# Duobus etiam



## Novanas

Dear Friends,

I've come across a construction that I don't believe I've ever seen before, and I can't make sense of it.  This is the very first sentence of Aurelius Victor's _Liber de Caesaribus _(LIBER DE CAESARIBUS): 

_Anno urbis septingentesimo fere vicesimoque, *duobus etiam*, mos Romae incessit uni prorsus parendi.
_
When he's talking about "obeying one man", he's talking about Augustus, since that's where his work starts.  Now I've been unable to find an English translation of this work on-line, though I have found a French translation, which does me fine, and the translator gives this sentence simply as, "In the 722nd year after the founding of Rome . . ."

So this "duobus etiam" baffles me.  I suppose this is the ablative, and I suppose it might mean something like, "In the 720th year, and two more as well . . ."  But if anyone can shed any light on this construction, I'd be happy to have your ideas.  Many thanks.


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## Scholiast

Salvete omnes!

I confess I am not intimately familiar with the writings or style of Aurelius Victor. My instinct here however is to interpret 'etiam' in the (_prima facie_) puzzling formulation as 'plus' [in the English sense]. I fully agree that this is awkward and clumsy phraseology; one might have expected  something like _anno...septingentesimo vicesimo secundo._

It is with a little trepidation that I offer this interpretation, and will be very happy and pleased to be corrected if anyone has a better explanation.

Σ


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## Snodv

I wonder if it means "even with two [men at the helm--consuls in their now meaningless role?], the custom began at Rome of obeying just one."


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## Scholiast

Greetings again.



Snodv said:


> I wonder if it means "even with two [men at the helm--consuls in their now meaningless role?],



I am not persuaded, particularly as the dating formula _ab urbe condita_ 722 takes us precisely to 31 BC, when following the defeat of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra at Actium Augustus' one-man-rule is normally thought to have begun.

Σ


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## Snodv

I am not going to be partisan because I am not convinced myself, only curious.  But these things occur to me:  _duobus _is a cardinal number and shouldn't go with the preceding ordinals.  And while you certainly have a good point about 753-722=31, I think _ fere _(which I read as "approximately") allows the imprecision.


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## Snodv

Digging a little deeper, I see that a Canadian author, H. W. Bird, has translated _De Caesaribus_ into English.  Does anybody have access to that book, to shed a little light on the difficulty?


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## Scholiast

Hi Snodv

I'll be spending time tomorrow in the St Andrews Uni. Library, and I'll put this (# 6) on the agenda.

Σ


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## Scholiast

Salvete amici!

Well that was more of a struggle than it ougt to have been. Bird's translation and commentary of 1994 is only available here in an electronic version, and I had to get my passwords reset to get access to it—though an earlier study of his (_Sextus Aurelius Victor, a Historiographical Study_ _ (ARCA _1984_)_) was on open shelves.

I have now examined both. The earlier book devotes some space to stylistic matters, but appears nowhere to remark any oddity about _duobus etiam_ in the opening sentence.

His translation in the later work (of 1994) reads as follows:

'In about the 722nd year of the city the custom commenced...of obeying one man alone'. In the appended _Commentary_ there is no remark on the oddity of the expression _duobus etiam_.

But it is interesting to observe that the stylistic abruptness has been noticed before: in the _Apparatus Criticus_ to Pichlmayr's 1911 Teubner edition, I read that one previous editor, 'Gruter', (presumably in the 19th century) proposed emendation to _secundo_, as in # 2 I surmised would have been eleganter Latin than _duobus etiam_.

It may be worth remarking that as Bird's studies show, the man admired Sallust as a stylist, who of course was given to abrupt and startling turns of phrase and juxtapositions; though it would seem that by comparison, Victor was of commanding intellectual mediocrity, his works littered with errors, omissions and misrepresentations (a glance at the index entry for him in Syme's _Roman Papers_ III is enough).

I rest my case.

Σ

Edit: there is incidentally a possible parallel for mixing up cardinals and ordinals (cf. Snodv's remarks, # 5) in Aur. Vict. _Liber de Caesaribus_ 3.1: ['Tiberius] cum imperium tres atque viginti, _aevi octogesimum uno minus annos egisset_' &c. It looks to me as if _duobus etiam_ (= 'plus two') and _uno minus_ (= 'minus one') are pretty similar.


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## Snodv

Gratias tibi, Scholiast, pro tuo magno labore!  I am a little starstruck about St Andrews University--the one founded in 1413?  
[Aside:  have you any expertise in Scots Gaelic?  I have a question in the 'Other Languages' forum.]


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## Scholiast

Hello once more

@Snodv (# 9): thank you for your kind remarks.


Snodv said:


> I am a little starstruck about St Andrews University--the one founded in 1413?


That's right. At that period St Andrews was the most important ecclesiastical (as well as academic) centre in Scotland, like Canterbury in England today, and the archbishops used the castle, which is just next to the main Univ. centre, as their private palace.


Snodv said:


> [Aside: have you any expertise in Scots Gaelic? I have a question in the 'Other Languages' forum.]


I have _sung_ some Gaelic, but mostly phonetically rather than from any deep understanding. But I know a few people I could pass an enquiry on to.

Incidentally I have re-edited my edit in # 8.

Cheers

Σ


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## Snodv

Tapadh leat!  (OK, I looked that up.)


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## Novanas

Thanks to the two of you for your observations here, which I have been inexcusably slow to reply to.  But I suppose I can take comfort in the knowledge that I'm not the only one who finds this construction puzzling.

I can say that Aurelius Victor is one of the most difficult works in Latin I've ever read (bearing in mind that my Latin is not the strongest).  His style is extremely compact.  Also, because it's a very short work--generally one short paragraph on each emperor--any given sentence can be on a totally different topic from the preceding one, meaning that often you have no context to work with.

I regard the French translation I'm using as an excellent one.  I.e., it reads very smoothly.  There's no "translationese" there.  But I'd say the translation is probably at least twice as long as the original because the translator is constantly expanding the text, explaining things that Aurelius leaves unsaid and supposedly understood.

Also, it doesn't help that the text I'm using is littered with typos, some of them quite obvious--e.g., "nibil" rather than "nihil"-- but some of them not.  With one sentence I was beside myself trying to figure out what "hostiam" could possibly mean.  Once I realized it was actually "hostium", that made things a lot simpler.

In any case, thanks to the two of you.  I'll carry on.


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## Novanas

I did find that other website, but as far as I can see, the two versions are identical.  Today I came across the lovely word "snoepto", which both versions faithfully reproduce:

_Igitur Marcus Iulius Philippus Arabs Thraconites, [*snœpto*] in consortium Philippo filio . . ._

The French translator translates this as "associé", which is clearly correct, so perhaps the Latin is meant to be "ascito", or something like that.  But I've been unable as yet to figure out what it must be.


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