In Catilinam, second oration

Latin Learning Latin
1

1-2 were kind of tough but I think I’ve got it for the most part (at least I mostly get the sense); nevertheless I have a few problems:

Catiline has left town:

Nulla iam pernicies a monstro illo atque prodigio moenibus ipsis intra moenia comparabitur.

(“Now no destruction from that monster, that prodigal one, will be set against the walls themselves (from) within them.”)

Non enim iam inter latera nostra sica illa versabitur, non in campo, non in foro, non in curia, non denique intra domesticos parietes pertimescemus.

(“He will not be busy, in fact, between the sides of this our dagger; we shall not fear him in the field, in the forum, in the Senate-house, and not, finally, within the walls of our homes.” The dagger part is giving me trouble.)

Sine dubio perdidimus hominem magnificeque vicimus, cum illum ex occultis insidiis in apertum latrocinium coniecimus.

(“Without doubt we have lost a (great?) man and won magnificently, when we threw him from hidden treachery to open banditry.” Somewhat loose translation; the first part is giving me trouble)

Iacet ille nunc prostratus, Quirites, et se perculsum atque abiectum esse sentit et retorquet oculos profecto saepe ad hanc urbem quam e suis faucibus ereptam esse luget: quae quidem mihi laetari videtur, quod tantam pestam evomuerit forasque proiecerit.

(“He lies prostrate, Quirites, and he feels that he was thrown down and thrown out, and he turns his eyes back, no doubt, often to this city which, he mourns, was snatched from his jaws: which indeed seems to be happy to me, because it spewed forth such a foul man and it threw him outside.” I think I get the general sense but I don’t get some of the language. What is the subject of "evomuerit’ and “proiecerit”? It’s clear that they are subjunctive perfects: why? Reasoning continued from “videtur”?)

2

Nulla iam pernicies a monstro illo atque prodigio moenibus ipsis intra moenia comparabitur.

prodigio – in the bad sense, not much different from “monster”; monstro illo atque prodigio – maybe treat this as a hendiadys.

“Now no destruction will be assembled/pulled together by that monstrous prodigy against the city walls themselves within the walls.”

Non enim iam inter latera nostra sica illa versabitur . . .

nostra modifies latera, not sica.

"Now that dagger will not be twisted between our ribs/flanks . . . "

See Lewis & Short verso:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.20:588.lewisandshort

latus:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.10:590.lewisandshort

campo – battlefield.

perdidimus hominem

perdidimus here means “destroy” (the base meaning of perdo) and hominem is derogatory (i.e., not virum): something like “we have destroyed the creature”.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.14:1533.lewisandshort

Iacet ille nunc prostratus, Quirites, et se perculsum atque abiectum esse sentit et retorquet oculos profecto saepe ad hanc urbem quam e suis faucibus ereptam esse luget: quae quidem mihi laetari videtur, quod tantam pestam evomuerit forasque proiecerit.

“He now lies prostrate, Romans, and he senses that he has been stricken and thrown down, and he often turns his eyes back, no doubt, to this city, which he grieves was snatched from his jaws; which [the city] indeed seems to me to rejoice because it [the city] vomited out such a pest and threw it outside.”

Evomuerit and proiecerit are subjunctive in quod clauses because they convey the thinking of the subject, i.e., the city personified, not a reason given by the speaker (like indirect discourse). Allen & Greenough sec. 540:

  1. The Causal Particles quod and quia take the Indicative, when the reason is given on the authority of the writer or speaker; the Subjunctive, when the reason is given on the authority of another:—

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+540&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

You might capture this in English by translating: "rejoices at having vomited . . . and thrown . . . "

Correction: in campo – this is undoubtedly the campus Martius, where popular assemblies and, in particular, elections were held. Lewis & Short II B 4 campus:

