Relative pronouns

Textbooks Latin For Beginners by D'Ooge
1

Salvete Omnes.

Again I have got questions from Reading Matters of this textbook,and this time about Publius’ story:

“…Inde declivis via usque ad latum campum ducit ubi Roma stat.Quem ad locum ubi Publius venit et Romam adhuc remotam,maximam totius orbis terrarum urbem,conspexit,summa admiratione et gaudio adfectus est…”
(p212,line1)
I am quite puzzled by the structure “quem ad locum ubi”,as I know,“quem ad locum"can be translated as"toward which place”,and though it is the first part of a sentence,it is still part of an attributive clause,and refers to “Roma"in the preceding sentence.But what about “ubi” here?I feel it redundant here,provided it is translated as"where”,because,it is rare that we say"Rome,toward which place where Publius came".

I have found that ubi can also mean when,as a relative word,and not without risking mistakes I would translate the sentence as
“…From that place a sloping-down road leads all the way to a wide field,where Rome is situated.Toward which place Publius came and WHEN he perceived Rome,yet far away,the largest city of all lands in the world,Publius was filled with great admiration and happiness…” I have obvious change the place of the word ubi and this makes more sense to me but I doubt it is correct.

Would you please help solve my problem?

Curate ut valeatis

RVNICVS

2

Salve Runice,

you are simply correct. The first ‘ubi’ is ‘where’, the second is ‘when’. It doesn’t run very smoothly in english if you translate it literally, but well, stop translating and start reading!

3

Try: “When Publius came to that place and saw…” I’m pretty sure that both venit and aspexit are part of the subordinate clause begun by ubi.

-David

4

Gratias vobis omnibus :slight_smile:

so this would be much smoother now:“From there a sloping-down road leads all the way to a wide plain,where lies Rome.WHEN Publius came to that place and perceived from far away,Rome,the largest city of all lands of the world,he was filled with great admiration and happiness.”

5

te, cum id bene feceris, multum congratulor!

I warmly congratulate you on a job well done!

-david

6

Yes, well done, runicus !

One could add that here, the Quem at the beginning of a sentence can be understood as “Et…eum” : “And when P. came to this place…”