74 Ablative Uses

 

“In Latin the preposition cum, which means ‘with’, can indicate that you are ‘with’ a person, or sometimes a thing. This is called Ablative of Accompaniment: cum amīcō, mēcum, multis cum militibus – ‘with a friend’, ‘with me’, and ‘with many soldiers’.”

“The preposition cum is also used to describe how something is accomplished: cum timōre, cum amōre, cum vīribus – ‘fear’, ‘love’, ‘strength’. This use is called Ablative of Manner. Sometimes this ablative noun is joined by an adjective that indicates the amount of force: cum magnō timōre, cum multā īrā, ‘with great fear’, ‘with much hatred’. When this happens, the cum is often omitted: magnō timōre, multā īrā; in such phrases, you must supply ‘with’ when you translate.”

“When cum is used, it often falls between the adjective and the noun. Do you know the phrase

magnā cum laude?”

 

Yeah, you get it when you sit in the front row and graduate top of your class.

 

“Oh hush: you can get it if you sit in the back row. Anyway, it means ‘with great praise’. So, think of this as Magna-cum-laude Word Order: Adjective-Preposition-Noun:”

Examples of Ablative of Manner (B)

magnō cum labōreormagnō labōrewith great effort multō cum timōreormultō timōrewith much fear maximō cum amōre ormaximō amōrewith the greatest love

“Latin has an irregular Third Declension noun often used as an ablative of manner. It has a different meaning in the singular and the plural. Put this in your vocab:”

vīs, vim (acc. sg.), vī (abl. sg.)f.force (singular); strength (plural) “This noun has no genitive or dative singular”

Declension of vīs (C)

SingularPlural

vīsvīrēsNom.

• vīriumGen.
• vīribusDat.

vimvīrēsAcc.

vīvīribusAbl.

 

Magnā vī Rōmānī bellum gessēre. The Romans waged war with great force.

 

Quandō immōta mānsit, multō cum labōre discessī. (18)

Even in bad times we used to wage war with the greatest force. (19)

 

As we worked, a stream of important-looking guests was arriving at Octavian’s house. While I was watching them Latinitas disappeared. When she returned, she was dressed in an elegant robe with a gorgeous gold and purple shawl, her hair oiled and gathered in elegant ringlets that hung over golden earrings, scented with a rosewater perfume. Somewhat incongruously, she also held a bucket full of seaweed, which she handed over to me.

“Hoc tibi, this is for you.” Quid est? I asked. “It’s a bucket of snails, cochleae. Your job is to walk up to the kitchen area, yell cochleae, cochleae until someone takes this off your hands, then hide in the cella, the storage closet, just off the main dining room, to watch the poet Vergil perform before dinner.”

As I ran through this scenario in my mind, I began to panic.

 

“What if I say cochleae and they think I’m saying ‘of the snail’, or ‘to/for the snail’? It will give me away!”

“No one is going to think you’re using the genitive or dative!”

 

“But what if they do? What if they do and they cut off my head and nail it to the Forum?”

 

“No one is going to cut off your head! Think: if someone came to you with this bucket and said ‘Snails!’, would you interpret what you heard as ‘Snail’s’ and think they were crazy? As if it belonged to a man named Snail?”

“No.”

 

“There you go. Context is King.”

 

Well, she was right: I walked into the kitchen area with my bucket, yelled Cochleae, and someone grabbed it from my hands. I then tip-toed down one wing of the house to a dark cella that had a view of the entranceway and the front of the dining room.

As I hid there and let my heart settle down, I watched a painter talk to Octavian’s guests about a wall-painting he had just finished. It was an artistic representation of the genealogy of the gēns

 

Iulia, the family line of the Iuliī. Julius Caesar belonged to it, as did Octavian, who was Caesar’s adopted son as well as his heir.

“Haec Venus,” the painter said, pointing to a scene of the goddess floating in the air. She was leading her son Aeneas out of the burning city of Troy with his elderly father Anchises and his young son, Ascanius. Venus was holding the end of a red ribbon, and the three males had their hands on it too; the ribbon, I came to understand, represented the Julian family line.

In the scene below, a bald and grey-bearded Aeneas was standing on a hill, looking like the supervisor of a construction project as he watched a city being built in the valley below. The city was labelled LAVINIVM, Lavinium. This was Italy now, and not Troy.