Far more freq. Campus, a grassy plain in Rome along the Tiber, in the ninth district, orig. belonging to the Tarquinii, after whose expulsion it was consecrated to Mars (Liv. 2, 5, 2); hence fully called Campus Martĭus, a place of assembly for the Roman people at the comitia centuriata, Cic. Cat. 1, 5, 11; id. Q. Fr. 2, 2, 1; id. Rab. Perd. 4, 11; Hor. C. 3, 1, 11; Quint. 11, 1, 47 al.—Hence,

b Meton., the comitia themselves: curiam pro senatu, campum pro comitiis, Cic. de Or. 3, 42, 167: fors domina campi, id. Pis. 2, 3: venalis, Luc. 1, 180; also, much resorted to by the Romans for games, exercise, and recreation, a place for military drills, etc. (cf. campicursio and campidoctor), Cic. Off. 1, 29, 104; id. Quint. 18, 59; id. Fat. 4, 8; 15, 34; id. de Or. 2, 62, 253; 2, 71, 287; Hor. C. 1, 8, 4; 1, 9, 18; 3, 7, 26; id. S. 1, 6, 126; 2, 6, 49; id. Ep. 1, 7, 59; 1, 11, 4; id. A. P. 162.—

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.2:504.lewisandshort

The list of places where Catiline was not to be feared are places within Rome, not outside of Rome, and Catiline (at least according to Cicero) had threatened disrupt the consular elections by assassinating the consuls and/or electoral candidates.

3

Thanks. I actually took “quae” in the last one as “which fact” and not “which city”; it didn’t occur to me for the accusative “urbem” to turn right around into the nominative “quae” (although I guess it was the subject of “ereptam esse”), but it makes sense to me now. I had wondered about the subjunctive quod/quia before but it had never given me problems: thanks for clarifying.

4

Quae is an example of a relative pronoun used as a connective to what is in effect a new sentence, instead of beginning with a demonstrative pronoun. This is frequent in Latin, of course, but not as much in English.

5

Sections 3-4: ouch! Thankfully I understand most of it but there are two very thorny sentences:

Ac si quis est talis qualis esse omnis oportebat, qui in hoc ipso in quo exsultat et triumphat oratio mea me vehementer accuset, quod tam capitalem hostem non comprehenderim potius quam emiserim, non est mea culpa, Quirites, sed temporum.

(“And if anyone ought to have been the sort, who in this fact itself (that is, Catiline leaving town) exults and triumphs (although who says?) my oration accuses me vehemently, because I did not arrest such a mortal enemy rather than sent him out, that is not my fault, Romans, but that of the times”. I have no earthly clue about the first part of this sentence and I can hardly even give a somewhat-educated guess, and that without using all the words.)

Sed cum viderem, ne vobis quidem omnibus etiam tum re probata si illum, ut erat meritus, morte multassem, fore ut eius socios invidia oppressus persequi non possem, rem huc deduxi ut tum palam pugnare possetis cum hostem aperte videretis.

(“But as I saw, so as not to, when even you all at that time approved the thing (ablative absolute? I can’t find a verb), as he deserved, that I had punished him with death – when I saw that I would not be able to follow his henchmen, being oppressed by ill-will, led the thing here so that you could openly fight as you could openly see the enemy.” Basically saying that if he punished Catiline with death he would face such angry opposition that it would backfire, I think; I can make sense of this sentence a little bit better than my translation would indicate.)

6

Ac si quis est talis qualis esse omnis oportebat, qui in hoc ipso in quo exsultat et triumphat oratio mea me vehementer accuset, quod tam capitalem hostem non comprehenderim potius quam emiserim, non est mea culpa, Quirites, sed temporum.

Roughly: “And if there is anyone – such as everyone should have been – who vehemently accuses me, in the very matter in which my speech exults and triumphs, on the ground that I did not seize such an enemy meriting death [capitalem] instead of sending him out [of the city] – it’s not my fault, Romans, but rather the fault of the times.”

qui is the subject of accuset – subjunctive because it’s a relative clause of “characteristic.”

oratio is the subject of exsultat and triumphat

comprehenderim and emiserim are subjunctive because these represent the accusations of the indefinite accuser.

Sed cum viderem, ne vobis quidem omnibus etiam tum re probata si illum, ut erat meritus, morte multassem, fore ut eius socios invidia oppressus persequi non possem, rem huc deduxi ut tum palam pugnare possetis cum hostem aperte videretis.

re probata is an ablative absolute.

