Ch. 89

Title

Postero die Vercingetorix concilio convocato id bellum se suscepisse non suarum necessitatium, 2 sed communis libertatis causa1 demonstrat2, et quoniam3 sit fortunae cedendum, ad4 utramque rem se5 illis offerre, seu6 morte sua Romanis satisfacere seu6 vivum7 tradere velint8. Mittuntur de his rebus ad Caesarem legati9. 3 Iubet10 arma tradi, principes produci. 4 Ipse in munitione pro castris consedit: eo11 duces producuntur; Vercingetorix deditur, arma proiciuntur. 5 Reservatis Aeduis12 atque Arvernis, si13 per eos civitates reciperare posset, ex reliquis captivis toto exercitui capita14 singula praedae15 nomine distribuit.

  1. suarum necessitatium, communis libertatis: both of these sets of genitives are connected to the causa, which is in the ablative, making it an ablative of cause ↩

  2. demonstrat: jump to this as your main verb, after the ablative absolute, of course, and then work back to the rest of the sentence, which is in indirect statement ↩

  3. quoniam sit fortunae cedendum: sit is subjunctive of sum. Take this with the cedendum, as your passive periphrastic (FPP + form of sum). fortunae is dative, following cedendum ↩

  4. ad utramque rem: connect this with the offerre later on ↩

  5. se illis offerre: this continues the indirect statement started by demonstrat ↩

  6. seu….seu: either if……or if…. ↩ ↩2

  7. Vivum: supply a “him” with this ↩

  8. Velint: this is subjunctive of volo. It’s subjunctive because it’s a subordinate clause in indirect statement (not the most important thing to remember, so don’t stress over it) ↩

  9. Legati: here the legati clearly refers to envoys from the Gauls ↩

  10. Iubet: Caesar is the subject of this verb ↩

  11. Eo: there or to this (spot), ablative of location ↩

  12. Aeduis atque Arvernis: both of the Aedui and the Averni (the tribe that Vercingetorix belonged to) are prominent tribes among the Gauls ↩

  13. si per eos civitates reciperare posset: here, Caesar is telling the reader why these tribes in particular are spared ↩

  14. capita singula: literally one head each, here meaning one person each ↩

  15. praedae nomine: in the name of booty/loot. It was common for Romans to take prisoners of war as slaves upon conquering a people ↩

All material is taken, with gratitude, from The Latin Library as well as my own work, available under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license CC BY-SA 4.0