N&H Latin Prose Comp:#29.4
Salve,
I’m working on participles and the ablative absolute. In North and Hillards Latin Prose Composition and answer book, there is this sentence and this answer:
Q: Seeing the great walls of the city we did not attack it.
A: Magnis moenibus visis non urbem oppugnavimus.
Lit: The great walls having been seen, we did not attack the city.
Is this also good?:
A: Videntes magna moena urbis ea non oppugnavimus.
Gratias tibi ago,
Rusticus
Hi,
Your version seems to be closer to the English both in the tense of the participle and in the fact that you have urbs in the genitive.
Just some minor corrections, and I’ll also add that my feeling is that a more neutral word order would be to put videntes after urbis but that’s just my feeling.
Hi Rustymason,
Q: Seeing the great walls of the city we did not attack it.
A: Magnis moenibus visis non urbem oppugnavimus.
Lit: The great walls having been seen, we did not attack the city.Is this also good?:
A: Videntes magna moena urbis ea non oppugnavimus.
After struggling for years to get my head around how the absolute absolute functions, I’m going to stick my neck out here and say I think your ‘Videntes’ thing is probably a no-no.
The ablative absolute is part of the way the Romans told a story. Our English idiom 'Seeing the great walls of the city" really means “When we saw the great walls, etc” , that is, first we saw the walls, then, afterwards, as a result, we did not attack the city. But you can’t use the Latin present participle in this way because it is always contemporaneous with the action of the main verb. Your Latin version would therefore mean something like “We did not attack the city while we were watching the walls”, which would be nonsense. What works in English doesn’t necessarily work in Latin.
N & H are testing your ability to spot the difference!
Re-read Paragraph 1. under Exercise 28 [A]. 
Cheers,
Int
Correction: not ‘absolute absolute’ (though I like the sound of it!) but ablative absolute.
Int
Oh, now I see. Absolutely an absolutely good explanation. Gratias!
Salve rustymason,
Is this also good?:
A: Videntes magna moena urbis ea non oppugnavimus.
The case of “videntes magna moena” is nominative or accusative, isn’t it? But it must be ablative! Therefore: videntibus magnis moenibus!
I also disagree with Interaxus on the “function” of the ablativus absolutus. At least, I learned it this way: the Ablativus Absolutus is a participial construction. What distinguishes it from the regular Participium Coniunctum is that it isn’t as closely connected to the “main activity” of the sentence. For example:
urbem, beeing an accusative object, is part of the main activity. => Participium Coniunctum.
As you see, Legatus is closely connected to main activity, since it is the subject of the sentence.
Because of this “connectedness” to the main activity, it is called Participium Coniunctum.
Now there are parts of a sentence, that are detached from the main activity: you could leave them out, without changing the meaning of the sentence too much. Appearantly the Romans were very fond of participial constructions, so they had to have one for this case aswell (or something like that): the Ablativus Absolutus (from absolvere: to detach).
The main activitiy here is: Marcus and Claudia fled (to Rome). The participle oppido deleto clearly isn’t as connected to the main activity as in the previous sentences.
Now the meaning of either P.C. or Abl. Abs. isn’t only a temporal one. You can translate it using many kinds of subordinate clauses (causal, final etc.), as a relative clause (in the case of the P.C.) or as a plain participle. All depending on the context.
The use of the present participle denotes simultaneity to the main activity, while the use of the past participle denotes anteriority.
Magnis moenibus videntibus would mean something “the moment (while) we saw the great walls, we [did this and that] …”
I think: in your sentence you’re intuitivly trying to connect the participle with the main activity: by connecting moena with urbs and through the use of eam. I think, because that is the more english way to think.
I hope, I could help. Please excuse any errors: it was late in the night!
regards
Magnus Maxime, vale.
I’m afraid that I disagree with some of what you have said.
In an ablative absolute (“AA”) not every word must be in the ablative case. “Magna moenia videntibus” can make a perfectly sound AA in principle.
