Breakdown of Tessellarius crustam sculpit; pavimentarius eam pumice polit.
eam
it
polire
to polish
tessellarius
the mosaicist
pavimentarius
the floor layer; paver
Questions & Answers about Tessellarius crustam sculpit; pavimentarius eam pumice polit.
What do tessellarius and pavimentarius mean, exactly?
They are both nouns for workers, formed with the common ending -arius.
- tessellarius = a worker in tessellae (small cubes or tiles), so a mosaic worker
- pavimentarius = a worker in pavimentum (a floor or pavement), so a floor-layer or pavement worker
A learner may notice that Latin often uses this -arius ending to make occupation words.
Why is crustam ending in -am?
Because crustam is the direct object of sculpit. It is the thing being carved.
The base noun is crusta, a first-declension noun. Its forms include:
- nominative singular: crusta
- accusative singular: crustam
Since sculpit means carves, Latin puts the thing carved into the accusative case, so we get crustam.
What is eam, and what does it refer to?
eam means her / it in the feminine accusative singular, and here it refers back to crustam.
So:
- crustam = feminine singular accusative
- eam = feminine singular accusative
The pronoun matches the noun it refers to in gender and number, and here it also has the right case because it is again the direct object, this time of polit.