Arbiter quater talos iacit.

A learner will often want to identify each word like this:

• arbiter — a noun in the nominative singular; it is the subject
• quater — an adverb meaning four times
• talos — a noun in the accusative plural; it is the direct object
• iacit — a verb, 3rd person singular present active indicative; it means throws

So the structure is basically:

subject + adverb + object + verb

Because arbiter is in the nominative case, which is the case normally used for the subject of a sentence in Latin.

So in this sentence, arbiter is the one doing the action of iacit.

Also, arbiter is a third-declension noun. Its nominative singular form already ends in -er, so it does not need to look like a first- or second-declension noun to be a subject.

Because talos is the direct object, and direct objects take the accusative case.

The noun is talus. In the plural:

• tali = nominative plural or sometimes used as the subject
• talos = accusative plural or the object

Since these are the things being thrown, Latin uses talos.

Quater means four times.

It is an adverb, not a noun or adjective. It tells you how many times the action happens.

That is different from:

• quattuor = four
• quater = four times

So quater talos iacit is about repeating the action four times, not necessarily about there being exactly four objects named by talos.

Iacit is from the verb iacio, iacere, ieci, iactum, meaning to throw.

Here it is:

• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood
• third person singular

So it means he/she/it throws or sometimes is throwing, depending on context.

Because the ending -t already tells you it is third person singular, Latin does not need a separate word for he or she.

Latin often leaves subject pronouns out because the verb ending already shows the person and number.

In iacit, the ending tells us:

• third person
• singular

So Latin does not need to say is, ea, or another pronoun unless it wants extra emphasis.

That means arbiter iacit is perfectly complete without adding a separate word for he.

Yes. Latin word order is much freer than English word order because case endings show what each word is doing.

So these could still mean essentially the same thing:

• Arbiter quater talos iacit
• Talos arbiter quater iacit
• Quater arbiter talos iacit
• Arbiter talos quater iacit

The endings still show:

• arbiter = subject
• talos = object

However, changing the order can change emphasis or style. The given sentence is a straightforward and natural arrangement.

Not exactly in the most literal sense.

Talus originally means an ankle bone or knucklebone. In ancient games, knucklebones were used as gaming pieces, so talos iacere can refer to throwing them in play, much like throwing dice.

So depending on context, English may translate it as:

• knucklebones
• dice
• gaming pieces

A learner should know that the Roman cultural background is a little different from modern dice language.

It modifies iacit.

Since quater is an adverb, it modifies the verb and tells you how often the action happens:

• He throws ... four times

It does not describe talos directly. If Latin wanted to say four knucklebones/dice, it would use a numeral such as quattuor, not quater.

So the idea is:

• quater = how many times he throws
• talos = what he throws

In reconstructed Classical pronunciation, iacit is approximately ya-kit.

A few useful points:

• the i at the beginning before a vowel acts like English y
• c is always hard, like k
• the stress is usually on the first syllable here: IA-cit

So a rough pronunciation of the whole sentence would be:

AR-bi-ter KWA-ter TA-los YA-kit

That is only an approximation, but it is a helpful starting point.