Passive Perisphrastic

Hi -

I have a question about composing passive perisphratics… The agent of the action is supposed to be in dative, not ablative for this construction, I understand that far. But what if you also need to have an indirect object of the participle specified as a dative as well? Let me give the example of the sentence I am working on to clear it up a bit:


I am trying to translate the clause:

The senate had to give command to a new general

So far I have:

Imperium dandum erat senui

Which would be: Command had to be given by the senate…

How do I add “to a new general” If I put it in dative what is there to differentiate whether it must be given by the general to the senate, or by the senate to the general?

Seems tricky to me.

Thank you in advance for your amazing friendliness in helping me understand !! =]

~LatinGirly

That’s a good question! I looked around and it seems you can use “a” + ablative for the agent to avoid ambiguity in these cases. See, for example 353 in http://books.google.ca/books?id=CKsAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA182,M1 or 189 in http://books.google.ca/books?id=RSpYakbeZTcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=bennett+latin+grammar&as_brr=3#PPA132,M1. So one way to translate it would be

imperium a senatu dandum erat novo imperatori

(Also that the dative of “senatus” is “senatui”.)