It’s from D’Ooge’s book as many of you already know that I have been going through it.
Original sentence:
Imperator quidam ab exploratoribus de recenti adventu navium longarum quaesivit.
My translation:
A certain general inquired of the spies of the recent arrival of the men-of-war. (because ab can be translated as of, can it not?)
My main issue with this sentence is ab exploratoribus with quaesivit. Couldn’t I just leave out ab and translate it as:
He asked the spies. (because translating it as he asked from the spies wouldn’t make much sense, would it?)
Instead of my translation:
He inquired of the spies.
Or even:
He sought from the spies.
These last two translations (beginning with mine) don’t seem too idiomatic to English. But my main issue with this sentence, as I already mentioned, is whether I can just leave out ab from my translation.
With ab: cum ab iis saepius quaereret, made inquiries, Caes. B. G. 1, 32: quaero abs te nunc, Hortensi, cum, etc., Cic. Verr. 2, 3, 83, § 191: quaesivit a medicis, quemadmodum se haberet, Nep. Dion, 2, 4: a quo cum quaesisset, quo se deduci vellet, id. Epam. 4, 5; cf. Cic. N. D. 1, 22, 60. —
Properti,
Here’s a little more info from A&G, Section 396.a: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001%3Asmythp%3D396
As you’ll observe in the examples, the prepositions are translated. As to whether or not to always translate ab when it’s used with a verb of asking in Latin, I think it’s a matter of how literal or how free you want to be in your translation and still get the full meaning across. In the example with ex, the sentence reads “quod quaesivit ex me P. Apuleius” can be literally translated as “what Publius Apuleius asked of me..”. A more idiomatic translation that conveys the meaning could be “What Publius Apuleius asked me for..” In this example, though, the preposition ex, or at least the sense it conveys must be translated, because P is asking something of him, not just asking him something.