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Heresies IV—Sequence After the Pure Perfect in Latin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2017

Extract

Suppose a class set to put into Latin ‘I think I have said enough to show why this war is necessary’. How many teachers would accept esset in the subordinate clause? Not, I venture to affirm, one in a hundred. Yet that is what was written by Cicero, who had of course the advantage of not knowing the above ‘rule’, in the De Imperio Cn. Pompei, 10. 27: ‘satis mihi multa verba fecisse videor, quare esset hoc bellum … necessarium; … restat ut de imperatore … dicendum esse videatur.’ He uses the same construction later in the speech (19.57): ‘quo mihi etiam indignius videtur obtrectatum esse adhuc, Gabinio dicam anne Pompeio an utrique, id quod est verius, ne legaretur A. Gabinius Cn. Pompeio expetenti ac postulanti’ And a fairly careful reading of the speeches against Catiline gives eleven examples of historic sequence after a pure perfect against six of primary. I quote some of them: ii. 4. 6, ‘quod exspectavi, iam sum adsecutus, ut vos omnes factam esse aperte coniurationem contra rem publicam esse videretis’; 12. 26, ‘vos … vestra tecta … defendite; mihi ut urbi … satis esset praesidii consultum atque provisum est’; iii. 12. 27, ‘mentes hominum audacissimorum sceleratae … ne vobis nocere possent ego providi; ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere’; iv. I. I, ‘mihi si haec condicio consulatus data est ut omnes acerbitates … perferrem, feram non solum fortiter verum etiam lubenter’; 2, ‘si hunc exitum consulatus mei di immortales esse voluerunt ut vos … ex caede … eriperem, quaecunque mihi uni proponetur fortuna, subeatur’; 5. 9, ‘habemus a Caesare … sententiam.… intellectum est quid interesset inter levitatem contionatorum et animum vere popularem’; 7. 14, ‘causa est … haec inventa sola in qua omnes sentirent unum atque idem’; 9. 19, ‘atque haec non ut vos … excitarem locutus sum’.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1936

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