Cicero, pro Sestio, book 29

[hlawson38]

Context: Cicero speaks admiringly in defense of Cato.

consule me cum esset designatus tribunus plebis, obtulit in discrimen vitam suam; dixit eam sententiam cuius invidiam capitis periculo sibi praestandam videbat;

Translation: During my consulship, when he was tribune-designate he put his life at risk; he announced that opinion, of which the hatred, he recognized, necessarily must endanger his life.

Questions

1. videbat seems to call for indirect discourse, but where is the infinitive?

2. praestandam: is there perhaps an understood esse to make the infinitive asked about in Q.1? Concerning the word itself, I've had trouble finding a matching dictionary definition, and I have just made up a translation to provide a satisfactory meaning. I need help on this word, how to define it, and how to understand its grammar. I want to see this as a passive-periphrastic future infinitive, used in indirect discourse, but I can't make a proper argument for this.

3. periculo sibi: is this a dative of advantage/disadvantage? That is, it was for a danger to himself?

[Barry Hofstetter]

Context: Cicero speaks admiringly in defense of Cato.

consule me cum esset designatus tribunus plebis, obtulit in discrimen vitam suam; dixit eam sententiam cuius invidiam capitis periculo sibi praestandam videbat;

Translation: During my consulship, when he was tribune-designate he put his life at risk; he announced that opinion, of which the hatred, he recognized, necessarily must endanger his life.

Questions

1. videbat seems to call for indirect discourse, but where is the infinitive?

2. praestandam: is there perhaps an understood esse to make the infinitive asked about in Q.1? Concerning the word itself, I've had trouble finding a matching dictionary definition, and I have just made up a translation to provide a satisfactory meaning. I need help on this word, how to define it, and how to understand its grammar. I want to see this as a passive-periphrastic future infinitive, used in indirect discourse, but I can't make a proper argument for this.

3. periculo sibi: is this a dative of advantage/disadvantage? That is, it was for a danger to himself?

Your instincts seem to be right on the money, and that makes it hard to see exactly what difficulty you have with this. Videbat sets up the indirect statement with invidiam as the accusative subject and praestandam [esse] as the future passive infinitive (passive periphrastic). Yes, esse needs to be supplied with praestandam. The esse is actually fairly often omitted in indirect statement with passive periphrastics (as also with future active infinitives). I think the relevant lexical entry for praesto would be:

d. To give, offer, furnish, present, expose: alicui certam summam pecuniae, Suet. Dom. 9: cervicem, Sen. ap. Diom. p. 362 P.: caput fulminibus, to expose, Luc. 5, 770: Hiberus praestat nomen terris, id. 4, 23: anser praestat ex se pullos atque plumam, Col. 8, 13: cum senatui sententiam praestaret, gave his vote, Cic. Pis. 32, 80: terga hosti, to turn one’s back to the enemy, to flee, Tac. Agr. 37: voluptatem perpetuam sapienti, to assume, Cic. Fin. 2, 27, 89.—Pass.: pueri, quibus id (biduum) praestabatur, was devoted, Quint. 1, prooem. § 7; cf.: corpus, cui omnia olim tamquam servo praestabantur, nunc tamquam domino parantur, Sen. Ep. 90, 19

Lewis, C. T., & Short, C. (1891). Harpers’ Latin Dictionary (p. 1431). New York; Oxford: Harper & Brothers; Clarendon Press.

A more literal translation of the relative clause (which might help you see the structure better) might be:

"the unpopularity for which he saw must be exposed to him at the risk of his head..."

So I think that sibi is dative of indirect object, and periculo I want to say is some kind of ablative, maybe an ablative of penalty (A&G 353.1). Or maybe a kind of double dative here, dative of reference for sibi and dative of purpose for periculo, "he saw the unpopularity which he must undergo would result in putting his life at risk..."

This is one of those constructions that show a certain (from our perspective) ambiguity which can possibly be resolved in more than one way, but for which the meaning is still clear.