The problem with this phrase is that in the phrase that Rusty is looking for this won’t work very well, because the persons looking at the walls in the AA are also the subject of the main sentence. As you rightly point out, the ablative absolute must be ‘disconnected’ grammatically from the main sentence.
What we are looking for here really would be an active perfect participle (nominative): “Having looked at the great walls, we didn’t attack the city.” As we all know, this doesn’t exist in latin.
As for your suggestion “videntibus magnis moenibus”, we actually have the great walls look on while we don’t attack the city.
As for your first example, “urbem a hostis oppugnatam egressus sumus”, it seems to me that the city is being attacked while we are leaving it. The participle, as you rightly said, does not indicate time, but merely a state of being. Therefore it does not convey the meaning “after the city had been attacked”.
In the end I think I think Rusty’s first option is the one that the N&H requires litterally: “magna moenia urbis videntes eam non oppugnavimus”,
“while looking at the great walls of the city we did not attack it”.
I think this is grammatically sound, however nonsensical the phrase is.
“magnis moenibus visis” does not provide an accurate translation, and it remains to be questioned who the walls have been seen by. Of course, in any normal text the context would provide this.
Of course this is just my opinion. I am hardly a specialist on grammar.
Hello Kasper,
thanks for pointing out my mistakes!
In an ablative absolute (“AA”) not every word must be in the ablative case. “Magna moenia videntibus” can make a perfectly sound AA in principle.
According to my grammar book, the ablative absolute is the connection of two ablatives. Of course not every word related to the construction needs to be in the ablative case. Is that what you mean?
To rustymason: I also realised, that I misread your original post: I thought, the use of an ablative absolute was specifically asked for in the translation, and I saw your sentence as an attempt to. Sorry!
Concerning the “moenibus videntibus”: this is of course complete nonsense, because videntibus is an active participle and walls don’t have eyes (most of the time).
I still think however, that the use of an ablative absolute is the better alternative in this case.
Magnis moenibus visis non urbem oppugnavimus.
It is clear enough, in my opinion, that the walls were seen by the subject of non urbem oppugnavimus.
But rustymason’s version seems to be alright aswell.
regards
Maximus: Do we really ‘disagree’ about the AA? I didn’t mean to suggest that the ablative absolute was ONLY used to ’tell a story’, just that it was often used in this way - where in English we would prefer a stream of short sentences, complete clauses, etc.
It’s ONE of the features that initially makes Latin so much more opaque to the beginner than any of its modern descendants.
Kasper: RE past participles …
urbem a hostis oppugnatam egressus sumus", it seems to me that the city is being attacked while we are leaving it. The participle, as you rightly said, does not indicate time, but merely a state of being. Therefore it does not convey the meaning "after the city had been attacked.
Well, Henle, for example, in HIS Latin Grammar (1945) states categorically:
The PERFECT participle expresses action as COMPLETED BEFORE the action of the verb in its clause.
E.g. Milites instructi impetum sustinuerunt. The soldiers, having been drawn up, withstood the attack. (i.e. They were drawn up and then withstood the attack.)
As for the original question, I stick by my guns. Rusty’s ‘second version’ is a no-no (for the reasons already submitted). His ‘first version’ is, as he says, the one found in the Key – and we may safely assume it to be the ‘best’ (or at least the authors’ intended) Correct Answer.
Meanwhile, Maximus: You’re right to point out that it takes two ablatives to tango. One ancient coursebook in its AA section gave this charming example:
Quid rides? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.
Hi Interaxus,
I happily accept your competence as far greater than mine, and as such i would like you to clarify these points:
what would be your translation of: “while the city was under attack we left it.” I don’t see what participle you could use to indicate the state of the city as being under attack, other than oppugnatam. It indicates not so much the past but the passive sense, i.e. the city is being attacked. Unless I am mistaken there is no present passive participle.
what are the guns you are sticking by exactly? Are you saying that grammatically speaking a present active participle cannot be used with an active verb? Eg. 'audiens non loquor" would be incorrect in your opinion?