Cornelius Nepos, Aristides: perfect infinitive issue

Latin Learning Latin
1

Cornelius Nepos, Aristides

Context: The Athenians banish Aristides

The problem: to study verb forms.


. . .exilio decem annorum multatus est. [3] qui quidem cum intellegeret reprimi concitatam multitudinem non posse, cedensque animadvertisset quendam scribentem, ut patria pelleretur, quaesisse ab eo dicitur, quare id faceret aut quid Aristides commisisset, cur tanta poena dignus duceretur. [4] cui ille respondit se ignorare Aristiden, sed sibi non placere, quod tam cupide laborasset, ut praeter ceteros Iustus appellaretur.

I try in my translation more to communicate my conception of the grammar, that to make the text pleasing in English.

. . .he [Aristides] was punished by an banishment of ten years. At the time when he understood that the crowd [of citizens voting on his fate] could not be checked, and he was giving up, he had [already] directed his attention to a man writing that Aristides ought to be banished by the state, in order to ask the man to say why he was writing that, or what Aristides had done, on account of which he should be thought deserving of so great a punishment. To him the man replied that he didn’t know Aristides, but Aristides was displeasing, because he had worked so eagerly, in order that he might be called more just than other men.

Why the perfect infinitive quaesisse ? I suggest this is an instance of the Complementary Infinitive, as defined by Allen and Greenough, quaesisse here complements the meaning of of animadvertisset.

[*] 456. Verbs which imply another action of the same subject to complete their meaning take the Infinitive without a subject accusative.
Such are verbs denoting to be able, dare , undertake, remember, forget, be accustomed, begin, continue, cease, hesitate, learn, know how, fear, and the like:—

“hōc queō dīcere ” (Cat. M. 32) , this I can say.
“mittō quaerere ” (Rosc. Am. 53) , I omit to ask.
“vereor laudāre praesentem ” (N. D. 1.58) , I fear to praise a man to his face.
“ōrō ut mātūrēs venīre ” (Att. 4.1) , I beg you will make haste to come.
oblīvīscī nōn possum quae volō; (Fin. 2.104), I cannot forget that which I wish.
“dēsine id mē docēre ” (Tusc. 2.29) , cease to teach me that.
dīcere solēbat, he used to say.
audeō dīcere, I venture to say.
loquī posse coepī, I began to be able to speak.

2

I’m reading “quaesisse ab eo dicitur” as “it is said he asked of him…” with an impersonal “dicitur”, with “quaesisse” as indirect statement. I could be wrong.

To anyone who knows: I’m not sure why the clauses following are subjunctive. My guess is that “quare… cur…” are subordinate in indirect discourse.

I like helping people but usually either I don’t know it or I’m not confident in my answer.

3

quaesisse ab eo dicitur, – “he is said to have asked him”

As sw notes, quaesisse is an infinitive in indirect discourse, depending on the passive verb dicitur. dicitur is the main verb of the sentence. But dicitur isn’t impersonal–the subject is ille or Aristides. "He is said . . . " The English translation here actually for once maps directly onto the Latin. quaesisse is a perfect infinitive because it occurred before the tense of dicitur, which is present.

quare id faceret aut quid Aristides commisisset, cur tanta poena dignus duceretur.

“he [Aristides] is said to have asked him why he was doing that or what Aristides had done that he should consider him worthy of such a penalty.”

Two indirect questions depend on quaesisse: quare id faceret and quid Aristides commisisset. These are indirect questions, hence the subjunctives.

The third clause cur tanta poena dignus duceretur is a result clause depending on quid Aristides commisisset. Cur here could be replaced by ut.

4

qui quidem cum intellegeret reprimi concitatam multitudinem non posse, cedensque animadvertisset quendam scribentem, ut patria pelleretur

Your translation:

At the time when he understood that the crowd [of citizens voting on his fate] could not be checked, and he was giving up, he had [already] directed his attention to a man writing that Aristides ought to be banished by the state,

This makes animadvertisset the verb of a main clause. But it is parallel to intellegeret, i.e., a subordinate clause introduced by cum. This is not a “temporal” cum, which would take an indicative verb, but rather a circumstantial cum, which calls for a subjunctive verb (in this case, two subjunctive verbs). cedensque is of course a participle with the conjunction -que attached, which joins the two subjunctive verbs.

5

I thought I had about had the indirect questions licked but I’ll have to be more vigilant again.

Thanks. I’ll stop now.

This is why I don’t do this more often. :slight_smile:

6

respondit . . . sibi non placere

"To him the man replied that he didn’t know Aristides, but [that] Aristides was displeasing to him/he didn’t like Aristides . . . "

@swtwentyman: I made a change in my response on the indirect questions just after you posted, so please take a look.

7

I saw it. Thanks.

To miss sucn an obvious indirect question with a verb of asking is certainly a boneheaded oversight – I’m a bit less embarrassed about it now. The result clause was less obvious.

8

Thanks to swtwentyman and Hylander.

Two misreadings led me astray:

  1. I didn’t catch the impersonal "dicitur’.

  2. I got the wrong antecedent for “eo” in “ab eo dicitur”, and thought of the antecedent as the man writing, rather than as Aristides. So I was reading “ab eo” as an ablative of the agent for the passive verb “dicitur”.

Besides that I missed the parallel structure signalled by “cedensque”. This was an important clue that should have kept me out of trouble.

9

Please ignore my reply quoted above. I clicked Submit, when I meant to click Preview, and then realized that I needed more study of this problem, and of swtwentyman’s and Hylander’s posts. Sometimes my brain seems like a balky horse that resists correction.

Procedural question: is there a way to cancel a post submitted in error?

10

Click edit then blank your post.

To make things clear, “dicitur” is not impersonal; I just screwed up. But “ab eo” isn’t ablative of agent or whatever; it’s the complement of “quaero”.

Sorry if I led you astray!

11

is there a way to cancel a post submitted in error?

Just hit “edit”, delete the post and type in “deleted.”

But let me try to help with your difficulties.

1, dicitur isn’t impersonal. It’s passive and the understood subject is Aristides. The construction is similar to English: "he is said to have asked . . . " The unexpressed “agent” of the passive verb is of course all the people who are spreading this anecdote.

  1. ab eo – the antecedent of eo is indeed the man writing Aristides’ name on his ballot/ostrakon. But ab eo isn’t the agent of passive dicitur. ab eo is a complement of quaesisse. With the verb quaero, you must use ab + ablative for the person of whom a question is asked. This is unlike the English verb “ask,” which takes a direct object.

Hope this helps. In the version of the story with which I’m familiar, the man sitting next to Aristides is illiterate and doesn’t know Aristides by sight. He turns to Aristides and actually asks Aristides to write Aristides’ name on the pottery shard (ostrakon, whence “ostracism”) that served as a ballot for ostracisms. Aristides then asks the question and gets the answer that Nepos records.

Edit: I see that swtwentyman beat me to the punch with the answers.

12

Thanks for the help, swtwentyman and Hylander.