# He persuaded his friends to come to his help



## Lamb67

He persuaded his friends to come to his help.
(Suis) amicis persuasit ut venirent ad suum auxilium.

(Suis) amicis persuasit ut eum subvenirent ( or succurrerent).

Only the 2nd Latin sentence is correct here, isn't it ?

Thanks.


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## Starfrown

The truth is that the practice was somewhat variable even among respected Roman writers. In general, _se_ or _suus_ refers to the subject of its own clause. To be safe, I think you might use either _ipsum_ or _eius_ here instead of _suum_, but I would not feel comfortable saying that _suum_ is incorrect in this case, since it is abundantly clear from the context to whom it is referring. Take a look at note 3 in the middle of this page, where the author provides several examples in which _se/suus_ refers to the subject of the main clause, one of which is:

_Cicero Quintum fratrem rogavit ut ad se veniret._

where _se_ obviously refers to Cicero.


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## Lamb67

Thanks, but your page-link proves to be unrelevant because I couldn't find the proper content that you meant.
Anyway my worry is about ' come to his help'. I think my second Latin sentence is good here while the first one is wrong.

Now I can appreicate Starfrown's suggestions --- Here we have got three answers equally right to me i.e. ei/ipsi/sibi

subvenirent.( come to his help).  All three must be dative because the verb-subvenirent.


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## J.F. de TROYES

The reflexives _se_ and _suus_ can refer either to the subject of  their own clause or to the subject of the main clause,  when the infinitive clause or ut-clause expresses what this subject says or thinks, so Caesar writes :

_Ariovistus respondit, si quid ille se velit, illum ad se venire oportere._

In this sentence_ se_ is refering to Ariovistus. So your first sentence is right, not the second where _ei _( subvenio + Dative ) would refer to somebody else . So I think we must say :

_  Amicis persuasit ut sibi subvenirent._

_Se_ is also used after _inter_, _propter_ , with _cum _( _secum_ ), even though it does'nt refer to the subject of the clause :

_ Homo virtutem propter se colere debet_

_Se_ is refering to _virtutem _, not to _homo_ ( It does'nt make sense ) .


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## Starfrown

Lamb67 said:


> Thanks, but your page-link proves to be unrelevant because I couldn't find the proper content that you meant.


The section that reads:

"When it is evident from the context that reference is made to the nominative of the principal clause, and no ambiguity, therefore, is to be apprehended, the reflexives _sui_ and _suus_ are generally used, though grammatically they refer to the nominative of their own clause."

The author then gives several examples illustrating this.


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## Lamb67

Amicis persuasit ut venirent ( or essent) sibi auxilio.( He persuaded his friends to come to his help or he persuaded his friends so as to be a help to him).
Reason: auxilio (used also with venio) is one of the limited number of nouns which are used in the dative singular predicatively with esse( and a few other verbs) to express purpose or result.These predicative datives are generally accompanied by teh dative of the person. i.e.sibi. _Amicis persuasit ut sibi subvenirent is of coz right too._


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## Starfrown

In addition to the dative of purpose with _esse_, _venire_, etc., I have seen examples of _ad auxilium_ in texts.


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