# eam ceteris remotis tenentem ...



## Whodunit

Salvete! 

Denuo mihi iussu scholae haec enuntiatio transferenda est:

_Simul me ad aram adduxit, apud quam sacrificare instituerat, eamque ceteris remotis tenentem iurare iussit numquam me in amicitia cum Romanis fore._

Ego autem stultus discipulus ignoro, quod pars "eamque ceteris remotis tenentem" significet. Id transferre conabor, sed id falsum esse certus sum:

At the same time, he led me to a monument, at which he had started to sacrifice, and he ordered me to swear that I will hold it to the other remote (Romans?) and that I will never be in friendship with the Romans.

Gratias vobis ago pro omnem auxiliam.


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## modus.irrealis

I'll have to reply in English, but I'd (over)punctuate the sentence like,

_...eamque, ceteris remotis, tenentem, iurare iussit ...

_and understand it as "... and while I held it [the altar], and while the others stood back, he ordered me to swear ..."

Basically I see _ceteris remotis _as an absolute ablative referring to other people that were there.


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## clara mente

You stole my thunder, modus, as far as the ablative absolute, I believe that you are on the right track, however, my interpretation  of "ceteris remotis" had led me to:"He ordered me to swear, while holding the altar, all the rest of the objects having been removed, that I would never be a "friend of the Romans".
    Obiter dictum, Whodunit, You have sure come up with a challenging one here and, just for clarity, it's gratias...pro omni auxilio ("pro takes abl.)


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## judkinsc

_Simul me ad aram adduxit, apud quam sacrificare instituerat, eamque ceteris remotis tenentem iurare iussit numquam me in amicitia cum Romanis fore._At once he led me to the altar, at which place he had arranged to sacrifice, 
and he ordered that one [fem. sing.] [holding to the other, lesser] [affairs] to swear that I had never been in friendship with the Romans. 

The "eam" refers to something, and I don't know what it is in this context. It's either a person helping him at the altar, or someone from a distant region. It's a female singular though, and the "is, ea, id" pronouns can work as weak demonstratives such as "that man," "that one."

"Fore" is either a future infinitive or an imperfect subjunctive infinitive of "sum, esse." I've taken it as the imperfect subjunctive following the perfect "iussit."


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## clara mente

That was exactly part of my point. "Eam" can indeed be taken to mean "Her" or conversely, a direct reference to "aram". This is where the ambiguity arises, and, on a related point, what about "ceteris remotis"?. Is the reference to the others (ala  "people") or to other objects...food for thought.


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## judkinsc

"Would never be" sounds better to me than the imperfect subjunctive infinitive, now that I look at it again.

"ceteris remotis" could be an ablative absolute meaning "with the other things have been moved back [away from the altar]..."


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## modus.irrealis

clara mente said:


> =I believe that you are on the right track, however, my interpretation of "ceteris remotis" had led me to



On second though, I think the meaning I gave _removeo_ (stood away) isn't possible, so I agree you with you it's that the "rest" were removed, but I don't know how you'd tell if it's referring to people (I was thinking _ceteri_ = others, and letting English decide) or objects.


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## Whodunit

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with me. The sentence puzzled me a bit, because I wasn't sure whether "ceteris remotis" referred to "Romanis" (in the text I have, hyperbaton is not very rare) or if it was an absolute construction.



clara mente said:


> Obiter dictum, Whodunit, You have sure come up with a challenging one here


 
You didn't contribute in the other thread with the quite challenging sentence over 10 lines or more. Anyway, I think the sentence above is quite challenging, which I can infer from your posts.



> and, just for clarity, it's gratias...pro omni auxilio ("pro takes abl.)


 
Thanks. That was an influence of German, which often happens without checking the preposition in a dictionary. 

Okay, I think I understand the Latin sentence now and I will take "the rest of the other objects" for my translation.

As for the "eam" problem: Here are the previous sentences:

_Quae divina res dum conficiebatur, quaesivit a me, vellemne secum in castra proficisci. Id cum libenter accepissem atque ab eo petere coepissem, ne dubitaret ducere, tum ille: "Faciam", inquit, "si mihi fidem, quam postulo, dederis."_

PS: My auxiliary book to the text book says the following about "instituere": *syn. with incipere.* That's why I translated it as "begin." What do you think?


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## Whodunit

This is how we agreed in our Latin class to translate it:

_Simultaneously, he led me to the altar, at which he had begun to sacrifice, and, after the others had been sent away, ordered me to swear, while holding the altar, to never be a friend of the Romans._


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## clara mente

Whodunit said:


> PS: My auxiliary book to the text book says the following about "instituere": *syn. with incipere.* That's why I translated it as "begin." What do you think?


As is many Latin verbs, there are sublte nuances between these two verbs. "incipere" means to simply begin or start , e.g "He started to speak when I entered the room." Insituere, on the other hand, has more of initiating or setting up aspect, as in. "The Mayor began the opening ceremonies with a ribbon cutting." or "The environmental movement was started in the '70's."


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