LXXX.
Nec Piso, quamquam coepta secus cadebant, (quamquam coepta secus cadebant: ‘though his attempts were turning out badly, …’; secus is adverb, ‘not well’, ‘otherwise than expected’) omisit tutissima e praesentibus, (e praesentibus: ‘for the time being’; e or ex + abl. is found in many idiomatic locutions, mostly to mark conformity or compliance with something or other, like ex occasione, ex ordine, ex animo, ex commodo, ex composito, ex pacto, and many others.) sed castellum Ciliciae munitum admodum, cui nomen Celenderis, occupat; (castellum … munitum admodum, cui nomen Celenderis: ‘a fortress, strongly (admodum) defended, to which the name is Celenderis’: port and fortress in ancient Cilicia, near modern Aydincik, on the southern coast of Turkey, halfway between Mersin to the east and Antalya to the west; cui is dat. of possessor with an implied erat.) nam admixtis desertoribus et tirone nuper intercepto suisque et Plancinae servitiis auxilia Cilicum quae reguli miserane in numerum legi onis composuerat. Caesarisque se legatum testabatur provincia quam is dedisset arceri, (Caesaris se legatum testabatur provincia quam is dedisset arceri: ‘he solemnly declared that he, the emperor’s legate, was excluded from the province he had given him.’ provincia: abl. of separation, here without ex or ab) non a legionibus (earum quippe accitu venire), sed a Sentio (a legionibus … a Sentio: abl. of agent with the passive arceri) privatum odium falsis criminibus tegente. consisterent in acie, (consisterent in acie, …: consisterent is hortative subjunctive in oratio obliqua: ‘let the soldiers but stand in the line of battle, they …’ : the meaning is completed by non pugnaturis militibus, which is part of a separate sentence, as explained in the next but one note below.) non pugnaturis militibus ubi Pisonem ab ipsis parentem quondam appellatum, si iure ageretur, potiorem, si armis, non invalidum (si iure ageretur, potiorem, si armis, non invalidum [esse]: lit. ‘if it were acted by right, he was stronger [than Sentius], if by force, he was not defenceless.’ Conditional sentence in indirect speech governed by the historical testabatur ; the condition is logical (type I), thus the sentence in direct speech would have, in both parts, the indicative, which in indir. speech becomes subjunctive in the protasis and infinitive in the apodosis. It may be of interest to note that this sentence is inside the one below, also in indir. speech.) vidissent (non pugnaturis militibus ubi Pisonem … vidissent: lit. ‘that the soldiers were not going to fight once they would have caught sight of Piso’; non pugnaturis militibus: lit. ‘the soldiers not being about to fight’, abl. abs., made to serve as the apodosis of a conditional sentence in which ubi is replacing si. Compare with respondit se adfuturum ubi praetor diem prodixisset and note in previous chapter: the two sentences are similarly constructed with future infinitive in the apodosis and plup. subjunctive in the protasis.) tum pro munimentis castelli manipulos explicat colle arduo et derupto; nam cetera mari cinguntur. contra veterani ordinibus ac subsidiis instructi: (contra veterani ordinibus ac subsidiis instructi: ‘against him the well-trained soldiers of the legions [were] drawn up in perfect order, supported by the reserves’) hinc militum, inde locorum asperitas, sed non animus, non spes, ne tela quidem nisi agrestia aut subitum in usum properata. ut venere in manus, non ultra dubitatum quam dum Romanae cohortes in aequum eniterentur: (ut venere in manus, non ultra dubitatum quam dum Romanae cohortes in aequum eniterentur: ut is here temporal, followed by indicative: ‘when they came to blows, there was no doubt about the issue except during the time it took the Roman cohorts to reach level ground.’ Lit.: ‘…it was not doubted other than so long as the Roman cohorts struggled onto level ground’; dum is here with the sense of ‘so long as’, normally followed by indicative, but later writers, and especially Tacitus, freely use subjunctive, as they do with donec, perhaps to emphasize anticipation and suspense. Cf. A.G. 556 and Note.) vertunt terga Cilices seque castello claudunt.