Ablative of cause

phil · Post by **phil** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 2:10 am

Wheelock doesn't really cover this, except as an after thought, so I don't really understand it, but the sentence to translate is: Relying on the courage of his soldiers, he led them against the enemy. Fortitudine militum, contra hostes eos duxit.
Licet tibi ridere.

Turpissimus · Post by **Turpissimus** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 2:31 am

Relying on? That doesn't seem to me to have a great deal to do with the ablative of cause. Cause implies, well, causation.

If I were to say "relying on the courage of his soldiers", I would say something like

fortitudini militum confidens Caesar....

Confidens comes from confido, a third declension verb taking a dative object.

Turpissimus · Post by **Turpissimus** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 2:37 am

Hold on...

My grammar says the adjective fretus meaning relying on/trusting in, is followed by the ablative. So, I wouldn't say its the ablative of cause, but its an ablative of some sort you need to use here.

e.g.

Impudentia atque audacia fretus

Relying on shamelessness and audacity (long "a"s both at the end there).

Fretus fortitudine militum Caesar.....

phil · Post by **phil** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:25 am

I believe you're right. I've just been looking at it again, and it did look like a participle was needed (I've not yet come across fretus yet), so I was about to preceed the above sentence with fidens when I saw your post. Thank you very much. My only excuse (and it's a lame one) is that I've done 120 of these so far, and it's the first time a participle has been needed.
This one is ablative af cause though, isn't it?
They died of fear. Mortui sunt timore.
BTW what are you doing up at this time of night?