In Catilinam 1.2, again

Latin Learning Latin
1

I almost missed this:

Ad mortem te, Catilina, duci iussu consulis iam pridem oportebat, in te conferri pestem quam tu in nos omnis iam diu machinaris.

“You, Catiline, ought to have been led to your death by order of the consul long ago; you ought to have the evil that you so long plotted against all of us conferred upon you.”

Why the present infinitive “duci” to refer to past (i.e. “pridem”) action? Does it have something to do with “oportebat” being imperfect, and would that throw the “te conferri” into the past?

Ed: and “machinaris” is present. Would that mean “that you so long have plotted against us, and plot still”?

Ed2: I think I might have it. “Oportebat” is the main verb and the other presents are in the present because they’re going on at the same time as the main verb. Kind of a sequence-of-tenses thing (that is, that tenses are relative). I’ve come across this before, I think, but it stands out particularly in this sentence, which is totally unlike English, I guess.

2

I think you’ve got it. But it’s not totally unlike English. We could translate, less effectively but preserving the Latin tenses, like this: "It would have been right for you, Catiline, to be led to your death by the order of the consul long ago . . . "

What is unlike English is machinaris. In English, we would use the present perfect tense: “which you have been plotting for such a long time.” For an action starting in the past and continuing into the present, Latin uses the present (as do other languages, such as French).

“machinaris” is present. Would that mean “that you so long have plotted against us, and plot still”?

Yes.

3

Thanks a bunch.