Ch. 5

The Jews Fight Back

Itaque postridie impetu in muros facto, Judaei primo quidem locis suis manentes, Romanis1 castra ante muros habentibus resistebant. postea2 vero3 quam Vespasianus4 et sagittarios et funditores, omnemque iaculatorum multitudinem5 adhibitam, missilibus6 in eos7 permisit uti, atque ipse cum peditibus in adversum collem, unde murus expugnabilis erat, niti8 coepit, tunc civitati9 metuens Josephus, et cum eo cuncta10 Judaeorum prosiluit multitudo11 : omnesque in Romanos pariter irruentes, procul a muris eos deterruere12, multa13 manu simul et audacia patrando facinora. Neque minora tamen patiebantur14 quam faciebant. nam15 quantum16 ipsos salutis desperatio, tantum16 pudor incendebat Romanos. et17 hos quidem peritia cum fortitudine, illos autem duce18 iracundia ferocitas armabat. Denique cum tota die pugnatum19 fuisset, praelium nox20 diremit: in quo Romanorum plurimis sauciatis, tredecim interfecti sunt : Judaeorum autem cum sexcenti essent vulnerati, septem et decem ceciderunt.

  1. Romanis …. habentibus resistebant: compound verbs, like re+sistere, take a dative of reference ↩

  2. postea…quam: take this as postquam, meaning afterwards ↩

  3. vero: always take vero, when the second word in your sentence, as but, coming from “in truth, in actuality” ↩

  4. Vespasianus…..permisit uti: jump all the way to permisit for your main verb. Take sagittarios …… multitudinem as your direct objects of this verb ↩

  5. multitudinem adhibitam: take these together, since multitudino is feminine ↩

  6. missilibus in eos permisit uti: utor, uti is a PUFFV verb, meaning that they take an ablative object, which in this case is missilibus ↩

  7. in eos: in + accusative can have a hostile sense in warfare texts, against them (the Jews) ↩

  8. niti coepit: nitor, niti has a range of meanings, go with he began to advance. Deponent infinitive ↩

  9. civitati metuens Josephus: focusing on the case will really clear this up (as always!) ↩

  10. cuncta …. multitudo: take multitudo as your subject, with cunta modifying it, since it’s feminine ↩

  11. multitudo: multitudo is your subject. ↩

  12. deterruere: this is a another fake infinitive, where the -ere replaces the -erunt ending of the 3rd person, plural, perfect tense. They have frightened [them] away ↩

  13. multa manu simul et audacia patrando facinora: start with the patrando, a gerund meaning by doing. Then take manu and audacia both as ablatives of means ↩

  14. patiebantur: they were suffering/enduring, meaning taking damage. They were enduring no less than they were inflicting ↩

  15. nam quantum ipsos ….. incendebat Romanos: this kind of parallel structure, where you need to use the incendebat twice is very common in Greek, the original language of this text. Take it like this - desperatio salutis (incendebat) ipsos (Judaeos) quantum, tantum pudor incendebat Romanos ↩

  16. quantum…..tantum: As much…..as ↩ ↩2

  17. et hos ….. ferocitas armabat: similar parallel structure as above where you use the armabat in the first phrase as well. The hos are the Jews and the illos are the Romans ↩

  18. Duce iracundia: with wrath being their leader, there is no PAP of sum, but this is still an ablative absolute ↩

  19. Pugnatum fuisset: impersonal passive, it had been fought ↩

  20. praelium nox diremit: fighting during the night was generally rare in the ancient world ↩

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