unde consilium afuerit, culpam abesse.

Latin Learning Latin
1

This is a line from Roma Aeterna XLV 266 taken directly from Livy 1.58.9.

consolantur aegram animi avertendo noxam ab coacta in auctorem delicti: mentem peccare, non corpus, et unde consilium afuerit, culpam abesse. ’

There a few things that are giving me trouble. Ørberg supplies inde culpam abesse in the margin. I’m not sure I understand the use of unde “from where” and inde “from there” unless the idea is “from the fact that intention (or perhaps choice) was absent, from that same fact guilt is absent.” I would have expected ubi…ibi. Also, I’m not sure what to make of afuerit. Is it a perfect subjunctive required by indirect discourse? Is the finite form intead of the infinitive needed to express anteriority?

2

unde, rather than ubi, with afuerit because of the idea of separation in afuerit (implicit in the prefix a-, “away from”). Likewise inde abesse.. You can translate “where . . . there.”

afuerit is perfect subjunctive because it’s in a subordinate clause within indirect discourse. The main verb in the indirect discourse, abesse, is infinitive, but a subordinate clause within indirect discourse — when it’s part of the discourse itself and not a comment by the narrator — must be subjunctive.

3

Doesn’t the note read inde culpam abesse?

4

Yes it does. I corrected my thread. Thank you for your explanation. It is most helpful. I should have reviewed my grammar. I see that it is fully presented in Allen and Greenough.