Context: Frontinus places the present book on generalship in relation to an earlier one on military science.
Cum ad instruendam rei militaris scientiam unus ex numero studiosorum eius accesserim eique destinato, quantum cura nostra valuit, satisfecisse visus sim, deberi adhuc institutae arbitror operae, ut sollertia ducum facta, quae a Graecis una STRATEGEMATON appellatione comprehensa sunt, expeditis amplectar commentariis.
Translation:
Even though I am the only one of several careful students who has [actually] composed a treatise on military science, and on that project I seem to done well, as far as my effort carries me, I feel obliged to adjoin to this foundation concise commentaries on the skillful exploits of commanders, which the Greeks place under the single heading of generalship.
For me, prose works often start with long difficult sentences, and this seems to be one of that kind. Here are some of the calls I made.
“Cum. . .” I read this clause as cum-concessive. The verb of the main clause is “arbitror”, in the indicative.
“eique destinato:” I read this as dative complement of “satisfecisse”. The antecedent of “ei” is “scientiam”.
“institutae . . . operae”: I read this as dative complement of “amplector”. Frontinus sees the present project, on generalship, as a kind of adjunct to his early work on military science, which as I understand has been lost.
eique destinato – scientiam, which of course is feminine, can’t be an antecedent of ei, since destinato is not feminine. destinatum (neut. perf. part. of destino) is here a noun meaning “aim/intention.” It’s the complement of satisfecisse: “I seem to have satisfied that aim”.
See Lewis & Short destino B2b:
http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:1211.lewisandshort
The cum clause, with subjunctive, is circumstantial, not merely temporal, something like: "Now that I, being one of those who are students of military science, have undertaken to write a treatise about it, . . . ".
ex numero probably doesn’t necessarily mean “one of many” but rather “one of those who”: "I am among the number of those who . . . "
institutae . . . operae is dative, complement of deberi, of which the ut clause is the subject. To translate this you would have to resort to something like: "I consider that what is owed to the work that has been put in place up to this point [i.e., what remains to be done] is that I should discuss with short commentaries the tactical moves/maneuvers of generals that are encompassed by the Greeks under the single heading of ‘strategems’ ".
“Strategems” or “maneuvers” rather than “generalship” is probably a better translation of the Greek word, with its secondary meaning of “trick”.
http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.17:3414.lewisandshort
See also this:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dstrath%2Fghma
Many thanks for the review, Hylander. That sentence gave me lots of trouble. I’ll work through it again with your notes.
And fun fact (since it wasn’t directly mentioned) strategematon is actually a Greek genitive plural, στρατηγημάτων…