin verb itself is simply was silent / kept silent.

Because Latin usually does not need an explicit subject pronoun when the verb ending already makes the person clear, or when the noun is already stated.

Here Latin says consul ... exiret, not consul is exiret or anything similar. Once consul is present, no pronoun is needed.

More generally, Latin often omits subject pronouns unless it wants special emphasis or contrast.