Again, very crudely (but see my reservations below): “But when I saw that, since the matter had still not yet been approved of even by all of you[,] if I had punished him with death[,] I would not be able to pursue his associates, oppressed by ill-will, I brought the matter to such a place [huc] where you could fight in the open when you saw the enemy openly.”

fore ut – Allen & Greenough 569a:

Fore (or futūrum esse ) ut with a clause of result as subject is Often used instead of the Future Infinitive active or passive; so necessarily in verbs which have no supine stem:—

“spērō fore ut contingat id nōbīs ” (Tusc. 1.82) , I hope that will be our happy lot.
“cum vidērem fore ut nōn possem ” (Cat. 2.4) , when I saw that I should not be able.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+569&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

The point is that (as Cicero has just noted) many Roman citizens were not yet on board with going after Catiline–after all, his main program, besides killing everyone in authority and putting himself in power, was debt relief in a credit crunch, which many people from all walks of life were in favor of. So Cicero felt he was unable to impose death on Catiline.

I’m a little uncertain whether there should be a comma after probata. Si . . . multassem could depend either on probata (the abl. abs. could be construed as the apodosis of a conditional: “since the matter would not yet have been approved of even by all of you if I had punished him by death”) or on fore ut. I’ll think about this further.

Update:

invidia – maybe “hostility” is better than “ill-will”, which I suggested earlier.

My best shot for now:

“But when I saw that–since even then the matter would not have been approved of by all of you if I had punished him with death, as he deserved–I would not be able to pursue his associates under the weight of hostility [invidia oppressus], I brought the matter to the point where [huc . . . ut] you would be able to fight in the open when you saw the enemy clearly.”

If I were attempting a formal translation I would rearrange the syntax in English, but this is designed to illustrate how this complex sentence fits together.

7

I understand the sentences a bit better now, but I can’t parse “in hoc ipso in quo”. “In the very matter” is clear enough but what does “in quo” mean? (“In the very matter in which” – I think I get it a bit better now). I’ll have to study the two a bit more when I get more time: I’m not sure I’d ever have gotten the first one but the second seems to make sense. Ed: I think I get all of both sentences. This is definitely above my level and I’m not sure how much I could actually learn from it. Thanks with “fore ut” though!

Ed: Sections 5 and 6 were thankfully fairly simple and I didn’t have much trouble and I think I resolved what trouble I did have (your suggestion to look at the dictionary more helped: I figured out one sentence which hinged on a different meaning of the word “concident” than I was used to). Looking ahead, section 7 seems to be mostly bluster and name-calling so tomorrow shouldn’t be too hard unless section 8 is very much so.

8

I can’t parse “in hoc ipso in quo”

quo introduces the relative clause – in quo exsultat et triumphat oratio mea.

“on this very point on which my speech exults triumphantly” (treating exsultat et triumphat as a sort of hendiadys).

"And if anyone–as everyone should have have been–is such as to attack me vehemently on the very point on which my speech exults triumphantly, on the grounds that I did not seize an enemy who is so deserving of death [tam capitalem hostem] instead of sending him away, it’s not my fault, Romans, but rather the fault of the circumstances.

9

7-8 were pretty easy, but

Catiline’s confederates remain in the city:

O fortunatam rem publicam, si quidem hanc sentinam urbis eiecerit!

(“O fortunate Republic (it will be?) indeed, if this bilge-water will have been ejected from the city!” Accusative is acc. of exclamation? What is the subject of “eiecerit”? Is it just impersonal, equivalent to a restated passive voice?)

Uno me hercule Catilina exhausto levata mihi et recreata res publica videtur.

(“My God, the Republic seems to be refreshed and me, lifted, with only Catiline gone.” I’m not sure about the grammar of “levata mihi”)

Iam vero quae tanta umquam in ullo iuventutis inlecebra fuit quanta in illo?

(“Now truly, what so great ever in anyone an ensnarement of youth was as great as in hIm?” Translating it gracefully eludes me but I take the meaning as basically “what corrupter of youth was there ever to compare with him?” I’m having a bit of a problem understanding the tanta … quanta construction.)

10

O fortunatam rem publicam, si quidem hanc sentinam urbis eiecerit!

