another suus/eius question

Latin Learning Latin
1

  1. Postquam Troja a Graecis vastata est,Aeneas, dux Trojanus, cum sociis suis ad Thraciam navigavit.

  2. His verbis moti, Aeneas et sociis eius a litoribus Thraciae fugerunt.


    in both sentences the companions of Aeneas are referred to , one reflexively and not the other. I fail to see the difference.

2

While in the first sentence Aeneas is clearly the subject, in the second he shares the limelight with his buddies. So in the first sentence you have suus because it referes to the subject. In the second you have ejus. You could have

Aeneas et socii eius a litoribus Thraciae fugerunt navi sua.

They fled with their (of Aeneas and his buddies, not only of Aeneas) ship.

3

In the second sentence, sociis should be socii. So you are trying to say sui used in the second sentence would refer to the compound subject, and so eius is used to make the distinction? That sounds right.

4

Ah, yes. It must be socii. I agree also with the rest.

5

Yes, I should have typed in socii instead of sociis.Thank you for the responses. It’s all clear now. The two forms of the possessive is an important distinction in Latin which is lacking in English. My wife is from South America and I will ask her if modern Spanish follows the Latin in this respect.