Seeking clarification: Livy 1.7.5

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whsiv
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Seeking clarification: Livy 1.7.5

Post by whsiv »

Saluete omnes!

I'm having a hard time making sense out of a sentence of Livy's. It occurs in the episode of Hercules and Cacus (1.7.5).

...auersos boues eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit.

I know that Cacus leads the cattle by their tails into his cave. My sticking point is in bold above.

It seems to me that a possible translation is "he dragged the turned-around bulls*, each one remarkable in its beauty, into his cave."

My feeling is that the singular eximium quemque is in some sort of apposition to the plural auersos boues, and that Livy has decided perhaps to provide a reason for why Cacus has stolen the bulls, namely that they are especially good looking. Of course singular would make sense in this context, because he is talking about the singular beauty of each individual bull, and not necessarily the collective beauty of all the bulls together, though they are all no doubt fine.

Just some thoughts.

* Ogilvie in his monumental commentary on the first pentad of Livy argues that the cattle stolen by Cacus are all male, hence my translation.

Valete!

adrianus
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Re: Seeking clarification: Livy 1.7.5

Post by adrianus »

eximium quemque pulchritudine = each one excellent/remarkable in beauty [verbatim],— ut dicis/as you say
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

Qimmik
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Re: Seeking clarification: Livy 1.7.5

Post by Qimmik »

Your understanding of the passage is correct.

whsiv
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Re: Seeking clarification: Livy 1.7.5

Post by whsiv »

gratias uobis ago

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