Hello everybody,
Who can help me please with the translation of “one of the strongest soldiers”?
It looks like a partitive genitive, but I just can’t find it. Saying “fortissimus militum” would be “the strongest of/among the soldiers”, but it’s not the same sense… How do you translate “one of…”? It wouldn’t be “unus ex…” I guess, that sound too modern 
Thanx
I’m really curious to hear what sort of responses you get about this, not least because of the question’s relevance to English itself. “One of the [superlative]” is a very high frequency expression in modern English. It’s a way of lessening the superlative’s force, sometimes for courtesy, but more often for inflated or exaggerated praise, especially prominent in marketing. See the following examples:
“One of the Best Duct Tape Marketers on the Planet” (link) - I find this hilarious, actually one of the funniest things I’ve seen all day.
Other times, though, it literally means that there is a group of the best, oldest, funniest, or strongest, and the thing in question happens to be one of them. For instance:
“The Common is known to be one of the oldest public parks in the country.” (link)
(By the by, In my copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, there’s a passage condemning this construction, if I remember correctly. That was the first time I really noticed it.)
As for translating your phrase… there are two options. If you mean that there is quite literally a group of the strongest soldiers, and you’re talking about one of them, you would use unus ex fortissimis militibus.
But if you just mean in a vague sense that the soldier is extremely strong, so strong that you don’t remember one stronger though there probably are others, I think the the plain superlative is fine. Remember, it’s often used in Latin to mean “very.” Without some limiter (like in orbe terrarum), it should be clear that you mean “one buff dude” and not “the best soldier of all time.” So fortissimus miles is my guess.
Regards,
David
Gratias David! Sine dubio unus ex optimis interpretatoribus es, optime interpretator! 
(ceteri interpretatores me ignoscant… 
)
I wonder if there is any need to use a word for “one” at all. I would think that if you wanted to say “Caesar is one of the strongest soldiers”, you would probably just say, “Caesar est inter fortissimos milites” - literally “Caesar is among the strongest soldiers”, which sounds more Latin to me than “unus ex” (which seems to me, as David suggests, better suited for situations where there’s a literal group of which we are singling out one or more members: “duo ex meis filiis aegri sunt” or something like that).
Or maybe Caesar qui fortissimus miles habetur…
David
The problem with this, I think, is that it’s a bit stronger than the English, which, by saying “ONE OF the bravest”, softens the superlative a bit. Of course the Latin superlative, as you say, can have the sense of “really really brave” rather than literally “THE bravest”, but I think it needs something to soften it. Maybe “quasi fortissimus” - sort of “practically the greatest” or “the greatest (as it were)”? Or maybe the Latin comparative might come closer to catching the sense of this English expression: “Caesar qui fortior miles habetur” - “Caesar, who is considered a pretty brave soldier.”
But maybe the comparative would be too weak. I think I still like “inter fortissimos” best.
I like the quasi option, and inter seems to work well, though I don’t know if I’ve actually seen inter used this way before.
Here’s yet another idea: Caesar qui in numero militum fortissimorum est/habetur…
…by way of analogy with in numero amicorum est (he’s one of my friends). I wonder if it would work here? Hm. The in numero feels too literal. I think the meaning would be clear, but maybe a legitimate Roman (ubicumque est!) would find it awkward.
I hope that gives you some food for thought, care Matthai! 
David
Gee, guys, thanks a lot, I wasn’t imagining to have so many replies 
… it’s amazing in Latin how you can have the same general idea, expressed in so many ways which turn into so many different subtilities… cool!
Gee, guys, thanks a lot, I wasn’t imagining to have so many replies … it’s amazing in Latin how you can have the same general idea, expressed in so many ways which turn into so many different subtilities… cool!