Yes, fortunatam rem publicam is accusative of exclamation. This calls to mind the notorious hexameter from Cicero’s poem de consolatu suo, “O fortunatam natam me consule Romam”.

The understood subject of eiecerit is res publica.

sentinam urbis – “bilge-water of the city.”

Note that si quidem hanc sentinam urbis eiecerit is the protasis of what is implicitly a future condition, and eiecerit is future perfect. The apodosis o fortunatam . . . implies a future verb: "o how fortunate the Republic will be if . . . " The good fortune of the Republic will occur only after the bilge-water has been cast out, which has not yet happened. We use the present for the protasis of this kind of condition (“how fortunate the Republic will be if it casts out this bilge-water of the city”), but Latin always uses the future perfect if the action of the protasis will occur before the action of the apodosis and the future if they are simultaneous.

levata mihi et recreata res publica videtur

Mihi is the indirect object of videtur: “With just Catiline siphoned off, the Republic seems relieved and refreshed to me.”

exhausto – exhaurio literally means to “draw off” or “pump out” a liquid. This continues the bilge-water metaphor.

iam vero quae tanta umquam in ullo iuventutis inlecebra fuit quanta in illo?

The basic meaning of inlecebra is an “enticement.” By extension, it can also be used to mean an “enticer,” but here it has its basic meaning: “what enticement of youth was ever as great in anyone as in him?”

Lewis and Short illecebra:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.8:327.lewisandshort

11

Oops: I thought I remembered “inlecebra” from the “quem corruptelarum inlecebris inretisses” sentence from the first oration as meaning “snare” when that one was “inretisses” (to ensnare). I guess I ought to have looked it up but I was (perhaps too) confident in my memory.

After I first posted the “si hanc sentinam eiecerit” sentence I remembered about the future perfect and revised my translation; I’m not sure if I did it in time for you to see it.

12

inlecebra – maybe “bait” would do in both passages.

13

9-10 presented mostly no problems.

Some of Catiline’s followers at Rome are ruined debaucherous aristocrats:

Quod si in vino et alea comissationes solum et scorta quaererent, essent illi quidem desperandi, sed tamen essent ferendi: hoc vero quis ferre possit, inertis homines fortissimis viris insidiari, stultissimos prudentissimis, ebrios sobriis, dormientis vigilantibus?

(“But if they, in drinking and gambling, sought only revels and whores, they no doubt ought to have been despaired of, but nevertheless borne: but who can bear it, that indolent humans lie in wait for the bravest of men, the dumbest for the most prudent, the drunken for the sober, the sleepers for the vigilant?” The next sentence describes such a party where the guests talk of murder in between drinking and whoring. The transition sentence (“hoc vero quis ferre possit?”) means that if they were just drinking and gambling one should feel pity for them but bear it, but, in fact, they should not be borne because they’re not just doing that, but plotting murder?)

I can have trouble sometimes connecting one sentence to another. I tend to deal with them as discrete units and my comprehension isn’t always the greatest.

14

You’ve got it just about right.

“if they were just drinking and gambling one should feel pity for them” – maybe not so much feel pity as just write them off as incorrigible.

Without criticizing your choice of words–

. . . essent illi quidem desperandi, sed tamen essent ferendi, – “they would, to be sure, deserve to be despaired of, but they would be endurable”

hoc vero quis ferre possit – “but who can endure this [hoc]: that idle creatures plot against brave men, the dumbest against the wisest, the drunken against the sober, the sleepers against the vigilant?”

Again, he contrasts pejorative homines with viros.

I would take insidiare metaphorically: “plot against”.

I wasn’t able to capture in English the neatly balanced gerundives desperandi and ferendi, and I’m not quite sure how to translate dormientes – how can you contrive plots or lie in wait for someone when you’re asleep? It doesn’t make sense to me, and I can’t think of a good metaphor that contrasts with “vigilant.”

possit is “deliberative” subjunctive.

A&G 444:

  1. The Subjunctive is used in questions implying (1) doubt, > indignation> , or (2) an impossibility of the thing’s being done. The negative is nōn .