The ribbon spiraled loosely around Aeneas’ outstretched arm and continued down to the next scene. There a solemn figure labelled ASCANIVS was seated in a regal chair; haec Alba Longa, the painter explained. (The Romans often leave out the est when they say ‘this is Alb Longa, or whatever.) The ribbon passed through Ascanius’ hands, then looped down through a long series of ghostly figures representing early Latin kings, until it passed through the hands of Ilia. From there it passed to the infants Romulus and Remus, who were playing tug-of-war with it; and in the next scene, Romulus wrapped it around his forehead as he laid down the walls of Rome.

Behind the walls you could just make out the feet of Remus, who was lying dead, murdered by his brother.

Next, the ribbon wound through a mass of unlabeled faces before it spun around the waist of Julius Caesar, who was ascending to a starry caelum with a halo around his head. This was his anima rising to heaven after his assassination, and there was Venus again, waiting to greet him. Finally, at the very bottom of the painting, Octavian was holding onto the end of the ribbon as he watched his father’s soul soar upwards.

Now, who should pass in front of me at that moment but Octavian himself; I recognized him, and a herald called out his name. Other dinner guests followed, whose names I could make out as they were announced. Agrippa was there, and I recognized him from the time we saw Vitruvius. Livia, Octavian’s wife, shared a couch with her husband. Messalla, Sulpicia’s uncle, came cum Hōrātiō, with Horace, a poet who we would meet on our next visit. And then there was a man called Maecenas, accompanied by a woman who winked at me as she passed. Oh my god, I half-whispered out loud – Latinitas was disguised as Maecenas’ wife or maybe mistress! What the explanation behind this was, I couldn’t wait to hear.

With a nod in my direction Latinitas gestured to the couch next to her, where a tall man sat in an actor’s robe. His young male lover was massaging his shoulders, as if preparing him for a boxing match. The older man, I soon figured out, was the poet Vergil, Publius Vergilius Maro.

 

Octavian made a speech introducing him and told the guests that they were about to hear the debut recital of the first book of his forthcoming epic, the Aeneid. In case you didn’t know, the Aeneid is the epic adventure of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who was a founder of the Latin people, and thus, indirectly, of the Romans.

I did not understand much of what I heard after that, although I got the sense that Aeneas, the protagonist, was caught in a storm at sea. Vergil was a wonderful entertainer, full of energy, gestures, dramatic pauses, and sound effects. He spoke in different voices for each character, he and would change the arrangement of his robe to match their identity. One thing you should know, my reader, is that Roman poets were not just guys reading out loud from books in cafes; many were like famous actors or musicians. Vergil recited the whole thing from memory.

Latinitas had instructed me to listen for words or phrases I understood, and I did best with a scene where Jupiter was speaking to Venus. The goddess was worried about the future of her son Aeneas. To ease her fears, Jupiter laid out the future in a prophecy. If you want to know what it felt like to be there, you should read the Latin aloud. I interpreted it for you; find the Latin that corresponds to each English word or phrase in italics:

Parce metū, Cytherēa: manent immōta tuōrum fāta. Tibi cernēs urbem et prōmissa Lavīnī moenia, sublīmemque ferēs ad sīdera caelī magnanimum Aenēān, neque mē sententia vertit.

Spare your fear, (Venus) Cytherea: they remain unmoved, your peoples’ fates. You shall see the city and the walls of Lavinium promised to you, you will carry on high, to the stars of the sky,

great-souled Aeneas, nor has some feeling changed me. (20)

 

Hic tibi (fābor enim, quandō haec tē cūra remordet, longius et volvēns fātōrum arcāna movēbō)

bellum ingēns geret Ītaliā, populōsque ferōcēs contundet, mōrēsque virīs et moenia pōnet…

For you this man (for I shall speak, since this care gnaws at you,

a little longer, and by unrolling the secrets of fate, shall set them moving)

will wage huge war in Italy, will beat down fierce peoples, and will lay down customs and walls for his men.

At puer Ascanius, cui nunc cognōmen Iūlō additur – Īlus erat, dum rēs stetit Īlia rēgnō –

 

trīgintā magnōs volvendīs mēnsibus orbīs imperiō explēbit, rēgnumque ab sēde Lāvīnī trānsferet, et Longam multā vī mūniet Albam.

