gravitas (litterally, weight; then importance, e.g., civitatis): auctoritas (authority and influence in a state): momentum: discrimen (the point, circumstance, etc., on which all hinges; that makes all the difference). A person of importance, vir gravis (from weight of character); vir potens (from power). An affair of importance, res gravissima, summa, or maxima (general terms); res magni momenti or discriminis (of great importance to the success of anything). To be of great importance, magni momenti esse; magni referre: to be of importance, auctoritate valere or posse (of persons who have influence, power, etc.); vim habere or exercere (to exercise influence; of persons and things): to be a person of importance, esse aliquem or aliquid (to be somebody). To make anything of great importance, alicui rei vim tribuere; alicui rei pondus afferre (to add weight to it): to represent anything as of great importance, verbis or oratione exaggerare aliquid (of giving it undue importance): anything makes the question one of more importance in my eyes, aliquid mihi auget quaestionem: this is the point of most importance, hoc caput, or maximum, or primum est: he considered this of more importance, hoc ei antiquius fuit: he thought nothing of more importance than to, etc., nihil [or neque quicquam] habuit antiquius, quam ut, etc. (Cic., Velleius): thinking it a point of the utmost importance to etc., longe antiquissimum ratus, etc., with infinitive (Liv., 1, 32): he thought the difficulty of sufficient importance to demand the appointment of a dictator, res digna visa est, propter quam dictator crearetur. It is of importance to anybody, that, etc., aliquid alicujus interest or refert; but mea, tua, sua, instead of genitive of personal pronoun. ☞ (1) interest, with genitive of person, denotes more the interest a person has in anything; refert, the advantage he actually expects from it, the importance he attaches to it. In the Golden Age, refert is found with the ablatives mea, etc., but not with the genitive of a substantive; both verbs, however, occur absolutely, with the mention of the degree of importance. (2) The thing that is of importance cannot be expressed, as in English, by a substantive, but must be introduced by accusative and infinitive; or, if no new subject is mentioned, by infinitive only, or by a clause with ut, ne, or an interrogative pronoun or particle. (3) The degree of importance is described by adverbs [magnopere, magis, maxime, minime, multum, permultum, plurimum, nihil, etc.] , or by a genitive of price (as magni, permagni, parvi, pluris, tanti, quanti, etc.); thus, it is of the utmost importance to me that you should be with me, maxime nostra interest, te esse nobiscum; he was perpetually thinking of what importance his death would be to P. Clodius, semper, quantum interesset P. Clodii se perire, cogitabat; it is of great importance to me that I should see you, illud mea magni interest, te ut videam; of what importance is that to you? quid tua id refert? [Ans., magni.]