urbe valida muris ac situ ipso munita abstinuit

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hostes fusos ad moenia persecutus, urbe valida muris ac situ ipso munita abstinuit, agros rediens vastavit, ulciscendi magis quam praedae studio.

‘…urbe valida muris ac situ ipso munita…’ cuncta ablativa sunt
It means, I believe, that Romulus did not invade the city of Veii but the ablative words together seem highly idiomatic or else I’m missing something.

Hostes fusos ad moenia persecutus, urbe valida muris ac situ ipso munita abstinuit, agros rediens vastavit, ulciscendi magis quam praedae studio.

  • urbe valida muris ac situ ipso munita abstinuit (from the strong city and the same fortified place he stayed away..

I think it’s the ‘ac’ that is throwing me. It should divide the phrase into two clauses but ‘munita’ after it appears to agree with ‘urbe’ before it…’

2

Is this the sense?

‘…from the strong city furthermore in that same place fortified with walls he stayed away.’

I know I should not be translating Orberg…but one want’s to know if one has the right end of the stick. I do understand it in Latin (I swear!)

3

. . . he kept away from [abstinuit + ablative] the city, [which was] secure with its walls [valida muris] and [ac] fortified by its very location [situ ipso munita] . . .

valida muris ac situ ipso munita – This is “chiastic” word-order: ABBA, adjective complement ac complement adjective (participle).

There is no connective et or ac or -que between the two coordinate clauses with the verbs abstinuit and vastavit. This is based on Livy and the absence of a connective is very Livian.

4

Many thanks Qimmik.

5

Just to follow up on Qimmik’s final observation about the two main clauses. The lack of connective points the contrast between urbe and agros, each the opening word of its clause. The city he refrained from attacking, but the fields … An effective use of word order, and the opposite of chiastic. (Greek would enhance the contrast by using μέν and δέ.)

6

mwh, many thanks. I will spend some time studying this.

7

One more thought about this sentence:

Livy is snappy. His prose moves along briskly. Even in this simplified version, you can get a sense of this in a sentence such as this one, where every word counts and where he joins coordinate clauses by contrasting urbe and agros, as mwh notes, rather than with a connective. But unlike Tacitus and Sallust, Livy never pushes concision to the point of Thucydidean obscurity–Livy is always clear and limpid.

Cicero, in contrast to Livy, is expansive. He is characterized by lengthy periods with elaborate subordination (although there is much variety in his style).