Polliceor me Pyrrhum veneno necaturum si mihi. This seems to be an indirect statement but ‘esse’ is missing.Otherwise necaturum is the future indicative participle.
esse can be omitted, but could you write a little more of the text and correct veneo, please?
“Polliceor me Pyrrhum veneno necaturum si mihi praemium dederis.”
For sure esse can and is omitted. It is the classic accusative and infinitive construction. Can it be defined as indirect statement? I’m not sure since it is not like the original in De Officiis III [86] 22
Cum enim rex Pyrrhus populo Romano bellum ultro intulisset, cumque de imperio certamen esset cum rege generoso ac potenti, perfuga ab eo venit in castra Fabrici eique est pollicitus, si praemium sibi proposuisset, se, ut clam venisset, sic clam in Pyrrhi castra rediturum et eum veneno necaturum.
Perfuga ait: Pyrrhum veneno necabo!
The book that I am using uses this as a sample of the sequence of tenses and so translates this sentence:" I promise I will kill Pyrrhus if you will give me a reward." Dederis is perfect subjunctive because of the relation with the main verb but it seems odd translating as if it were the future. Also in the book dederis has a macron over the i but other sources dont have the macron. Which is the correct spelling?
There are two different issues here.
(1) Is it an indirect statement? Yes it is, “I promise/say that I will …”, regular acc.&inf. construction as bedwere says, and sequence of tenses doesn’t come into it. necaturum (esse) is future infin.
Cicero: est pollicitus … se … eum (i.e. Pyrrhum) veneno necaturum.
Adapted: Polliceor me Pyrrhum veneno necaturum.
Exact same construction.
(2) Sequence of tenses.
“I promise I will kill Pyrrhus if you will give me a reward.”
“I will kill Pyrrhus” is future (of course!). But here’s where it gets interesting. In the if-clause, Latin is less likely to use the future than the future perfect. And dederis here is not perfect subjunctive but future perfect indicative.
Literally “I will kill Pyrrhus if you will have given me a reward.” It makes sense, if you think about it, because the reward-giving will have (!) preceded the killing.
English would more likely say “I’ll kill Pyrrhus if you give me a reward.” But Latin uses future perfect “si dederis.”
Sequence of tenses doesn’t really come into this either, but it would if the sentence were e.g. “I promised I would kill …” Then we’re in past sequence, and the verb of the if-clause would be pluperfect subjunctive, as in the Ciceronian original.
As to the quantity of the final I in credideris, it can be long or short.
Now I get. Thanks for the clarification.