Passive interpretation with superlative forms

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hi,

I have found this sentence in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 15.1:

Nam fuit Argolico generatus Alemone quidam Myscelos, illius dis acceptissimus aevi.

Where the last part (i.e. “llius dis acceptissimus aevi”) can be translated as:

“most favored by the gods in that age.”

I’m a speaker of some Romance languages (Spanish and Catalan) and such “passive” interpretations are also possible with superlative forms of participles:

“Era un rey queridísimo por todos los ciudadanos” → He was a king very well loved by all the citizens.
“ambdós conegudíssims per l’afició gironina” → Both were very well known by Girona fans.

In the Latin example, the agentive complement is plural noun in the dative case: ‘dis’ (“by the gods”). I’m wondering whether anybody knows of other examples like this, if possible with the ablative of agent. So, would something like the following be possible in Latin?

“Dux a mīlitibus admirātissimus est”

“Dux a mīlitibus amatissimus est”

Do you know of any such examples in the Latin texts?

Grātiās antehāc agō

JM

2

Acceptus is exceptional, in that it could function as an adjective even to the extent that it formed comparative and superlative. (Was this a Plautine morphological innovation, which spread no further, I wonder?) It’s construed with dative (not ablative, and no preposition), like gratus or carus, not like a regular passive. A construction such as "Dux a mīlitibus amatissimus est” (instead of e.g. ualde amatus) is unthinkable in Latin.