I have recently begun working on Nutting’s Ad Alpes, supplementary to my work with Seigel’s Latin Syntax: A Clear Guide to bring my grammar back up to something near scratch, and LLPSI. But already I have run into a difficulty.
On p. 18 (only the second of Caput 1!), Cornelius is discussing the dangerous pirates that harried the Aegean prior to Pompeius Magnus’ efforts to halt their predations. In answer to his son Sextus’ question - ‘Why did the long ships (i.e. Roman ships) not immediately drive those wicken men from out of the sea?’, Cornelius replies:
‘Saepe id temptātum est,’ inquit pater; ‘sed, ut est in vetere prōverbiō, “Incipere multō est quam impetrāre facilius.” Quō modō factum est ut, cum aliōs nāvēs cōnsectārentur, aliī procul praedās agerent;…’
I make this out to mean (more or less):
‘It was often tried,’ said the father; ‘but, as it is in the old proverb, “To begin is much easier than to accomplish/finish.” In this way it was done, when the [Roman] ships were following some, others were conducting the loot far away;…’
I have several questions:
Have I translated ‘Quō modō factum est’ correctly literally? I gather it means something like ‘This is how it was’? But I want to be sure I have understood the Latin as it is - rather than to have understood the gist.
Does Quō modō here introduce an indirect question, and that is why agerent is in the subjunctive? Making ut here merely an adverb? I cannot reason out a purpose clause or indirect command here? But I can see the former as a possibility that I have misunderstood.
Is my literal rendering of Quō…agerent correct? Are the aliī also Roman ships? Is the idea that whilst some Roman ships pursued the pirates preventing their plundering, that other Roman ships conducted valuable cargoes out of harms way? Or have I misunderstood completely?
Thank you for your help. If I remember rightly, a consecutive clause is the same as a result clause? So literally does it mean something like ‘In that way it was done (with the result) that, when the [Roman] ships were following some, others were taking the loot far away.’ ?
Could you give me another example of Quō modō introducing a consecutive clause? My original thought, that it was an indirect question, was based on the idea that what followed the ut was an answer to the question ‘How was it done?’, but then the ut becomes much harder to account for/include in one’s translation than in your interpretation.
Is Quō modō here an adverb? And is Quomodo to be distinguished from Quo modo
Yes, it is the same. That’s how I interpreted, at least.
This is novel composition, if I am not mistaken. The author wrote quō modō (o long) rather than quō modo (quōmodo). So it does not seem to me that he wanted to use that adverb.
If quō and modō are an ablative of means ‘By which/that method’, why is illo modo not used say, to mean ‘By that means it was done’? Or can qui, quae, quod mean ‘that’ as well as ‘who, what’? If so, how do you distinguish between the two uses?
Sorry to ask so many questions about such basic material.
Assuming Nutting wanted it to be unimpeachable from a syntactical point of view, maybe the antecedent simply refers to the previous sentence, to the trying.
I don’t think this has yet been properly sorted out.
quo modo literally “in which way,” i.e. “and in this way.” quo simply serves as a connective (as the relative pronoun at the beginning of a sentence very often does), it does not introduce an indirect question or any other kind of subordinate clause. (Technically speaking it’s a relative clause itself.)
quo modo factum est ut “And in this way it happened (factum est) that …” i.e. “And this is how it happened that …”. agerent depends on ut, “(it happened) that” (normal construction, neither a purpose clause nor an indirect command).
alii are the other ships, the ones that evaded pursuit. alios naves … alii … “Some ships … (object of cōnsectārentur), others (subject of agerent) …" Both sets of ships are the pirates’.
Piracy had been a persistent problem for the Romans until Pompey finally succeeded in suppressing it. Cf. Somali pirates more recently.
What do you mean by a ‘normal construction’ with ut? I followed the guidance of ‘The Latin Language: A Handbook for Students’ prepared by the Scottish Classics Group pp.93-4. Could you point me to this kind of ‘normal construction’ in Kennedy’s Latin Primer? I do not say any of this to doubt you - I just want to be able to find this and add it to my storehouse of ut uses.
I thought that we had alios…alii both as pirates already? I.e. ‘In this way it was done, when the [Roman] ships [naves] were following some [alios], others [pirates] were conducting the loot far away;…’ ?
Why is agerent in the subjunctive? cum + subjunctive meaning when in past time?
Why is quo modo in the ablative - is it an ablative of means? I.e. By what means? Or is the phrase here an indeclinable? Again, I just want to know what I’m looking at.
Thank you for this. Until Bedwere’s post I had never come across Result Clauses by any other name, but I think Consecutive Clause might be a less loaded way of thinking about this construction from now on - and I assume it is this greater sense of neutrality/a sense of a wider applicability than to a result that births mwh’s ‘Normal construction’. Thinking of my options as being essentially limited to result/purpose/indirect question, I discounted a result early because of the lack of some sort of word along the lines of tam/adeo before the ut. I had originally plumped for indirect question as I said, because I had interpreted it as being an answer to the direct question quo modo…?
Thanks for your help - may I just ask, you say you’ve always thought of it as a result clause - have you read Ad Alpes before?
It some grammars it is called a “substantive result clause” or simply a “substantive clause” because the entire ut clause is really the subject of factum est (which as MIchael pointed out is better rendered as “it happened” rather than “it was done,” a frequent sense of the perfects passive of facio, more closely associated with fiō).
