O Captain, my Captain,you granted authority to those who would "beg to differ" and I now beseech you for that purpose. My view is that there are several errors in the thread that want correcting and I shall offer the following.
Let's start w/ the Latin quote . I do not know whether the gladiators always said, in a ritualistic fashion, exactly the same words, but the Latin phrase is usually quoted "Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus!" The English translation is, "Hail, Caesar! We who are about to die salute you! ("Salutamus" is pres. indic. , 1st person,pl. "we salute" (The saluters) ) "te" (Caesar) (the salutee), hence the pronoun "te" is in the accusAtive "case". Nouns and pronouns have "case". Verbs do not. "Morituri" would take a minute to explain and I rather doubt that anyone is interested except Bobyoungblatt who could authoritatively and succinctly explain it to all of us. Hate to be picky, but wanted to set record straight.
