Tricky sentences- de bello Gallico V.XI

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Lucan
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Tricky sentences- de bello Gallico V.XI

Post by Lucan »

Greetings all

I have recently been ploughing my way through Caesar's work and often finding myself struggling. I have gotten bogged down by a mass of ablatives, participles and (as of yet) unlearned vocab. which result in a translation that 'gets the gist of it' but is far from perfect. Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Here are a couple of sentences that have given me trouble, with my attempted translations.

<i>In his rebus circiter dies X consumit ne nocturnis quidem temporibus ad laborem militum intermissis</i>

'He used up about ten days in these matters, without even resting at night-time for the work of the soldiers.'

What type of word here is <i>intermissis</i>? And how would one translate <i>temporibus</i>? I've translated it alongside <i>nocturnis</i> as night-time but that might be completely wrong. Also, why are <i>nocturnis</i> and <i>temporibus</i> plural? Because they refer to the ten days?

<i>Eo cum venisset, maiores iam undique in eum locum copiae Britannorum convenerant summa imperi bellique administrandi communi consilio permissa Cassivellauno, cuius fines a maritimis civitatibus flumen dividit, quod appellatur Tamesis, a mari circiter milia passuum LXXX.</i>

'When he had come to that place, by now the greater part of the British troops had assembled from all sides in that place with the highest council of the command of the war entrusted to Cassivellaunus. His river, which was named the Thames, divided his borders from the maritime communities and from the sea by about eighty miles'

Any comments/advise as ever will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Last edited by Lucan on Sun Jan 09, 2005 2:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

chrisb
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Post by chrisb »

[/i]Nocturnis temporibus is in the plural, I think, because the reference is to ten nights.



Slip of the typing finger, no doubt, but LXXX is 80 not 8!

chrisb

Lucan
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Post by Lucan »

chrisb wrote: Slip of the typing finger, no doubt, but LXXX is 80 not 8!

chrisb
Ooops :oops:. Yes I missed out the 'y'... now corrected

Turpissimus
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Post by Turpissimus »

In his rebus circiter dies X consumit ne nocturnis quidem temporibus ad laborem militum intermissis


'He used up about ten days in these matters, without even resting at night-time for the work of the soldiers.'

What type of word here is intermissis? And how would one translate temporibus? I've translated it alongside nocturnis as night-time but that might be completely wrong. Also, why are nocturnis and temporibus plural? Because they refer to the ten days?
Nocturnis temporibus intermissis is all one phrase I think. Meaning - (not even) nocturnal times being omitted (or something like that - it's an ablative absolute anyway) from (Latin apparently says ad) the labour of the soldiers. You can put it into better English, but I've preserved the rough flavour of the sentence.

Turpissimus
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Post by Turpissimus »

Probably plural simply out of idiom. We say night-time but troubling times. It's surely something like that.

Skylax
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Re: Tricky sentences- de bello Gallico V.XI

Post by Skylax »

Lucan wrote: His river, which was named the Thames, divided his borders from the maritime communities and from the sea by about eighty miles'
"A river, which is named the Thames, divides his territory from the maritime city-states at about eighty miles from the sea."

Literally : "(Cassivellaunus) whose territory a river divides" etc.

Valete

Lucan
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Re: Tricky sentences- de bello Gallico V.XI

Post by Lucan »

Thanks for your advice everyone. This is making much more sense. I would be interested to know if <i>nocturnis temporibus</i> is plural because it refers to several days, or if it is just a latin idiom.
Skylax wrote:"A river, which is named the Thames, divides his territory from the maritime city-states at about eighty miles from the sea."

Literally : "(Cassivellaunus) whose territory a river divides" etc.
Would I be correct in saying the 'at about eighty miles from the sea' is an ablative of place?

Thanks again

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