future perfect active indicative versus perfect active subjunctive

Latin Learning Latin
1

In the following sentence I am not sure which tense fecerit is.

Quod si fecerit, Haeduorum auctoritatem apud omnes Belgas amplificaturum, quorum auxiliis atque opibus, si qua bella inciderint, sustentare consuerint.

Depending on which tense this word belongs I think will determine how amplificaturum is translated. Thanks.

2

De Bello Gallico
Book 2 Chapter 14 (2.14)

I’d say future perfect, since it is followed by a future infinitive, which in direct speech would be a future.

Quod si feceris, Haeduorum auctoritatem amplificabis.

One difficulty is that there is no “se” (Caesarem) as subject in the infinitive, but I guess it’s OK. Maybe there are other examples in the text.

3

Certainly it would be future perfect in direct speech, but since we’re evidently in indirect speech surely it must be subjunctive. Or have I forgotten all my Latin?

4

One other small point: since this is Diviacus speaking to Caesar, the missing pronominal subject of amplificaturum would be eum, not se.

5

They are all perfect subjunctives, however they stand in for either a future perfect or future tense if we weren’t in oratio obliqua.

If you take the sentence “Si hoc fecerit, auctoritatem amplificabit” and stick it in oratio obliqua with ‘dicit’ as the leading verb it would become: “ dicit 'si hoc fecerit, eum auctoritatem amplificaturum esse.” Here, however, ‘fecerit’ is a perfect subjunctive because we need to express anteriority, and the only way to do that within consecutio temporum in primary sequence is with the perfect subjunctive.

6

That’s all well and good, except that here there’s no eum. We could say it’s implicit in the preceding “si fecerit,” but I don’t know how regular such an omission is. Are there parallels?

In the next section I see Caesar gets information about the Nervii, who prize their independence and their austere way of life: "nullum esse aditum ad eos mercatoribus; nihil pati vini reliquarumque rerum ad luxuriam pertinentium inferri …”, where pati has no expressed subject. But that seems somehow easier than the bare amplificaturum here.