participle help please

Latin Learning Latin
1

Sorry if this is a very simple issue, i’m quite new to latin. In de bello gallico in the clause “His rebus adducti et auctoritate” i dont understand the meaning of “adducti”. I think its a participle and should be translated as induced but rebus is fem abl plural and adducti is (i think) masc nom plural.Shouldn’t the participle agree with the noun ? Could someone please clarify,
Thanks,Steven

2

It looks to me as though it means:
(Without contextual information this could be off by quite a ways)


(of the man/the men) having been led to believe, by these things and by advice/judgement/opinion/authority,…


or…


(of the man/the men) having been led to believe these things and the advice given him/them,… (This one only works if the verb, in its passive form, takes the dative case to express the direct object.)



This may sound a bit funky, sorry. I do know that adducere takes the meaning “led to believe” in passive constructs.

3

You’re new to Latin? :astonished: In which century? If that’s new, what am I? Utter beginner, I suppose…Welcome to Textkit, by the way! I see that this is your first post…

Keesa

4

My brain must be fried today! I have finally finished editting my first message for like the 10th time! Holy crap! :-\

5

Thanks.Lead to believe = induced :slight_smile: i just cleaned it up a bit.the whole clause i believe translates as “lead to believe by these things” I was wondering about the grammer more so then then the meaning.

6

The “rebus” and the “auctoritate” look to be agents. Even though they are separated by quite a few words, they have the same role in the sentence, so one portion of your sentence would read “…led to believe by the things and authority…”

7

A participle doesn’t necessarily have to agree with a local noun… It can act as an adjective acting as a noun, and so stand by itself. This is why “adducti” doesn’t agree with rebus, and why Lumen_et_umbra translated it as “men having been led to believe”.

Of course, by now, this is likely completely unnecessary clarification, but in case it isn’t, here’s yet another bit of input…


8

Thanks for all your help guys.