Reading through Lingua Latina

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Rindu
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Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Rindu »

Hi,
I'm reading Lingua Latina as a way to get back into Latin, and I'm in chapter 44. Occasionally I come across a passage which I feel I understand, but have trouble parsing it out grammatically and I'm not sure that I understand how everything is working. Here's an example:

Cui cum divitiae iam animos facerent, auxit uxor eius Tanaquil, summo loco nata et quae haud facile virum suum humiliorem quam patrem sineret.

I especially can't quite piece together the relative clause bit...why cui? "The riches made him proud"...but shouldn't I expect another accusative? "His wife Tanaquil, born in the highest station, increased his honor--although she could not easily allow her husband to be someone baser then her father."

Something like that, but it doesn't quite feel right. Any help/hints/tips?

Qimmik
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Qimmik »

Cui is a relative pronoun. It refers back to Tarquin (I assume) in the preceding sentence. It's used here more like a demonstrative than a relative pronoun. It's equivalent here to ei. Latin frequently uses relative pronouns as demonstratives to connect with a preceding sentence. This is explained in Allen & Greenough 303:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ythp%3D303

The direct object of facerent is animos, not a predicate adjective, so you wouldn't expect the person affected by the verb to be an accusative instead of the dative. The use of cui here is traditionally classified as a dative of reference:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ythp%3D377

Somewhat literally, "When wealth gave rise to proud spirits for him..."

animos (understood) is the direct object of auxit. His wealth gave rise to his pride; his wife
Tanaquil increased it.

summo loco nata et quae haud facile virum suum humiliorem quam patrem sineret -- his wife (who was) born in the highest station and who could not easily allow [or maybe, "endure"] her husband to be someone baser then her father.

adrianus
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by adrianus »

"Suffer" is good for "sino".
Aptum ibi anglicè "suffer".

Maybe // forsit hoc: "To him his wife, Tanaquil, as one born to the highest station and not likely to suffer as a husband a lesser man than her father, was an enhancement [//she advanced him], since riches really motivated/incentivised/drove him."
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: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Qimmik »

"To him his wife, Tanaquil, as one born to the highest station and not likely to suffer as a husband a lesser man than her father, was an enhancement [//she advanced him], since riches really motivated/incentivised/drove him."

Auxit means "increased," either transitive or intransitive, not "be an enhancement". On this reading auxit would be transitive, since it wouldn't have a direct object. The point is not that Tanaquil increased, but rather that she increased something, i.e., a direct object. The only word that can be a direct object here is animos, which in the plural can mean "arrogance." See Lewis and Short II.B.2.b:

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

iam shows that the cum clause is prior in time, i.e., a temporal, not a causal, meaning. "When wealth already gave rise to his [cui] pride/arrogance, his wife increased it [animos]. cui and animos are understood with both verbs.
Last edited by Qimmik on Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Godmy
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Godmy »

For me auxit is here transitive with a kind of elipsis of the object (the object being semantically divitiae, but not again re-mentioned in the same clause as auxit (and in an appropriate case), but implied).
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Qimmik
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Qimmik »

The object of auxit is animos, which in the accusative doubles as the object of both facerent and auxit--his arrogance. His wealth first gave rise to it; his high-born and ambitious wife increased it.

Here are some translations of the original passage from Livy 1.34:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... chapter=34

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... apter%3D34

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... apter%3D34

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Godmy
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Godmy »

I see... I had a little bit different, semantically maybe not so good interpretation.

But would intransitive be the right term? The object is there, just not repeated twice (as you then mentioned yourself -> pretty far from intransitive).
Last edited by Godmy on Tue Jan 28, 2014 9:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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adrianus
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by adrianus »

Qimmik wrote:iam shows that the cum clause is prior in time, i.e., a temporal, not a causal, meaning. "When wealth already gave rise to his [cui] pride/arrogance, his wife increased it [animos]. cui and animos are understood with both verbs.
I didn't read "jam" as "already" but as an emphatic "indeed" but what you say is good and neat, Qimmik. I get it.
Jam adverbium non ut jampridem sed ut quidem legi at bonum et aptum quod dicis, Qimmik. Capio.