“quid agam, iūdicēs? quō mē vertam ” (Verr. 5.2) , what am I to do, judges ? whither shall I turn?
“etiamne eam salūtem ” (Pl. Rud. 1275) , shall I greet her?
“quid hōc homine faciās? quod supplicium dīgnum libīdinī êius inveniās ” (Verr. 2.40) , what are you to do with this man? what fit penalty can you devise for his wantonness?
“an ego nōn venīrem ” (Phil. 2.3) , what, should I not have come?
“quid dīcerem ” (Att. 6.3.9) , what was I to say?
“quis enim cēlāverit īgnem ” (Ov. H. 15.7) , who could conceal the flame?

[*] a. In many cases the question has become a mere exclamation, rejecting a suggested possibility:

“mihi umquam bonōrum praesidium dēfutūrum putārem ” (Mil. 94) , could 1 think that the defence of good men would ever fail me!

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001%3Asmythp%3D444

15

I’d say possit is a potential subjunctive (“Who could …?”, Gk. opt.+αν), not deliberative (“Who is to be able …?”, Gk. subj.).

16

mwh: Is it really a potential subjunctive? According to Cicero, the thugs are in Rome, actually–not hypothetically–engaging in the conduct he describes. To me, the subjunctive conveys indignation, which I think is more akin to a deliberative subjunctive.

But maybe this is just a matter of grammarians’ nomenclature that’s imposed on Cicero’s natural instinct as a native speaker to use the subjunctive here without considering the specific reason for the verbal mood. The two usages are very closely related and perhaps there’s no reason to draw a fine distinction.

On the other hand, this analogy springs to mind, for some reason: quis fallere possit amantem? Clearly potential, opt.+αν. So maybe you are right.

Incidentally, I had never before focused on the poignant irony of that sentence. She senses Aeneas’ disengagement from her now, but she has really led herself to this point through self-deception, and, perhaps unconsciously, Aeneas has been deceiving her, and maybe even himself, too.

One further thought: Is the quis possit construction perhaps something like an indefinite relative clause? Maybe quis possit is subjunctive because the speaker is not posing a question about a specific individual but rather about a general class of individuals. Perhaps this would have been felt as akin to quis est qui possit.

17

Qimmik: I think Greek validates the distinction, as well as clarifying it. You’d say τίς τοῦτο δύναιτ’ἄν φέρειν wouldn’t you?, certainly not τίς δύνηται. Cicero would not have considered the specific reason, to be sure, but that that doesn’t make the distinction unreal, or merely a grammarian’s construct. In principle I suppose it’s possible that Latin could have merged the two originally distinct uses, since without the optative they now take identical form, but it doesn’t seem to have done so, even though there may be cases where it is difficult to say which one is meant (just as the ambiguity of e.g. quae quibus anteferam? doesn’t erase the distinction between fut.indic. and pres.subj.).

Here there’s no room for doubt, I think. A verb like posse, as e.g. velle, doesn’t really lend itself to deliberative use. It’s significant that the A&G exx. you quote all have action verbs—there is something to deliberate about: quid agam?—eloquar an sileam? (Or heu quid agat? etc. after Mercury’s visit to Aeneas.) Quid possim agere?, on the other hand, would not be deliberative but potential. Even if it’s not truly a hypothetical situation, the question can be framed as if it were—especially common with these modal verbs. E.g. quid velis agere? “What would you like to do?” (~ quid vis agere?), cf. τί βούλοιο ἄν; Here too it’s not that much different from the indicative, but a bit more more rhetorical, something like “Who could put up with this situation (sc. if they were confronted with it, as we are)?”

Yes you can take quis possit as pragmatically more or less equivalent to quis est qui possit, but that would be a different construction and would alter the nature of the subjunctive, which here (I say) is straightforwardly potential. Unlike in a deliberative question, you could substitute nemo for quis and convert it into a statement, still potential.

