# coniunctivus



## Magda_m

Can anybody help me to translate those sentences into English?

*Ne iste fecerit hoc scelus, in numero amicorum meorum numquam habebitur.

Quod felix faustum fortunatumque sit populo Romano Quiritium!*

I would be really thankful to you.....

magda


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## judkinsc

Looks like homework to me. Fake, composed Latin.

The first sentence is...not very good in my opinion. The subjunctive perfect (or future perfect indicative, which is what I am guessing the author intends for this phrase) can't be used like that with "ne", which requires a subjunctive verb to follow... It should be in the present subjunctive. "Faciat" would make better sense here.

Since I don't like them... I'll help translate them.

They literally say, ignoring the syntactical error with "_ne_":
"In order that the wicked man will not have performed that evil crime, he will never be held in the number of my friends"

"What blessed favorable and fortunate a thing might be [among] the Quirites in the Roman people!"  [Or, with a hortatory subjunctive... "Let such a blessed, favorable, and fortunate thing exist among the Quirites in the Roman people!" if I changed the meaning of "quod" slightly...to "_talis res"_. Of course, "_res_" means "affair; matter" not "thing", but anyway...

These are pretty ugly.

For the first one, I would write instead: "_ne iste mihi faciat aliquid scelus, in numero amicorum meorum numquam habebitur_". The order of protasis and apodosis for a conditional statement is reversed here. It would read, more usually, as "_In numero amicorum meorum numquam habebitur, ne iste mihi faciat aliquid scelus_."

Of course, I don't much like this one either... "among the number of my friends" is a ridiculous phrase, and I don't like the structure of the sentence or any of the word choices in it.

I have no idea what the second one is really trying to say, so I won't try to fix it.


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## Rodders86

judkinsc said:


> Looks like homework to me. Fake, composed Latin.


 
I've googled the second one (with the addition of bonum between _quod_ and _faustum_) and it is real Latin - from the 'Comentarii Fratrum Arvalium', which appears to be the records of one of the colleges of priests in Rome.

The other I have no idea about.

But I'll agree, as far as Latin goes, it's not the best!

Rodders


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## J.F. de TROYES

Sorry Judjinsc, but I think the first sentence is written in good Latin. The subjunctive present or perfect may be used to show supposition in clauses like : "Vendat / Vendiderit aedes pater meus " which means "Let's suppose that..., let's assume that..." and "ne" is used for a negative supposition : "Ne sit summum malum dolor, malum certe est". So here is my try :

_Ne__* iste *__fecerit_ (perf subj.) _*hoc scelus, in numero amicorum meorum numquam habebitur.(future)*_

Let's suppose that this man commited such a murder, I'll never count him as one of my friends.


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## judkinsc

If the "ne" were not there, I would take the sentence as, with the perfect subjunctive, "[since] that wicked man might have done that crime, he will never be held in the number of my friends", but I find the "ne" confusing.

"Ne" as a negative supposition infers that the wicked man "did not" commit the crime and that the phrase is only supposition, and it weakens the conditional phrase to meaninglessness. "Lest that wicked man might have committed the crime (but we know he didn't), he will never be numbered among my friends." That just doesn't follow unless the author is paranoid and ignores reality.

The fear clause with "ne", which is usually translated into English as "lest", doesn't make sense like this. A fear clause, with "ne", does not make sense with the perfect subjunctive in the protasis followed by a future indicative in the apodosis. You cannot, logically anyway, fear what you know does not exist.

Quoniam, "since" might make sense in place of "ne" like that. That would indicate that the speaker believes the wicked man did commit the crime, but he can't prove it. It would take a perfect subjunctive in that case. Every translation of this phrase that makes sense relies upon the sense of "since" or "because" for "ne" instead of "lest" or "so that...not".

The past tenses of the subjunctive do indicate doubt (contrary-to-fact conditions), but it just doesn't make sense in this phrase. The condition deconstructs itself--it becomes meaningless with a perfect subjunctive and a "ne" there.


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## J.F. de TROYES

judkinsc said:


> "Ne" as a negative supposition infers that the wicked man "did not" commit the crime and that the phrase is only supposition, and it weakens the conditional phrase to meaninglessness. "Lest that wicked man might have committed the crime (but we know he didn't), he will never be numbered among my friends." That just doesn't follow unless the author is paranoid and ignores reality.


 
How stupid of me ! Excuse me for my blunder, I purely and simply did'nt translate "ne" ! 
As for the meaning of "ne" I keep on thinking it does'nt introduce a fear clause. As you also said, how to admitt that such a clause comes before the main clause ? Yes, this sentence sounds weird and nearly impossible, but I don't see how to translate it another way than : "Let's suppose he did'nt commit this crime, I'll never count him as one of my friends". The context would be really needed.
I am a bit surprised by your comment about "in numero..." : is'nt "in hostium/deorum...habere, ducere" widespread ?


