Translation of sentence

[ascii]

Hello again, I would like some help in the translation of the following sentence

Caesar media nocte castris omnibus copiis exit et iter ad flumen facit. Prima luce copias hostium pedestres in summo colle vident. Tum Caesar in dextro et sinistro cornu equites collocat.

This is what I have so far:

At midnight, Cesar goes out of the camp omnibus copiis and does(follows?) the path by the river. With the first light, he sees the enemy troops standing on the top of a hill. So Cesar puts knights on the right and left wings.

Is there an ellided preposition, what cases does exit govern? Is media acting as an adverb or is it an ablative singular that goes with nocte?


Thanks in advance.

[modus.irrealis]

Hi,

Is there an ellided preposition, what cases does exit govern?

exeo is intransitive like "go out" -- about omnibus copiis, for some reason with troops and other military groups, you don't need a preposition to indicate "with", and the ablative is enough on it's own, but it's basically the same as if it had been cum omnibus copiis. I don't know if "elided preposition" is historically accurate but basically, yeah.

Is media acting as an adverb or is it an ablative singular that goes with nocte?

The latter.

Also about your translation, iter facio means something like "make one's way" or "make a journey".

pedester mean "on foot" so pedestres there doesn't have the verbal sense of "standing" as in your translation. It basically indicates that the enemy troops were infantrymen.

I'd say that tum is simply "then" rather than "so."

[ascii]

Great. What I said about an ellided preposition was refering to castris. Isn't it supposed to be exit ex castris?

[modus.irrealis]

Great. What I said about an ellided preposition was refering to castris. Isn't it supposed to be exit ex castris?

Oh, sorry. castra is just one of those words that can be used in the ablative without a preposition (for either ex castris or in castris).

[ascii]

Thank you very much.