On the Virgil, I quite agree on the poignant irony, even though the immediate application is to her presentiment that something is up (and that’s the context in which Aeneas is guilty of doli). But as to self-deception, well, I don’t know. Isn’t a rather modern concept? Wouldn’t they be puzzled by the idea that a fallax could be oneself, simultaneously perpetrator and victim? She may think that Aenaeas has been deceiving her all along (the “a lover’s words should be written on water” motif)—which he has not been, except perhaps inasmuch as he didn’t come clean with her at the outset? perfide, she addresses him at the outset of both speeches—a breach of trust—but what faith did he swear? At all events I think we have to believe his invitus. I guess we can say he’s been closing his eyes (or Love has closed them for him) to the responsibilities of his mission, and has to be reminded of them; so we might say he’s been deceiving himself if he thought the affair could go on; but was he thinking at all? And Dido was cruelly deceived in her hopes and expectations, but how realistic were they, and who deceived her? You could say the only deceiver here is Venus.

—Who could resist getting into Vergilian interpretation? But I didn’t mean to do that, but simply to try to clarify the grammatical point at issue.

18

I was out of town yesterday so I did 11-12 this morning. Mostly fine but

Speaking of the same dissolute aristocrats:

Quos si meus consulatus, quoniam sanare non potest, sustulerit, non breve nescio quod tempus sed multa saecula propagarit rei publicae.

(“If my consulship, since it cannot heal them, will have removed them, I do not doubt it will not be a short time but many ages it will have extended the Republic.”)

Here both the protasis and apodosis are future perfact (ed: I looked at it again and the “non nescio” clause splits the two future perfects but it can be removed without any loss of meaning in the condition)? And I’m a bit hung up with the syntax. Why “rei publicae”? “It will have extended the Republic (dative) a short time/many ages (direct object)”?

Interesting discussion on the subjunctive “possit”. I can only hope to be able to argue about this someday!

19

nescio quod is an idiomatic expression meaning something like “some X or other” or just “some”.

From Lewis and Short nescio:

Nescio quis, nescio quid, nescio quomodo, nescio an, used in an assertion to express uncertainty with regard to some particular contained in it; > and usually without influencing the mood of the following verb> : nescio quis, I know not who, some one, somebody, a certain person: nescio quid, I know not what, something, some, a certain:

[Emphasis added.]

See the examples cited there:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.12:509.lewisandshort

non breve nescio quod tempus sed multa saecula propagarit rei publicae

tempus and saecula have to be analyzed as the direct objects of propagarit, with rei publicae as a date of “reference” (or less likely, genitive depending on tempus and saecula). “It will have extended not just some short period of time but many centuries for the Republic.” But your translation works better in English: “. . . it will have extended the Republic not for some short period of time but for many centuries.”

It’s interesting that all of the other examples cited in Lewis and Short seem to follow the pattern that would result in propagare rem publicam, with the direct object not the time period of the extension, but the thing that is extended, but here perhaps Cicero would have had to use the accusative of “extent of time” for tempus and saecula, which would result confusingly in two accusatives if he wrote rem publicam, so maybe he has reconfigured the expression in this instance to avoid confusion.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.14:5585.lewisandshort

20

No problems yesterday but there are two trickier sentences in section 18 (the last two):

All good men would rather Catiline go into exile rather than take up arms against Rome:

Ille autem, si me hercule hoc quod agit numquam antea cogitasset, tamen latrocinantem se interfici mallet quam exsulem vivere.

(“He, however, if by God he had never before considered what he does, nevertheless in partisan warfare he would rather be killed than live in exile.” I don’t get the role of “latrocinantem” – it doesn’t seem to fit neatly into the clause. “He would rather fall in partisan warfare than to go into exile.” And with the “be killed” – does “malle” introduce indirect discourse?)

Nunc vero, cum ei nihil adhuc praeter ipsius voluntatem cogitationemque acciderit, nisi quod vivis nobis Roma profectus est, optemus potius ut eat in exsilium quam queramur.

(Immediately follows the above sentence. “Now truly, while nothing to this point happened to him beyond that of his own will and plans, if not for the fact that I live he set out from Rome, I would opt that he go into exile rather than I/we? complain.” Seems correct according to the text except for maybe “nisi quod vivis nobis”, but it’s gobbledygook. Am I in the right ballpark, but just having trouble with comprehension? Rather than we complain that he lives? Complain that he leave town, and that if Catiline hadn’t targeted Cicero he would be glad that he left?)