Milites caedem vitant.

Milites means soldiers.

It is the nominative plural form of miles, which means soldier.
Because it is nominative plural, it works naturally as the subject of the sentence: the people doing the action.

Caedem is in the accusative singular.

In this sentence, it is the direct object of vitant—that is, it receives the action of the verb. The soldiers are avoiding the slaughter / bloodshed / killing, so caedem has to be accusative.

Its dictionary form is caedes, and this is a third-declension noun.
So:

• nominative singular: caedes
• accusative singular: caedem

You can tell mainly from the cases and the verb ending.

• Milites is nominative plural, which is the normal case for the subject
• Caedem is accusative singular, which is the normal case for the direct object
• Vitant is third person plural, so it matches milites as the subject

So the grammar points clearly to:

• milites = the ones doing the avoiding
• caedem = the thing being avoided

Vitant is:

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

It comes from the verb vito, vitare, meaning to avoid.

So vitant means they avoid or they are avoiding.

Because Latin verbs include person and number in the ending, -nt tells you the subject is they.

Latin often leaves out subject pronouns when they are not needed.

The ending of vitant already tells you the subject is third person plural: they. So Latin does not need to say ei or another pronoun here.

That is very normal in Latin.
Vitant by itself already means they avoid.

That is a very common beginner question.

In Latin, an ending that looks plural in English does not necessarily mean plural in Latin. Caedes is actually the nominative singular form of a third-declension noun.

So:

• caedes = singular
• caedem = singular accusative

The -es ending here belongs to the noun’s declension pattern; it is not a plural marker in this case.

No. Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the case endings show each word’s job.

So all of these could mean the same basic thing:

• Milites caedem vitant
• Caedem milites vitant
• Vitant milites caedem

However, different word orders can create different emphasis.
The version Milites caedem vitant is a straightforward, neutral way to say it.

Latin often uses a singular noun where English might use either a singular noun or an uncountable idea.

Caedes can mean something like:

• slaughter
• bloodshed
• killing

So caedem vitant can be understood as they avoid slaughter/bloodshed. The singular form is perfectly normal in Latin.

Yes. Latin has no definite or indefinite article, so there is no separate word for the or a/an.

Depending on context, Milites caedem vitant could be translated as:

• The soldiers avoid the slaughter
• Soldiers avoid slaughter
• The soldiers are avoiding bloodshed

The exact English wording depends on the context, not on any article in the Latin.

You would make both the subject and the verb singular:

• Miles caedem vitat

That means The soldier avoids slaughter or A soldier avoids the killing.

Compare:

• miles ... vitat = the soldier ... avoids
• milites ... vitant = the soldiers ... avoid