Lucia quaerit cur Romani dictatorem non diu regere voluerint.

It has two parts:

• Lucia quaerit = Lucia asks
• cur Romani dictatorem non diu regere voluerint = an indirect question: why the Romans did not want a dictator to rule for long

So the whole sentence is:

• main clause: Lucia quaerit
• subordinate clause: cur ... voluerint

Quaerit is:

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

It comes from quaerere, meaning to ask, to seek, or to inquire.

Here it means asks.

Cur means why.

It introduces the question being asked. In this sentence, Lucia is not asking the question directly to us; instead, Latin reports the content of her question. That is why cur begins an indirect question.

Compare:

• Direct question: Cur Romani dictatorem non diu regere voluerunt?
  = Why did the Romans not want a dictator to rule for long?

• Indirect question: Lucia quaerit cur Romani dictatorem non diu regere voluerint.
  = Lucia asks why the Romans did not want a dictator to rule for long.

Because it is inside an indirect question.

In Latin, indirect questions normally use the subjunctive, even when English does not show any special verb form.

So after quaerit + cur, Latin uses:

• voluerint rather than voluerunt

This does not necessarily mean uncertainty. It is mainly a grammatical rule of indirect questions.

Voluerint is the perfect subjunctive of velle (to want).

A useful way to understand it here is:

• the main verb quaerit is present
• the wanting happened earlier, in the past
• so Latin can use the perfect subjunctive in the indirect question

In English, we usually translate it simply as:

• did not want
• or did not wish

You do not need to force an English present perfect such as have not wanted here.

Romani is:

• nominative plural
• the subject of voluerint

So Romani ... voluerint means:

• the Romans ... wanted

Even though Romani is inside the indirect question, it is still the grammatical subject of that clause.

Dictatorem is accusative singular, but it is not the direct object of voluerint in the ordinary English sense.

Instead, it is the subject of the infinitive regere.

Latin often uses this pattern when one person wants another person to do something:

• volo + accusative + infinitive

So:

• dictatorem regere = a dictator to rule

That is why dictatorem is accusative.

Because it depends on voluerint.

The Romans wanted what?
They wanted a dictator to rule.

So regere is a complementary infinitive, part of what was wanted.

More literally, the structure is:

• Romani ... voluerint = the Romans wanted
• dictatorem regere = a dictator to rule

Latin is expressing the idea wanted someone to do something.

The subject of regere is dictatorem.

That can feel strange to an English speaker, because in English the subject of to rule is usually left unmarked:

• the Romans wanted a dictator to rule

In Latin, when an infinitive has its own subject, that subject usually appears in the accusative. So:

• dictatorem = the one who would rule

Diu means for a long time or long.

With non, it means:

• not for a long time
• not for long

So dictatorem non diu regere means:

• a dictator not to rule for long

Here non effectively goes with the duration idea expressed by diu.

Yes, this word order is normal, but Latin word order is flexible.

The sentence ends with voluerint, which is very common in Latin: the finite verb often comes near the end of its clause.

You could rearrange parts of the subordinate clause and still keep the same basic meaning, as long as the cases remain clear. For example, Latin often moves words around for emphasis.

In the given sentence:

• Romani is clearly the subject
• dictatorem is clearly accusative
• voluerint closes the clause neatly

So the order is natural and readable.

Latin has no articles.

So Latin does not have separate words for:

• the
• a/an

That means:

• Romani can mean the Romans
• dictatorem can mean a dictator or the dictator

English has to choose based on context. In this sentence, a dictator is the most natural translation if the idea is general. But in another context, the dictator could also be possible.

Not exactly.

In Roman history, a dictator was originally a temporary emergency magistrate, appointed for a limited time in a crisis. The modern English word often suggests a permanent tyrant or autocrat, but the Roman office was more specific and constitutional in origin.

So a learner may need to remember that dictatorem here refers to a Roman political office, not automatically to the modern idea of a brutal ruler.