I would appreciate it if someone would look at my translation of a portion of this passage, evaluate it, and translate themselves for comparison.
His cum fures qui antemnas ad malos destinabant comprehensi adductique erant, navigio remis incitato, praerumpebantur.
I translated it as:
When this rope which bound the yardarm to the mast had been grabbed and pulled, the ship had been urged on by the oars, they (ropes) had been broken off.
“His cum funes qui antemnas ad malos destinabant, comprehensi adductique erant, navigio remis incitato praerumpebantur.”
“With these [hooks/falces], the ropes–which were fastening the yardarms to the masts–had been seized and pulled tight, [and] were broken, the vessel having been moved by oars.”
I believe “his cum” is a version of “cum his [falcibus],” referring to the previous sentence.
I might reword this more simply as “His cum falcibus comprehensi adductique erant funes, qui antemnas ad malos destinabant; navigio remis incitato, hi funes praerumpebantur.”
The only problem in your explanation, Thesaurus, is that this is a temporal cum, not the preposition:
“By means of these [hooks], when (cum) the ropes that fastened the yardarms to the masts had been caught and pulled tight, and when (ablative absolute) the ship was sped ahead by rowing, they [the ropes] were broken off” (repeatedly, imperfect, because it was done to multiple ships).
Shoot. I actually read it as temporal at first, but then I over-thought it and somehow convinced myself that Caesar must be inverting “cum his,” which doesn’t make much sense in retrospect. Definitely should trust my intuition.
Heu! Cum primo sensum temporale verbo “cum” adtribuissem, ita nimium in mente rem torsi ut me certiorem fecerim Caesarem clausulam “cum his” invertisse, quae autem ratio mihi denuo spectanti nihil rationis habere videtur. Certo melior est fidem dare ei quod primo suspicatur.
His cum fu> n> es qui antemnas ad malos destinabant comprehensi adductique erant, navigio remis incitato, praerumpebantur.
“Whenever the ropes that fastened the yardarms to the masts were caught and tightened by these [grappling hooks], by speeding up the ship with the oars they [the ropes] would be torn away.”
Corrrigendum: non fures sed funes
Adriane: I clearly missed the subtlety of the verb tenses. What tips you off to the use of “whenever”?
Ut videtur, incomposite verba verti. Quomodo “whenever” odoraris?
Salve thesaure,
The order of tenses is pluperfect indicative after cum followed by imperfect for past event. See A&G §542 and §518b.
ordo temporum pro eventu praeterito est in protasi plusquamperfectum indicativum post “cum” praepositionem, in apodosi imperfectum. Vide hoc exemplum apud A&G (§542).
And also the English translations above seem not quite right to me.
Et traductiones superae in sermones anglicos mihi alieniores videntur.
His cum funes qui antemnas ad malos destinabant comprehensi adductique erant, navigio remis incitato praerumpebantur.
Whenever the ropes, which bounded the sail-yards to the masts, were, by means of these (hooks), seized and pulled down, once the vessel was urged by the oars, they (the ropes) were tear apart.
the sense here is that the romans threw the hooks over against the enemies vessel, and, everytime they would sitck the hooks to the ropes in the enemy ships and then pull it down, they would tear them apart. By doing this, they rendered the enemy ships, as ceasar says in what follows, useless to combat.
the cum, being followed by and indicative, means that the sentences indicate a repetition, a frequentative situation, like whenever I hear something about law, I pull my bow. (cum de lege audio, arcum et sagittam sumpto)