Senator verberatur a Caesare
Senatorem verberat Caesar
Even though the second uses the active voice, the word order makes me read it as "The senator is being beaten by Caesar," even though it's technically "Caesar beats the senator." Since English doesn't let us play around with word order in this way, it's impossible for us to write something like the second (Object Verb Subject).
Is it simply a matter of preference, or do these two sentences have a different feel to a more experienced speaker? It seems like the idea of passive and active voice gets muddled a bit in a language as highly inflected as Latin.
Thanks!
