Ch. 6

Initial Conflict

Nihiloque1 minus, Romanis2 postridie iterum irruentibus occurrunt multoque3 fortius restiterunt ; ex eo scilicet4 fiduciam nacti5, quod eos pridie praeter6 spem sustinuerant. sed eos quoque pugnaciores experti7 sunt, quod eorum iracundiam pudor incenderat, vinci8 credentium, nisi cito vicissent. Itaque per dies quinque Romanis minime ab aggressione cessantibus, etiam Jotapatenorum9 excursus agebantur, murique fortius oppugnabantur. Et neque Judaei vires hostium formidabant, neque Romanos difficultas10 oppidi capiendi lassabat.

Ch. 7 in English

Now Jotapata is almost all of it built on a precipice, having on all the other sides of it every way valleys immensely deep and steep, insomuch that those who would look down would have their sight fail them before it reaches to the bottom. It is only to be come at on the north side, where the utmost part of the city is built on the mountain, as it ends obliquely at a plain. This mountain Josephus had encompassed with a wall when he fortified the city, that its top might not be capable of being seized upon by the enemies. The city is covered all round with other mountains, and can no way be seen till a man comes just upon it. And this was the strong situation of Jotapata.

  1. nihiloque minus: literally “less by nothing”, or a more natural translation would be “and nevertheless.” Nihilo is an ablative degree of difference, showing to what degree it is minus ↩

  2. Romanis…occurrunt: occurro, -ere takes a dative, which here is Romanis ↩

  3. multoque fortius: the -ius makes this a comparison adverb. multo is another ablative degree of difference, much more strongly ↩

  4. sciliet: adverb meaning obviously ↩

  5. nacti: from nanciscor, -ari, deponent PPP, meaning having obtained, describes the subject which is the Jews ↩

  6. praeter spem: praeter usually means except, except for here, where it means beyond ↩

  7. experti sunt: the subject is now the Romans without any warning, surprise! ↩

  8. vinci credentium: this is tricky, credentium describes the eorum, which refers to the Romans. It also starts off indirect statement with vinci as your passive infinitive ↩

  9. Jotapatenorum: note that this is the people of Jotapata ↩

  10. difficultas oppidi capiendi: oppidi capiendi is a gerundive (FPP + a noun), meaning the difficultly of capturing the city. Difficultas, -tatis (f) is 3rd declension nominative ↩

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