inde eos, collecta iuvenum manu

[pmda]

This sentence occurs in LLPSI (Orberg) Cap XLI:

The robbers have struck back at Romulus and Remus who have been stealing from them.

Sed latrones ob praedam amissam irati geminis insidias fecerunt et, cum Romulus vi se defendisset, Remum ceperunt et captum regi Amulio tradiderunt falso accusantes 'in Numitoris agros ab iis impetus fieri; inde eos, collecta iuvenum manu, hostilem in modum praedas agere!'


But the thieves, angered by losing their booty, made an ambush against the twins and, whilst Romulus, with force, defended himself, they captured Remus and handed him captive to Amulius falsly accusing him [of having been in] in Numitor's land, for the purpose of making an attack from there; from there, a gang of youths having been gathered, as an enemy had recently being committing robbery.

'inde eos, collecta iuvenum manu' is a bit tricky..

[whsiv]

Salve pmda,

I agree that this sentence is a bit tricky. Here's what I think is going on...

It's important to keep in mind that 'in Numitoris agros...praedas agere' is reported speech. Orberg hints at this with the single quotation marks around it (a practice which you have no doubt noticed already).

Now, knowing that this is indirect speech, we can safely take eos as our subject accusative (referring to Romulus and Remus) and praedas agere as the verb phrase. This yields a skeleton translation "they stole some booty."

Thrown into this mix are an ablative absolute phrase collecta iuvenum manu and a participial phrase hostilem in modum. I think the best way to understand the ablative absolute is that Romulus and Remus gathered together a band (manu) of young guys and THEN went raiding. The participial phrase seems pretty direct: they took their spoils in a hostile way/aggressively.

So, I think the best way to take this bit of the sentence is "then, after they had gathered together a band of youths, they aggressively stole some booty."

[adrianus]

As whsiv says very clearly. I thought it also interesting that some translate "hostilem in modum" like this: "as if they were at war" or "as though in regular warfare", since it means "in the enemy-like way" or "like hostiles". It gives a quite vivid image, I think.

Ut perclarè dicit whsiv. Nonnulli sic anglicè vertunt: "as though in regular warfare". Hoc mihi curae est quod id imaginem vegetiorem pingit.

[Qimmik]

"falsly accusing him [of having been in] in Numitor's land,"

falso accusantes 'in Numitoris agros ab iis impetus fieri

This is a puzzling construction. It seems intended to mean literally "falsely bringing the accusation that an attack on Numitor's fields was made by them". But accuso generally takes a direct object and a genitive of the crime; and I don't see any passages quoted in Lewis and Short or in the Oxford Latin Dictionary where accuso is used with an accusative + infinitive construction.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:430.lewisandshort

The OLD gives an example from Cornelius Nepos (Themistocles 8.2) where accuso is used with quod + subjunctive, but that could mean "they brought an accusation against him because [or "on the grounds that"], they said, he . . . ."

It's not clear to me that the usage of accuso here with the accusative + infinitive construction is real Latin. Here's what Livy actually wrote:

[Ferunt] Remum cepisse, captum regi Amulio tradidisse, ultro accusantes. Crimini maxime dabant in Numitoris agros ab iis impetum fieri; inde eos collecta iuvenum manu hostilem in modum praedas agere.

" . . . they also brought a charge against him. As an accusation [crimini] they mostly alleged that . . . "

[Shenoute]

Gaffiot (http://www.lexilogos.com/latin/gaffiot.php?q=accuso) gives one example of accuso + ACI :
accusantibus Cyrenensibus violatum ab eo thesaurum Æsculapii (Tac., Ann. 14, 18)

He also mentions the use of the participle of accuso with the infinitive :
accusata injecisse (Tac., Ann. 4, 22)

Both from Tacitus, not very kind of Orberg to use such a construction...

[pmda]

Gratias vobis ago.

[wilhelmjohnson]

I have a word order question about falso accusantes 'in Numitoris agros ab iis impetus fieri'

If impetus is accusative plural, shouldn't the order have been thus: falso accusantes 'impetus in Numitoris agros ab iis fieri'?

[pmda]

I've not (yet) heard that word-order of any kind is necessary to convey meaning in Latin.

[adrianus]

I've not (yet) heard that word-order of any kind is necessary to convey meaning in Latin.

There are limits.
Sunt fines.

"Namque illis in multorum saepe personam per gratiam et preces exorabilibus solus magno opere contendit ne cui parceretur" makes sense. // intellegibile est.

The same words but this doesn't make sense due to the word-order: // Non intellegibilis est haec collocatio horum verborum ratione ordinis:
"Gratiam parceretur namque cui illis ne in contendit multorum opere personam solus per exorabilibus saepe preces et magno."

[wilhelmjohnson]

Thanks for the example, adrianus. I'd like to return to my specific syntactic question:

I have a word order question about falso accusantes 'in Numitoris agros ab iis impetus fieri'

If impetus is accusative plural, shouldn't the order have been thus: falso accusantes 'impetus in Numitoris agros ab iis fieri'?

The only thing I can come up with is that Orberg moved impetus to its current position for purposes of elegant variation.

[Qimmik]

The main point is that incursions were made. Putting impetus fieri at the end of the clause focuses attention on that phrase. This isn't "elegant variation" for its own sake. But "normal" Latin word order would make impetus, which is the subject, the first element in the clause. Either word order would be acceptable here. The nominal and verbal inflexions, not word order (as in English), serve to make the syntactic structure of Latin sentences clear, and this allows greater freedom to use word order as a means of expression. The beginning and end of a clause are generally positions that are the focus of attention.

[wilhelmjohnson]

A lucid explanation—Many thanks.