Do cum clauses with the subjunctive follow the sequence of tenses?

Latin Learning Latin
1

In all the examples that I’ve seen so far they do, except for in one sentence. Here it is:

Caesar, cum id nuntiatum esset, maturat ab urbe proficisci.

The indicative in this sentence is in the present tense and the subjunctive in the pluperpect, yet that doesn’t follow the sequence of tenses (from what I’ve learned so far at least).

And on a side note, what kind of cum clause is that? My guess would be causal, but it seems that it could be temporal as well. It’s rather ambiguous. Since I’m assuming it’s causal I translated it like this:

Since that had been announced, Caesar hurries to set out from the city.

And this sentence also seemed ambiguous to me as to whether it was temporal or causal:

Legatus cum haec audivisset, Caesarem certiorem fecit.

I assumed that it is a causal cum clause so translated it in the following way:

Since the ambassador had heard these things, he informed Caesar.

So are they causal or temporal?

Gratias vobis ago.

2

mātūrat is historic present in place of perfect (very frequent). So the pluperfect is appropriate and does not break the rule.
Half causal cum, I’d say.

3

The tense of the subjunctive (nuntiatum esset) tips us off to the fact that maturat is being used as a “historic” present, functioning as a past tense.

As you know, some cum clauses have indicative, others subjunctive. That’s the only distinction Latin makes. (There’s no “causal” category as such.) The subjunctive sometime approaches a merely temporal sense, as apparently in these two sentences.

4

I Looked at this last night but was too tired to post my answer. You have had two good answers but I will post what I thought anyway.

Your sentence is adapted from Caesar’s Gallic War 1.7 :

Caesarī cum id nūntiātum esset, eōs per prōvinciam nostram iter facere cōnārī, mātūrat ab urbe proficīscī, et quam māximīs potest itineribus in Galliam ūlteriōrem contendit, et ad Genāvam pervenit.

Which O’Donnell - the flavour of the month - translates as:

“Caesar, when told they would try their way through our province, hastened his departure from Rome and headed for farther Gaul with long days on the road and so reached Geneva.”

As bedwere and mwh have observed this is a temporal clause. The Dickinson College commentary notes “The cum clauses with the subjunctive denote nothing more than a part of a past series of events. Often an English expression can be found much more simple, and conveying the temporal idea much less awkwardly than a heavy sentence introduced by when; e.g. the sentence means, ‘Caesar, on receipt of the news that…hastened.’ (Harper & Tolman)”

Christopher Francese, Caesar: Selections from the Gallic War. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Dickinson College Commentaries, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-947822-02-3. http://dcc.dickinson.edu/caesar/book-1/chapter-1-7

On the sequence of tenses:

  1. In the Sequence of Tenses the following special points are to be noted.

…

e. The Historical Present (§ 469) is sometimes felt as a primary, sometimes as a secondary tense, and accordingly it takes either the primary or the secondary sequence.

Rogat ut cūret quod dīxisset. (Quinct. 18)
He asks him to attend to the thing he had spoken of.
[Both primary and secondary sequence.]

Note— After the historical present, the subjunctive with cum temporal must follow the secondary sequence.

Quō cum vēnisset cōgnōscit. (B. C. 1.34)
When he had come there he learns.

Cum esset pūgnātum hōrīs quīnque, nostrīque gravius premerentur impetum in cohortīs faciunt. (id. 1.46)
When they had fought for five hours, and our men were pretty hard pressed, they make an attack on the cohorts.

Meagan Ayer, Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Dickinson College Commentaries, 2014. http://dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/latin/sequence-tenses

5

Your sentence is adapted from Caesar’s Gallic War 1.7 :

Caesarī cum id nūntiātum esset, eōs per prōvinciam nostram iter facere cōnārī, mātūrat ab urbe proficīscī, et quam māximīs potest itineribus in Galliam ūlteriōrem contendit, et ad Genāvam pervenit.

Which O’Donnell - the flavour of the month - translates as:

“Caesar, when told they would try their way through our province, hastened his departure from Rome and headed for farther Gaul with long days on the road and so reached Geneva.”

To get off topic from the subject of this thread, I’ve seen that sentence before when skimming through Caesar on thelatinlibrary.com, and I couldn’t figure out what that second to last clause translated to, in particular quam māximīs potest itineribus. It seems to make sense now, even without having looked at that translation. Would you say that this is a good literal translation of that whole sentence:

When it had been announced to Caesar that they are trying to make their way through our province, he hastened to set out from the city (Rome), and with as many marches as he could, hurried to further Gaul and came to Geneva.

Though I feel that quam māximīs potest itineribus may be an idiom for something, because translating it as literal as I did doesn’t really make sense. Or am I wrong?
And another thing concerning this same phrase: is potest in the historic present as well? Because it doesn’t seem to make sense if I would have translated it as it is in the present as with as many marches as he can having been followed by a verb in the historic present.

I feel as if I’m asking for too much, but I’d appreciate if you could dissect everything I’ve said and answer it. I am just trying to learn.

Maximas gratias vobis ago.

6

quam maximis potest itineribus
with as many marches as he could

I think your translation says the opposite of the Latin. Quam maximis is “as long as possible” not “as many”. That is, Caesar has his soldiers walk for the longest time possible each day, precisely because he wants the marches to be as few as possible.

7

I found this on Logeion:
https://logeion.uchicago.edu/iter
Have a look up at the top under BWL.

8

Some people might find “quam maximis postest intineribus” a little mysterious if they don’t realize that it is equivalent to “quam maximis IRE potest itineribus”