Seneca, de ira, book one, chapter 9.
Seneca argues that force should be controlled in war by a reasoning mind, not by anger at the enemy.
Quotiens impetu opus est, non irascitur sed exsurgit et in quantum putavit opus esse concitatur remittiturque, non aliter quam quae tormentis exprimuntur tela in potestate mittentis sunt in quantum torqueantur.
Translation: Whenever there is need of violent force, it [the mind] does not grow angry; instead it rises up in the degree to which it thought there was need and it grows forceful and relaxes, just as missiles launched by siege-engines are given force to the degree in which they are cranked back.
What’s giving me trouble is this
non aliter quam quae tormentis exprimuntur tela in potestate mittentis sunt in quantum torqueantur.
Here is my effort at construing this clause, but I am unsure of it.
tela in potestate mittentis sunt: missiles are endowed with force of sending
quae [antecedent is tela] tormentis exprimentur: which are launched by siege-engines
in quantum torqueantur: just as far as they are cranked back.
quae tormentis exprimuntur tela – missiles which are ejected by siege-engines
in potestate mittentis sunt – are in the power of the person who launches them
in quantum torqueantur – to the extent they are cranked back
In other words, the person who launches missiles by siege engines can control them by the extent to which they’re cranked back.
What’s throwing you off, I think, is the fact that the relative clause comes before its antecedent. This is not unusual in Latin but not at all acceptable in English. You recognize this–and you’ve correctly broken the sentence down into its constituent elements-- but I think it may be confusing you.
Actually, your problem lies in in potestate mittentis sunt
mittentis must be genitive singular–“are in the power of the person launching”
You saw the difficulty, Hylander.
mittentis, genitive singular, has to be read “of the man launching”. In this clause also potestate has to refer to human command, which I also missed, and not to the non-human force that physically impels the missiles.
I did see that Seneca uses artillery to illustrate intelligent control of violence. He moves thinking about combat out of its usual frame of reference, which is a fight between two enraged men, and into a scene, artillery direction, where rational command is obvious. I got this idea from the beginning, which should have been a clue to the meaning of those two words.