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## judkinsc

J.F. de TROYES said:


> I purely and simply didn't translate "ne"
> ...
> I am a bit surprised by your comment about "in numero..." : is'nt "in hostium/deorum...habere, ducere" widespread ?



Logic leads one to instantly gap "ne" since it doesn't make any sense here. An automatic translation into a proper grammatical structure.

"in numero amicorum" (etc.) is common, but not with "meorum" as much--genitives are usually inferred to apply to the subject of the sentence (in this case, I take the genitive to refer to the speaker of the sentence) and are not often doubled, as they are here with "amicorum meorum"--which makes "amicorum meorum" seem redundant to me (I read it as a translation into Latin from the English, "to number someone among my friends"). This sentence really looks like something out of a Latin textbook, something composed for a student or composed by a student, which has an error in it for some reason...

I think you're taking the Latin as if it were authoritative, from a direct Latin source. My feeling was that it was fallible, so I've treated it that way. 

I think the translations of the sentence that we've given are as close to the meaning of the sentence as we can get. It's just that the sentence is nonsense.

Browsing the Perseus database (which contains all the readily accessible Classical texts) for the exact phrase "in numero amicorum meorum" gives me no results. The closest phrase is M. Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares (ed. L. C. Purser) book 8, letter 9, section 4
    R., amici *mei* filium, bonum et strenuum adulescentem, qui ad suum negotium istoc venit, tibi commendo et te rogo ut eum *in* tuorum *numero* habeas. (5.71)

In these phrases, the possessive pronoun is either necessary for clarity or it infers a group of people with an implied noun: _ut eum in tuorum numero habeas_ is "[I ask you how] you hold him in the number of your own" (friends/people/allies). i.e. "How can you call him a friend?"

A similar structure here:
Cornelius Nepos, Vitae life dat., chapter 9, section 2
qui *in* amicorum erant *numero

*M. Tullius Cicero, Divinatio in Q. Caecilium, In C. Verrem: Orationes (ed. Albert Clark) Ver., book 5, chapter 25, section 64
eos *in* hostium *numero* ducit;


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## J.F. de TROYES

Thanks for these accurate references.


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## Cagey

> Ne iste fecerit hoc scelus, in numero amicorum meorum numquam habebitur.



You don't think the first part might be a negative command?  _Ne_ with perfect subjunctive is a possible negative imperative, more often in the second person, but also (rarely in classical Latin) in the third person.  (Ref: _Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar_ #263, 3)

With a slight change in punctuation, this would give us:

"_Let that man not commit this crime; he will never be in the number of my friends._"


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## Cagey

Part II:



> Quod felix faustum fortunatumque sit populo Romano Quiritium!



Following the suggestion of Rodders86, I found a page on Posture and Gesture in Roman Prayer on the _Nova Roma_ website. 

The following concerns a sacrifice by the Fratres Arvales before the temple of Concordia.  It is extracted from the _Comentarii Fratrum Arvalium_ [CIL VI, 32340.0-20]:

"ille mag. manibus lautis capite velato sub divo contra orientem sacrificium indixit deae Diae sic *Quod bonum faustum felix fortunatumque sit populo Romano Quiritibus*, fratribusque arvalibus, Tiberio Caesar Augusto, Iuliae Augustae et liberis nepotibus totique domui eorum, sacrificium deae Diae hoc anno erit a.d. VI Kalendas Iunias"

_"The magister [of the Fratres Arvales], with washed hands, head covered, below the open sky and turned to East proclaimed the sacrifice to Dea Dia in the following way: '*In order that it may be auspicious, prosperous and happy to the Roman people of the Quirites*, to the Fratres Arvales, to Tiberius Caesar Augustus, to Iulia Augusta and to all grandchildren of their household, the sacrifice to Dea Dia this year will be on the 6th day before the Kalends of June.'" _

It's not so different from the suggested translations, but the context helps make sense of it.  The Latin, I take it, is contemporary with Tiberius.


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## judkinsc

Cagey said:


> With a slight change in punctuation, this would give us:
> 
> "_Let that man not commit this crime; he will never be in the number of my friends._"



Subjunctives with an imperative flavor would be hortatory (iussive) subjunctives. "O' that he might not have committed that crime! He will (now) never be held among the number of my friends!"

It does make sense that way, but context is necessary.


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## shannenms

judkinsc said:


> Looks like homework to me. Fake, composed Latin.
> 
> The first sentence is...not very good in my opinion. The subjunctive perfect (or future perfect indicative, which is what I am guessing the author intends for this phrase) can't be used like that with "ne", which requires a subjunctive verb to follow... It should be in the present subjunctive. "Faciat" would make better sense here.
> 
> I have to disagree with you. This kind of structure has been used at times in conditinal sentences by Cicero:
> vehementer mihi gratum feceris, si hunc adulescentem humanitate tua comprehenderis(Fam. xiii 15).


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