Turnus Herdonius is giving vent to his feelings about Tarquin ending with “Cum cives Romani alii super alios trucidentur, exsulatum eant, bona amittant, quid spei melioris Latinis portendi? Si se audiant, domum omnes inde abituros!'”
All clear… and then in the next paragraph Orberg has:
Haec atque alia similia cum homo insolens iactaret, intervenit Tarquinius. Is finis orationi fuit. Aversi omnes ad Tarquinium salutandum. Qui, silentio factio, primum se purgavit quod id temporis venisset: ‘iudicii causa’ ait ‘se moratum esse’; deinde Latinos postero die eodem convenire iussit.
I cannot figure out how the first sentence works. Tarquin has suddenly appeared. Is the first sentence something he says with intervenit meaning “interrupted”? If so then why doesn’t Orberg have this in quotes when the above reported speech from Turnus he does put into quotes - something which is not done in English?
Is Tarquin dramatically interrupting Turnus’ flow with “And other things similar to these for the arrogant man who has been speaking”. Iactaret is imperfect subjunctive.
With regard to the rest of the paragraph: This was the end of the discussion. All turned towards Tarquin to greet him [very hard to translate this deponent in this context]. He, the group being silent, first exculpated himself [I don’t know why “factio” is in nominative case - shouldn’t it be in ablative - I’m taking it that silentio factio is an ablative absolute?] that he should have come in these times: “to sacrifice himself (se moratum esse) in the cause of justice” he decrees that the Latini who followed after him should gather in the same place.