To show you how good your sense of the Latin is even apart from a technical understanding of the syntax, here is Yonge's translation:

the unpopularity of which be saw would be so great as to imperil his life

[Hylander]

The verb is praesto and esse is understood:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/phi ... isandshort

praestandam esse -- this is what Allen & Greenough call the "second periphrastic conjugation" (sec. 196), which is passive.

periculo sibi: is this a dative of advantage/disadvantage? That is, it was for a danger to himself?

capitis periculo is dative "of purpose."

I think that sibi is simply the indirect object of praestandam, which is passive, agreeing with invidiam, or else the dative complement of the prefixed component of the compound verb prae-standam. But whether it's indirect object or complement of prae- or dative of "disadvantage" (aka dative of "reference"), doesn't matter much. It's probably best to think of it as just generic "dative," without forcing it into any of the grammatical pigeonholes of traditional grammar, recognizing that all of these categories are porous.

If Cicero had written eam sententiam cuius invidiam capitis periculo sibi necesse fore videbat, which is more or less equivalent, sibi would be analyzed as dative "of disadvantage." He might also have wiritten sibi necesse praestaturam, using praestandam in its intransitive sense of "stand in front of." But again, praestandam is passive, and praestandam must be a transitive usage of praesto.

A little awkward to translate literally. Something like: " . . . he pronounced the opinion, of which he saw that the hatred must [necessarily] be furnished to himself as a danger of his head/to his life."

[hlawson38]

Barry Hofstetter wrote:

A more literal translation of the relative clause (which might help you see the structure better) might be:

"the unpopularity for which he saw must be exposed to him at the risk of his head..."

That's *very* helpful! I often look for grammar by writing out a literal translation, however strange it may look in English, but but I didn't find a passive English meaning for this participle. Your rendering rang the bell for me.

Many thanks!

[hlawson38]

Thanks also to Hylander for his helpful commentary. When I have a difficulty like this I like to make out an explicit statement of why I drove into the ditch.

This passage was hard for me, first, because I could not select a dictionary definition for praestandam, even though I could see a satisfactory meaning for the clause.

Secondly, one had to supply esse to complete the infinitive form, and supplying always spooks me a little.

Thirdly, for some reason, the passive periphrastic infinitive as the infinitive in an indirect discourse clause was unexpected, and I had to get used to this as a solution to the grammatical problem.

Fourthly, the English translation in the Loeb volume I was reading was not literal enough to let me see what the Latin might be. Usually, conning a translation shows me the Latin grammar clearly enough that I can go to Allen & Greenough for instruction.

Finally, I usually have to slow down with genitive, dative, or ablative relative pronouns, of the kind that lead into a dependent clause.

So, understanding the passage was disrupted by a host of uncertainties that left me in doubt even after I found the solution I proposed.

[mwh]

Isn’t periculo ablative? Capitis periculum was the price he had to pay for the resultant invidia. He saw that the invidia provoked by his sententia must be incurred at the cost of risk to his life.

[Hylander]

Isn’t periculo ablative? Capitis periculum was the price he had to pay for the resultant invidia. He saw that the invidia provoked by his sententia must be incurred at the cost of risk to his life.

Yes, you're probably right. praesto in the sense of "To become surety for, to answer or vouch for, to warrant, be responsible for, to take upon one's self," L&S.

Sibi would be dative of agent.

[Barry Hofstetter]

Isn’t periculo ablative? Capitis periculum was the price he had to pay for the resultant invidia. He saw that the invidia provoked by his sententia must be incurred at the cost of risk to his life.

Yes, you're probably right. praesto in the sense of "To become surety for, to answer or vouch for, to warrant, be responsible for, to take upon one's self," L&S.

Sibi would be dative of agent.

Yes, I think I like this better than what I proposed, although something about it still bothers me, and I can't quite put my finger on it. It still makes good sense out of the text, though.