Loci Immutati 6

[antigone1987]

I'm having some major difficult translating this HUGE passage.

Could someone help?


Tum Cethegus (qui paulo ante aliquid tamen de gladiis ac sicis, quae apud ipsum erant deprehensa, respondisset dixissetque se semper bonorum ferramentorum studiosum fuisse recitatis literris debilitatus atque abiectus conscientia, repente conticuit.

Tum ostendi tabellas Lentulo, et quaesivi cognoscerene signum.

Si quid de his rebus dicere vellet, feci potestatem.

Post autem aliquanto, toto iam indicio exposito atque edito, surrexit.

Gabinius deinde introductus, cum primo impudenter respondere coepisset, ad extremum nihil ex eis quae Galli insimulabant negavit.

Everything else in this passage I get, but there are parts of each of these sentences that totally stump me. Can someone please help me read this so I can understand the whole passage?

Thanks!

[modus.irrealis]

Hi. It's hard to know what's causing you trouble. I'll make a guess, but what I see as difficult isn't necessarily what someone else sees as difficult, so it's probably easier if you'd be more specific.

Tum Cethegus (qui paulo ante aliquid tamen de gladiis ac sicis, quae apud ipsum erant deprehensa, respondisset dixissetque se semper bonorum ferramentorum studiosum fuisse recitatis literris debilitatus atque abiectus conscientia, repente conticuit.

For the main sentence, tum Cethegus recitatis literris debilitatus atque abiectus conscientia, repente conticuit, you have recitatis litteris = postquam litterae recitatae sunt. The last part has pretty much the same meaning as "debilitatus atque abiectus conscientia est et repente conticuit." For the subjunctives "respondisset" and "dixisset", I think the best way to understand it is to just view "qui" here as being equivalent to "cum is" (just like in other places it's equivalent to "et is" or "ut is") -- so I would take it in the sense of "although he..." because of "tamen".

Tum ostendi tabellas Lentulo, et quaesivi cognoscerene signum.

That should be "cognosceretne" -- and then it's just an indirect question: "Cognoscisne signum?" > Quaesivi cognosceretne signum.

Si quid de his rebus dicere vellet, feci potestatem.

Facere potestatem = to give (someone) the opportunity, to allow. If you're wondering why "vellet" is a subjunctive, I don't know -- in A&G's grammar, they give it as an example of "when the main clause of a quotation is merged in the verb of saying", but I don't really get what that means. The meaning is clear, though, same as if it had just been "volebat".

Post autem aliquanto, toto iam indicio exposito atque edito, surrexit.

"iam" can also mean "then" (it really still means "now" but the reference point is shifted to the past).

Gabinius deinde introductus, cum primo impudenter respondere coepisset, ad extremum nihil ex eis quae Galli insimulabant negavit.

Ad extremum = in the end. "nihil" is the object of "negavit", so "he denied nothing of the things that..."