GENITIVE ABSOLUTE

If you have learnt the ablative absolute construction in Latin, here, the genitive absolute follows the same pattern. The only difference is that it uses the genitive case instead.

If a participle phrase is not connected grammatically with the rest of the sentence, i.e. telling us something else, it goes in the genitive = genitive absolute.

E.g. κελεύοντος τοῦ κήρυκος, τί μένεις;

• The first part is a genitive absolute - both the present participle and the noun are in the genitive case

• Literally = ‘With the herald giving orders, why do you wait?’

• = ‘Why do you wait when the herald is giving his orders?’

E.g. τῶν ἀνδρῶν φυγόντων, ἐπανῆλθον

• The first part is a genitive absolute - both the aorist participle and the noun are in the genitive case.

• Literally = ‘With the men having fled, I returned’

• = ‘The men fled and i returned’ OR ‘Because/as/since/when the men fled, i returned’

TENSE:

As you can see above:

• The present participles shows that the action is going on at the same time as the main verb.

• The aorist participle occurs before the action of the main verb.