# esse testatus sit



## bacchebenevenies

Hello again.

I have another problem with the same text: 





> Quamvis igitur multa pseudepigrapha, id est falsa inscriptione sub alieno nomine, sint prolata, ut Thyestes tragoedia huius poetae, quam Varius suo nomine edidit, et alia huiusmodi, tamen Bucolica liquido Vergilii esse minime dubitandum est, praesertim cum ipse poeta, tamquam hoc metuens, principium huius operis et in alio carmine suum *esse testatus sit* dicendo:
> 
> "Carmina qui lusi pastorum audaxque iuventa,
> Tityre, te patulae cecini sub tegmine fagi.



I see that "esse testatus" is an infinitive, but I can't understand how does it work in this sentence. I suppose that it is subordinated to the conjugated form of sum ("sit"), but I'm not really sure. And, also, I have another doubt: what is the case of "suum"? I expected that it was genitive or ablative, but it doesn't seem to be so.

Thank you and, again, forgive my poor English


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## jazyk

Sit is required by tamquam = as if. Suum is a case of accusativus cum infinitivo. Roughly: as if, by fearing that, he attested in another poem that the beginning of that work is his (that is, Virgil's).


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## Cagey

_Poeta ipse_ [Virgil] is the nominative subject of the verb _testatus sit_. (It's in the subjunctive following 'cum'.)

_suum esse: suum_ is the accusative singular of the possessive adjective.  
_suum esse_ is the accusative infinitive construction of indirect discourse following '_testatus sit_' [bears witness, testifies]. 

(Cross-posted.)


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## Scholiast

Scholiasta conforensibus SPD

@jazyk (# 2)


jazyk said:


> Sit is required by tamquam = as if.


Not on this occasion. _tamquam hoc metuens_ ['as if fearing precisely this'] is a self-sufficient sub-clause.
The subjunctive _testatus _*sit* is required by the conjunction introducing the clause, _cum_: '...especially since the poet personally, as if fearing this [false attribution of authorship], testified in another poem that the opening of this work [the line 'Tityre tu patulae...' &c., the first line of _Ecl._ 1] is his own'.
Σ


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## jazyk

I agree with you. I hadn't read from the beginning.


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## bacchebenevenies

Thank you so much!


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