LLPSI Cap XLIII: Roma et Alba

Latin Learning Latin
1

(even adapted) Livy’s a bit tricky here. Here’s the opening paragraph of Orberg’s LLPSI Cap XLIII. with his side note explanations in square brackets . A worrying number of uncertainties in just the first short paragraph!

Ex T. Livii ‘Ab urbe condita’ libro I.22-31, nonnullis mutatis et praetermissis

  1. nonnullis mutatis et praetermissis looks like a ablative plural. What is it agreeing with?

Albanis bellum indictum [bellum in-dicere = dicere se bellum facturum esse]

  1. Is Albanis ablative - as in War is declared by the Albani ?

  2. His explanation dicere se bellum facturum esse - facturum esse is a future active infinitive participle but why is it neuter? I thought this should agree with the subject - i.e. whoever is declaring war so would be facturus or is it facturum because it’s impersonal?

Numae morte ad interregnum res [res publica…] rediit. Inde Tullum Hostilium, nepotem Hostii Hostilii, cuius in infima arce clara pugna [cuius pugna] adversus Sabinos fuerat, regem populus creavit; patres auctores facti sunt.

  1. adversus is an adverb. Would an adjective adversa to agree with pugna mean the same thing?
2
  1. It’s an ablative absolute.
  2. No, that would have ab. This is dative, war declared “on” them.
  3. facturum agreeing with se in acc. & inf.
  4. Not an adverb but a preposition. The adj. would give sense of a kind but would be odd.
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Many thanks MWH

4

I don’t see any reference in L&S to indicere taking the dative (though it seems to make sense that it would). Also Does it really need ‘ab’ to mean ‘declared by’ ? Is it impossible that it could mean ‘declared by’…?

5

bellum populo Romano suo nomine indixit, Cic. Cat. 2, 6, 14;

“He declared war on the Roman people in his own name.”

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.8:1614.lewisandshort

In prose, the agent of a passive verb, especially a human agent, usually is indicated by ab + ablative. Here in fact there’s no mistaking that Albanis is dative and is the indirect object of indictum, and that war was declared against the Albans.

6

Thanks Qimmik.