Ch. 22

Vespasian is Injured

Praeter¹ hos Josephus quoque et caetera multitudo², raptis ignibus, machinas³ et refugia, cum operibus quintae⁴ itemque decimae eius⁵ quae terga⁶ dederat legionis, incendunt. Caeteri autem qui mox consecuti sunt, et instrumenta et omne genus materiae obruerunt⁷. Rursus⁸ autem Romani sub vesperam erectum arietem ad eam muri partem, quae pridem quassata⁹ fuerat, appulere¹⁰: ibique propugnatorum quidam Vespasiani plantam¹¹ sagitta percussam leviter vulnerat, quia¹² vis teli spatio defecisset. Maximam¹³ tunc id Romanis perturbationem fecit. his¹⁴ enim qui prope aderant viso sanguine perterritis, per omnem fama cucurrit exercitum: relictaque obsidione, plerique¹⁵ cum stupore atque formidine ad ducem belli concurrebant: et ante omnes Titus¹⁶ aderat metuens¹⁷ patri. Unde¹⁸ contigit, ut et benevolentia circa rectorem¹⁹, et filii trepidatio²⁰ confunderet multitudinem. facile tamen pater²¹ et timore filium, et perturbatione liberavit exercitum. superato²² enim dolore vulneris, et²³ ab omnibus, qui sui causa²⁴ pertimuerunt, conspici studens, bellum in Judaeos saevius incitavit. nam²⁵ velut ultor quisque imperatoris omne periculum adire cupiebat: et clamore alius²⁶ alium adhortantes, murum petebant.

praeter hos: this refers to the three specific Jews that we focused on in the previous chapter. Josephus zooms in on them, and then zooms back out to wider Jewish actions ↩
caetera multitudo: as we’ve seen, there are a class of 3rd declension nouns where your nominative ends in -o, like multitudo, multitudinis (f), so this is your nominative subject. All of these -o nominatives are feminine, thus caetera describes multitudo ↩
machinas et refugia: take these as the direct object of incendunt later on ↩
quintae itemque decimae…legionis: translate these together as one genitive group; “of the fifth and likewise the tenth legions” ↩
eius: I’ve got no idea why this is here, so ignore it, I suppose *shrug* ↩
terga dederat: literally “give their backs”; translate as “retreat” because when you retreat you are turning your back to the enemy ↩
obruerunt: obruo, obruere - “to bury,” this is done to render the siege weapons unusable ↩
rursus: can be translated as “back,” but go with “again” here, since the Romans are taking up the aries, the battering ram, again ↩
quassata fuerat; fuerat is pluperfect from sum, esse, fui, futurus, making this a PPP + a form of sum ↩
appulere: this is a Fake Infinitive, which looks like the infinitive at firs glance, but is slightly different from the actual infinitive of appello which is appellere. Translate Fake Infinitives as the 3rd person plural perfect, or “they have driven” ↩
plantam: planta, -ae is “heel” ↩
quia vis teli spatio defecisset: since the force of the weapon was lacking due to the space. spatio is ablative of cause ↩
Maximam tunc id Romanis perturbationem fecit: id is your subject, referring to the fact that Vespasian was struck by the arrow ↩
his…perterritis: this is one big Ablative Absolute phrase with another Ablative Absolute, viso sanguine, inside of it. ↩
plerique: this is a Substantive Adjective, or an adjective that acts as a noun, so take this as your subject ↩
Titus: Titus is the elder son, and favorite child, of Vespasian. He is present with him during the Jewish War, and takes over command of the Siege of Jerusalem when Vespasian goes back to Rome during the Year of the Four Emperors. He later becomes emperor, but has a brief, yet productive reign ↩
metuens patri: because patri is dative, take this as “fearing for the father”, not as if it were accusative, “fearing the father” ↩
Unde contigit ut….: contigit – it happened; the ut starts off a substantive noun clause, which just means that the phrase that follows is the subject of it happened, namely, what happened ↩
rectorem: rector, rectoris (m) - “leader” ↩
trepidatio filii: trepidatio, trepidationis (f) is another one of those -o nominative 3rd declensions ↩
pater…exercitum: this is a classic Greek construction, as we know that this text is a translation of Josephus’ own Greek text. Use the liberavit twice, with both the filium and exercitum as your two direct objects and timore and pertubatione as two ablatives of separation ↩
superato dolore vulneris: with the pain of the wound having been overcome, meaning that Vespasian has recovered, NOT that he has succumbed to the pain of the wound ↩
et…incitavit: jump down to bellum, taking incitavit and your main verb; since there is no new subject, take pater as your subject ↩
sui causa: because of him, causa is ablative of cause (duh) ↩
nam…cupiebat: Take in this order: nam quisque cupiebat adire omne periculum velut ultor imperatoris. ↩
alius alium: when you have two alius as the subject and alium as the direct object, you can just translate as “each other” ↩