amabantur

Amabantur is a form of the Latin verb amare, meaning to love. It is the imperfect passive indicative, 3rd person plural. In this tense, the subject is the recipient of the action, and the action is described as ongoing or repeated in the past.

Form and meaning. The imperfect passive endings use the present passive stem and the suffixes for the imperfect: -bar, -baris, -batur, -bamur, -bamini, -bantur. Therefore amabantur literally means “they were being loved” or, depending on context, “they were loved” in a past, ongoing sense. The agent of the action (the doer of the loving) is typically expressed with a phrase in the ablative introduced by a or sometimes left implicit, e.g., amabantur a pueris (they were loved by the boys).

Usage. Amabantur is used to describe past situations where the subject receives the action of loving. It can convey ongoing action, habitual past action, or a state resulting from past activity. The agent may be specified (with a), or the agent may be understood from context. It is common in narrative and descriptive passages to shift from active to passive to emphasize the recipient’s experience or to avoid naming the agent.

Examples.

- Puellae amabantur ab amicis. The girls were loved by friends.

- Puellae amabantur ab eis. The girls were loved by them.

- Dixit quod puellae amabantur. He said that the girls were being loved.

Related forms. Amabantur comes from amare (present active: amāre; imperfect active: amābant) but in the passive voice. The corresponding active imperfect is amabant, meaning “they loved.” The perfect passive would be amatae sunt (for feminine plural) or amati sunt (masculine plural), depending on gender and case.

Summary. Amabantur is a key example of the Latin imperfect passive, used to describe past, ongoing states of being loved or actions in progress affecting the subject, often with the agent indicated or implied.