But the boy Ascanius, to whom now the nickname Iulus

is added – he was Ilus, while Ilium still stood as a kingdom – will complete thirty great cycles as the months roll by

in power, and will transfer his kingdom from its seat

in Lavinium, and will fortify Alba Longa with much force.

 

Hīc iam ter centum tōtōs rēgnābitur annōs gente sub Hectoreā, dōnec rēgīna sacerdōs, Mārte gravis, geminam partū dabit Īlia prōlem.

Here there will then be a kingdom for a total of three hundred years under Hector’s family line, until a royal priestess

pregnant by Mars, Ilia, will give in birth twin offspring.

 

Inde lupae fulvō nūtrīcis tegmine laetus Rōmulus excipiet gentem, et Māvortia condet moenia, Rōmānōsque suō dē nōmine dīcet.

Then, happy in the grey shelter of his wolf nurse, Romulus will receive the family line, and will found the walls of Mars, and will call [them] Romans after his own name.

Hīs ego nec mētās rērum nec tempora pōnō; imperium sine fīne dedī…

For them I lay down neither goalposts for their world nor time (limits); I have given them empire without end…

Nāscētur pulchrā Troiānus orīgine Caesar, imperium Ōceanō, fāmam quī terminet astrīs,— Iūlius, ā magnō dēmissum nōmen Iūlō.

A Trojan Caesar will be born from a handsome origin,

who will mark his empire’s limit with the Ocean, his fame with the stars –

Iulius, a name passed down from great Iulus.

 

Hunc tū ōlim caelō, spoliīs Orientis onustum, accipiēs sēcūra; vocābitur hic quoque vōtīs.

Someday you, carefree, will receive this man, weighed down

by the loot of the East, in heaven; he too shall be called in prayers.

 

Aspera tum positīs mītēscent saecula bellīs;

cāna Fidēs, et Vesta, Remō cum frātre Quirīnus, iūra dabunt; dīrae ferrō et compāgibus artīs claudentur Bellī portae; Furor impius intus, saeva sedēns super arma, et centum vīnctus aēnīs post tergum nōdīs, fremet horridus ōre cruentō.

“Then harsh generations will turn gentler, their wars set aside;

white-haired Trust, and Vesta, Quirinus [Romulus] with his brother Remus, will deal justice; the dire gates of War will be closed

with iron and tight joints; inside, disloyal Madness, sitting on top of savage arms, and bound behind his back

with a hundred bronze knots, will roar horribly from his gory mouth.”

Vergil let loose a loud roar, at which much of the crowd laughed and clapped.

 

At the end, as I slipped outside again, I heard Octavian shout above the noise to Agrippa, asking what he thought of Vergil’s poem. Agrippa gave his answer – cacozēlos, “Pretentious” – before taking, from a platter offered to him, a snail lightly fried in garlic, oil, and saffron.

I’d felt the power of the performance, and I had some respect for the propaganda, too, even if it was blatant. As Latinitas told me later, when your society has fallen apart and you have to put it back together again with some pieces missing, you need some fibs to fill in the gaps.

So, I asked her as we left, what was the story with Maecenas?

 

“Maecenas does special jobs for Octavian: he keeps an eye on the city of Rome while he’s away, and he collects talent for him. Vergil and Horace – they were Maecenas’ ‘finds’. He has a good ear for poetry.”

No, I mean, what were you doing with him?

 

“Oh, he’s very handsome. One of the few mortal men in this city who knows how to treat a woman right.”

 

 

So he’s single?

 

“His wife Terentia was taking a long nap. I left before anything happened. No harm, no foul.”

 

Well, it was none of my business and I didn’t pry further. But it made me wonder whether in my past I had ever interacted with someone who was actually a god or a goddess in disguise.

 

 

 

 

• Wall paintings from the ‘Mask Room’ in the domus or house of the emperor Augustus on the Palatine Hill in Rome. The walls of Roman houses were normally painted or decorated, and more ambitious houses often had elaborate paintings like this that were intended to create an illusion of depth.

 

 

 

 

• The Lacus Albānus, the Alban Lake, filling the crater of an extinct volcano east of Rome in Italiā mediā, in central Italy.