cessandum ratus

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phil
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Location: Wellington, New Zealand

cessandum ratus

Post by phil »

Hannibal had just given the Romans a jolly good thrashing at Apulia:

Hannibalī vlctōrī cum cēterī grātulārentur suādērentque, ut quiētem iam ipse sūmeret et fessīs mīlitibus daret,
ūnus ex ēius praefectīs, Maharbal, minimē cessandum ratus, Hannibalīque suādēns, ut statim Rōmam pergeret, ...

While the rest were congratulating Hannibal, the victor, and proposing that he have a rest, and give some to his troops, one of his prefects, Maharbal, least of all thinking delaying, was persuading Hannibal to immediately push on to Rome, ...

I can't make sense of 'minimē cessandum ratus', or at least the actual Latin words. I think I know what it means, something like 'not thinking it a good ideat to loiter', but cessandum, gerundive, just means delaying, and ratus just means thinking/supposing, and I can't put the two together to mean anything.

If ratus meant 'liking' (not liking delaying), or it were 'cessandī' (not thinking of delaying) I'd be a happy chappy, but neither of these is true, and I'm not. Can someone please help my brain?

Cheers, Phil

Alatius
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Re: cessandum ratus

Post by Alatius »

"When in doubt, supply a form of esse" is a good advice that I took to heart early on: "Maharbal, minimē cessandum esse ratus..."

Nooj
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Re: cessandum ratus

Post by Nooj »

As Alatius says.

This may also help. Cesso (1st conjugation) is an intransitive verb. When intransitive verbs are turned into gerundives, it becomes an impersonal verb:
Progredior - I set out.
Progrediendum est mihi. It is to be set out by me.

The subject is an 'it' or a subject inherent in the verb stem itself (I think of it as 'a setting out is to be set out by me', or pluit - rain is raining) and the agent is in the dative. You can understand 'minimē cessandum esse [nobis] ratus'.
Dolor poetas creat.

Imber Ranae
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Re: cessandum ratus

Post by Imber Ranae »

Another thing to keep in mind, since you seem originally to have interpreted cessandum as a gerund, is that the accusative of the gerund is never used as a direct object in Latin, just as there is no nominative gerund for the subject. The infinitive is used instead for both, whereas the accusative gerund is only used as the object of prepositions which govern the accusative case, most especially ad.
Ex mala malo
bono malo uesci
quam ex bona malo
malo malo malo.

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