DBG 6.36, diffidens de numero dierum...

Latin Learning Latin
1

I’m not quite grasping the structure of this phrase:

Cicero … septimo die diffidens de numero dierum Caesarem fidem servaturum, …

Which in this translation is given as:

Cicero … distrusting on the seventh day that Caesar would keep his promise as to the number of days, …

My dictionary even quotes this passage in its entry for ‘diffido’, but only the acc.inf. part: Caesarem fidem servaturum – ‘distrusting that Caesar would keep his promise’, that is. Does de numero dierum not go with diffidens (‘having doubts about the number of days’), but rather with fidem? Like so:

diffidens Caesarem servaturum fidem de numero dierum
‘distrusting Caesar to keep the promise about the number of days’

2

I think it makes more since that dē numerō diērum would go with fidem. From the context of the chapter it seems like Cicero is worrying about Caesar not returning - the passage continues: septimo die diffidens de numero dierum Caesarem fidem servaturum, quod longius progressum audiebat, neque ulla de reditu eius fama adferebatur. It makes more sence that Cicero was “on the seventh day distrusting that Caesar would keep his promise concerning the number of days”, since he is worried about Caesar not returning (i.e., not keeping his promise about the day one which he would return).

3

Certainly! But perhaps there is more than one way to make the grammar fit that meaning? I can’t find complements with de under fides in my dictionary, and the word order with de numero dierum removed from fidem seems strange for Caesar’s style. Still, it’s my best guess too.

4

That exact passage is referenced in the OLD entry for fides in connection with servare, tenere and a few other similar verbs, with de referring to what was promised.
The way I read it, the whole phrase ‘de…servatarum’…is the object of diffidens, Caesarem the subject of servaturum and fidem the object of servaturum, with de numero die qualifying fidem, i.e. what the promise was about.

5

I don’t have access to the OLD, but that’s indeed authoritative.

I’m understanding your explanation right, de… would depend on both diffidens (diffidens de…) and fidem (fidem de…) at the same time? I can make sense of diffidens de numero dierum on its own (“having doubts about the number of days”), or diffidens Caesarem servaturum alone (a simple acc.inf.), but both in a row seems like an anacoluthon to me. But surely I’m still not getting something here. And is it not de numero dierum … fidem a strange word order?

6

That’s not exactly what I was thinking. The way I am looking at it, the de.. does not relate to diffidens except as part of the overall phrase. Diffidens governs [de numero dierum Caesarem fidem servaturum]. Within that de numero dierum is governed by fidem.

I think if you associate the de numero dierum alone with diffidens that suggests the concern was about the number of days Caesar would keep the promise, which makes very little sense to me given the context. If it were a promise to do or not do something for x number of days it would make sense, but as we know, that is not what is going on here. Additionally, if that were the case one would not see the preposition de

And I was looking at the overall structure, in a somewhat chiastic manner:

A) de numero dierum B) Caesarem A) fidem B) servaturum

or > A) de numero die> rum > B) Caesar> em > B) fid> em > A) servatu> rum

All that being said, while I did look at the grammatic elements carefully in ‘reading’ Latin for the first twenty years, I no longer worry too much about the grammatical details, but rather, I focus on trying to read the Latin more naturally. However, I learned Latin by way of Wheelock and the grammar intensive approach, and taught it that way as well. About five years ago though, after a textbook change to one that focused on a reading approach, I decided to try that in my own reading. I immediately found that I enjoyed it much more and could actually move much more quickly than if I was trying to parse every word. Your question actually challenged me to look at it from both perspectives.

7

I am 100 % with you in that. I always read the words in the order they’re written and try to understand the text in the way it was composed. Even then, from time to time something like this happens, where you know the words and sort of understand how they must relate to each other, but you still have to resort to a best guess to make sense of it. There’s a lot of uncertainty in that, and you risk getting stuck with misapprehensions. Reading naturally, for me, means internalizing the grammar, so that I don’t have to think about it, while still seeing clearly why a certain sentence is grammatical and another is not. Had I not known this was genuine Latin, I might have thought it a mistake!

8

I agree with the analysis you both have arrived at but want to add a few thoughts about three things: (1) what is the actual construction we see, (2) how might someone fluent in this type of Latin put together the meaning of this text as the words are encountered, and (3) what might justify the actual word order we encounter.

(1) Looking in Perseus at the entry for diffīdō, we see that it is normally construed with the dative or a dependent clause with an accusative and infinitive. Based on this, the complement of diffīdēns is such a clause, with esse omitted. I.e.,

diffīdēns (dē numerō diērum Caesarem fidem servātūrum (esse)).

What would trigger us to expect this construction as we read?

(2) In English, the preposition “about” can be used with any verb implying mental processing, emotion, or communication. In Latin, the use of dē normally complements an expression of motion or of communication, rather than an expression of emotion as in English. After reading diffīdēns and encountering dē, we should anticipate that the structure introduced by dē relates to something not yet encountered. Since there is no independent dative, we should anticipate an accusative and infinitive.

When we reach numerō diērum, a time reference, rather than a place, we are lead to expect some following expression of communication, rather than a verb of motion. In fact, we should recall that Caesar had left Cicero in charge of the garrison and had made such a communication, saying:

Discēdēns post diem septimum sēsē reversūrum cōnfirmat

Servō is not a verb of communication, but fidēs in this sense means “promise” and therefore forms an expression of communication, allowing dē to introduce what the promise concerns. In other words, Caesar had communicated a promise about the seven days.

(3) With a participle like diffīdēns, its complement could syntactically precede or follow. Since the intention is not just to say that Cicero was in a certain mood, but to shift the conversation to the trigger for the mood, the complement phrase follows.

The phrase itself has at least three elements that easily could be emphasized: the date, Caesar, or the promise keeping. Cicero’s doubts are not about who made the promise or about the promise to return as a whole, but only about the promised date. As a result, the date is fronted. If the text read, diffīdēns Caesarem servātūrum fidem de numerō diērum, you might conclude that Cicero was in doubt because it was Caesar that made the promise and Caesar was not generally trustworthy. Some of these nuances could be expressed in English by choosing to raise the intonation to a high pitch on the stressed syllable of the element to be emphasized and dropping it to a low pitch immediately after.

9

Fantastic! Thank you so much for taking your time to write this out, so clearly and well-structured. The part about the semantic restrictions regarding “de” (as compared to “about”) really shows how an imperfect grasp of lexical nuances will lead you wrong in interpreting the grammar; had I known, or rather felt, that about “de”, I wouldn’t have been as confused. I shall try to imitate the reasoning in the rest of your post (mutatis mutandis) when I run into problems like this. Thank you, once again.