# Cicero was a consul who would obey the senate



## William Stein

The answer key gives:
Cicero fuit consul qui senatui pareat.

Shouldn't it be: ...qui senatui pareret?


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## ablativ

I think so, too. 

fuit = past tense / perfectum

pareat = conj. present tense

pareret = conj. past tense

according to the consecutio temporum rules, there should be past tense in the subordinate clause (qui senatui *pareret*) as there is past tense in the main clause (C. *fuit* consul); right?


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## William Stein

ablativ said:


> I think so, too.
> 
> fuit = past tense / perfectum
> 
> pareat = conj. present tense
> 
> pareret = conj. past tense
> 
> according to the consecutio temporum rules, there should be past tense in the subordinate clause (qui senatui *pareret*) as there is past tense in the main clause (C. *fuit* consul); right?



That's my line of reasoning, too, but this is a "relative clause of characteristic" (the type of person who...), so I thought it might be different. I think it still  follows the same rules, though, because I found this  example: "Nemo erat qui hoc sciret" in the same section of Wheelock, translated as "There was no one who knew this" (I guess the use of the subjective in the last example is justified by the negative).
Anyway, thanks for the input.


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## relativamente

Maybe parebat ?
This would make more sense than pareat


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## William Stein

relativamente said:


> Maybe parebat ?
> This would make more sense than pareat



I think the subjunctive is okay, the problem is the tense. The explanation is at the beginning of Chapter 38 of Wheelock if you have it: Relative Clauses of Characteristic: e.g., sunt qui (there are people who)/quis est qui (who is there who); nemo est qui (there is no one who) + subjunctive (according to the great and mighty W, before whom all cower)


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## William Stein

relativamente said:


> Maybe parebat ?
> This would make more sense than pareat



From what I understand of Wheelock's explanations in Chapter 38:
Cicero fuit consul qui senatui parebat. = Cicero was a consul who obeyed the senate. (simple statement of fact)

Cicero fuit consul qui senatui pareat. = Cicero was the type of consul who would obey the senate. (relative clause of characteristic)


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## Scholiast

Salvete

NO NO NO!

Wheelock is great on matters of formal grammar, but not hot on idiom.

But here he is right. 

The subjunctive is certainly required, _is fuit qui senatui pareret_ = "He was the sort of man to obey the senate".

But the sequencing of the tenses is subtler. "Cicero was [the kind of man] who would [under any possible circumstances, present or conceivable] obey the senate. In other words, _pareat _is in this context perfectly good Latin.

Unwittingly, Wheelock has here highlighted a neglected trope in Latin syntax and grammar, namely aspect - conveyed in classical Greek and by some slavonic languages by an optative mood, and in English by other subtle refinements.

Σ


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## William Stein

So how would you say in Latin:  Cicero was a consul who obeyed the senate. (simple statement of fact)


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## Scholiast

salve!

[to William #8]

_Cicero consul fuit qui senatui parebat_

that is, with the indicative. The impf. of course suggests that Cic. used to, or habitually, obeyed the senate. You would use the perf._paruit_ if referring to a single and specific occasion.

Σ


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## William Stein

Scholiast said:


> salve!
> 
> [to William #8]
> 
> _Cicero consul fuit qui senatui parebat_
> 
> that is, with the indicative. The impf. of course suggests that Cic. used to, or habitually, obeyed the senate. You would use the perf._paruit_ if referring to a single and specific occasion.
> 
> Σ



So one No! would have sufficed  Your point is that indirect speech with an "internal truth" can be seen from two different perspectives, right:

a) He said the earth turns around the sun. 
or
b) He said the earth turned around the sun.

Both are okay, with (a) equivalent to pareat in Wheelock's sentence (with a lot of heavy-duty mutation, mutatis mutandis)
and (b) equivalent to "pareret"
Verumne est?


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## Scholiast

salvete iterum!

William Stein asks:



> a) He said the earth turns around the sun.
> or
> b) He said the earth turned around the sun.
> 
> Both are okay, with (a) equivalent to pareat in Wheelock's sentence (with a lot of heavy-duty mutation, mutatis mutandis)
> and (b) equivalent to "pareret"
> Verumne est?



I'm not sure that this example is based on the right syntactical premiss. The original sentence is not an instance of _oratio obliqua_ but a relative clause. And in relative clauses, a subjunctive verb will usually be either...

(a) generic (_is est homo qui juste agat_ - "he is the kind of man to act justly")
(b) optative (_is est homo quem essem_ - "he is a man I would like to/whom I would gladly eat"
Or (c) causal (_is est homo qui peccaverit_ - "he is a man because he has sinned".

(c) is relatively rare, but see e.g. Gildersleeve/Lodge § 633.

I hope this helps,

Σ


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