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And now I see the published translations supporting what you say.
Et loca jam prodita quae te adjungunt nunc video.
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: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Qimmik »

"But would intransitive would be the right term?" Yes, you're absolutely right. Thanks for pointing it out. I meant "transitive"--that was precisely my point--but I wrote "intransitive" by mistake. I went back and fixed it.

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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Rindu »

Qimmik wrote: The direct object of facerent is animos, not a predicate adjective, so you wouldn't expect the person affected by the verb to be an accusative instead of the dative. The use of cui here is traditionally classified as a dative of reference:
This works, but two accusatives are often found with verbs of making, electing, choosing. The weirdness of the expression threw me...it's as if Livy is saying that "riches caused pride to come into existence with respect to Lucumo."
+

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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Qimmik »

The weirdness of the expression threw me...it's as if Livy is saying that "riches caused pride to come into existence with respect to Lucumo."
That's exactly what he's saying. "When riches were already making arrogance for Lucumo/Tarquin, his wife Tanquil increased it . . . ." That's just idiomatic Latin and Livy's terse style.

Rindu
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Rindu »

Thanks! I don't know why my comment posted four times...

The sad thing, to me, is that I read all of Livy I, but that was five years ago. It's astounding that it's now like I'm reading it for the first time.

Rindu
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Rindu »

Another simple question. I don't have any issues with the meaning of this sentence (XLV.50-51), but I'm curious about the nature of the dative therein:

Quam rem Tarquinius aegrē ferēns cōnfestim Turnō necem māchinātur

Dative of (dis)advantage? Reference? Does it matter?

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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Qimmik »

I would classify this dative as the good old indirect object. But in the end, it probably doesn't matter. After all, the various uses of the dative were classified not by those who wrote the texts but much later by grammarians trying to make sense out of the texts. Not that the classifications aren't useful.

Rindu
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Rindu »

I can't parse this at all. I kind of get what it means, but how does it work?

So, the censors expel a guy from the senate, and the reason is:

quod eum comperissent argentī factī cēnae grātiā decem pondō lībrās habēre.

they found out he had 10 pounds in weight for the sake of dinner of made silver...something like that. Pondō and lībrās seem to mean the same thing, so I'm confused, and I don't get why argentī factī is genitive. I just can't seem to piece everything together....help?

Qimmik
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Qimmik »

The key is argenti facti. This means worked silver -- silver that has been fashioned into objects -- here, silver vessels cenae gratia, i.e., silver dinnerware. They had discovered that he had ten pounds by weight [decem pondō lībrās] of silver dinnerware [argentī factī cēnae grātiā ]. The censors were offended by his extravagance.

Rindu
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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Rindu »

Ah, thanks.

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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Rindu »

Here's one that's killing me:

tanta circā fuga ac trepidātiō fuit ut nōn multum abesset quīn opera ac vīneae dēsererentur. (XLVIII.122-3)

I especially don't get "nōn multum abesset." I looked at a few translations which seem to leave these words out, even. Should I construe ABESSET impersonally? ("it is not very absent" = "it's not far off the mark")

I also don't think I've seen quīn used this way.

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Re: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by adrianus »

Rindu wrote:I especially don't get "nōn multum abesset." I looked at a few translations which seem to leave these words out, even. Should I construe ABESSET impersonally? ("it is not very absent" = "it's not far off the mark")

I also don't think I've seen quīn used this way.
"[N]on multum abesset quin..." Tibi concurro. Impersonalis est hic usus. = "So great was the fleeing and terror all around that it was not much off / it was nearly [the case but] that the works/fortifications and vineae [or protective huts/canopies] were abandoned"
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: Reading through Lingua Latina

Post by Qimmik »

You can translate nōn multum abesset quīn as "almost."

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