Indirect speech, also known as reported speech, indirect discourse (US), or ( or ), is the practice, common in all Latin historical writers, of reporting spoken or written words indirectly, using different grammatical forms. Passages of indirect speech can extend from a single phrase to an entire paragraph, and this style was generally preferred by Roman historians to the direct speech commonly found in Greek authors. The main types of indirect speech in Latin are indirect statements, indirect commands, and indirect questions. Indirect statements in classical Latin usually use the accusative and infinitive construction. In this the main verb of the quoted sentence is changed to an infinitive, and its subject to the accusative case; this construction is also sometimes used for commands and rhetorical questions. Indirect questions, most indirect commands, and most subordinate verbs in indirect statements use the subjunctive mood. Subjunctive mood tenses are divided into two groups, primary (present and perfect) and historic (imperfect and pluperfect). The historic tenses are used when the context is past time, although it is also possible sometimes to use a primary tense in a past context, a practice referred to as . Although the term strictly speaking refers to the reporting of spoken or written words, the same grammatical constructions are also used in sentences introduced by other verbs such as those of perceiving, showing, remembering, and thinking. These are also included in this article. In some cases, especially in longer passages of , the verb of speaking is omitted, and the grammatical form alone shows that the words are indirect. Main types of indirect speech Indirect statement The most common type of indirect speech is indirect statement, for which in classical Latin (although not in medieval Latin) the usual grammatical form is the accusative and infinitive construction. In this the subject of the quoted sentence is put into the accusative case, and the verb is changed to an infinitive. Four main tenses of the infinitive are used: the present, the perfect, the future participle with (which is often omitted), and the future participle with . The present infinitive is used when the original verb was a present indicative tense: (Caesar) 'it was reported that Scipio was nearby' The perfect infinitive is used when the original verb was a perfect, imperfect, or pluperfect indicative tense: (Servius Sulpicius Rufus) 'he reported to me that Marcus Marcellus had received two wounds' If the