mē ōrāvit ut sē dēfenderem, he besought me to defend him (lit. that I defend himself);
mē ōrāvērunt, ut fortūnārum suārum dēfēnsiōnem susciperem, they besought me to undertake the defense of their fortunes.
a. The Indirect Reflexive is mainly restricted to those clauses which express the thought, not of the author, but of the subject of the principal clause.
2. The Genitive suī is regularly employed, like meī and tuī, as an Objective Genitive, e.g. oblītus suī, forgetful of himself; but it occasionally occurs—particularly in post-Augustan writers—in place of the Possessive suus; as, fruitur fāmā suī, he enjoys his own fame.
3. Sē and suus are sometimes used in the sense, one's self, one's own, where the reference is not to any particular person; as,—
sē amāre, to love one's self;
suum genium propitiāre, to propitiate one's own genius.
4. Suus sometimes occurs in the meaning his own, their own, etc., referring not to the subject but to an oblique case; as,—
Hannibalem suī cīvēs ē cīvitāte ējēcērunt, his own fellow-citizens drove out Hannibal.
a. This usage is particularly frequent in combination with quisque; as,—
suus quemque error vexat, his own error troubles each.
5. The Reflexives for the first and second persons are supplied by the oblique cases of ego and tū ([§ 85]); as,—
vōs dēfenditis, you defend yourselves.