Ch. 34 English

According to which resolution they marched without noise, at the hour that had been told them, to the wall; and it was Titus himself that first got upon it, with one of his tribunes, Domitius Sabinus, and had a few of the fifteenth legion along with him. So they cut the throats of the watch, and entered the city very quietly. After these came Cerealis the tribune, and Placidus, and led on those that were tinder them. Now when the citadel was taken, and the enemy were in the very midst of the city, and when it was already day, yet was not the taking of the city known by those that held it; for a great many of them were fast asleep, and a great mist, which then by chance fell upon the city, hindered those that got up from distinctly seeing the case they were in, till the whole Roman army was gotten in, and they were raised up only to find the miseries they were under; and as they were slaying, they perceived the city was taken.

The Romans Storm the City (Ch. 34 continued in Latin)

Romanos1 autem memores quid2 obsidionis tempore pertulissent, neque parcendi3 cuiquam, neque miserendi quenquam tangebat4 cura: sed ex arce plebem ad5 prona compulsam facillime trucidabant, ubi loci6 difficultas pugnacibus quoque negaret copiam7 resistendi. Viarum namque angustiis pressi8, ac per9 declivia dilabentes, fluente desuper bello obterebantur. Id10 multos etiam qui circa Josephum lecti11 erant, ut12 manibus propriis liberarentur incitavit. Nam cum se viderent Romanorum neminem posse occidere, ne Romanorum manibus oppeterent, praevenerunt, et in extrema parte civitatis congregati, semet13 interfecerunt.

  1. Romanos autem…..cura: jump all the way to tangebat cura for your subject and verb, taking Romanos as your direct object ↩

  2. quid obsidionis tempore pertulissent: indirect question after memores. remembering what they had… ↩

  3. parcendi cuiquam, neque miserendi quemquam: connect these to the cura, the cura parcendi cuiquam and then the cura miserendi quemquam. Both parcendi and miserendi are gerunds (FPP used on its own) in the genitive, the concern of doing…. ↩

  4. Tangebat cura: concern did not touch them, cura is the subject ↩

  5. ad prona: downwards, down a slope ↩

  6. loci ifficultas: difficultas is nominative, 3rd declension. The -tas, -tatis pattern is fairly common and good to commit to memory. These nouns are always feminine ↩

  7. copiam resistendi: resistendi is a gerund, ability of resisting ↩

  8. pressi: nominative PPP as your subject, those having been…. ↩

  9. per declivia dilabentes: falling down, slipping down through the slope. The top area of Jotapata is fairly steep, causing issues for the Jews as they flee the invading Romans ↩

  10. Id….. incitavit: id is your subject (it, this, meaning the circumstances going on), and then jump to incitavit as your main verb. ↩

  11. lecti erant: lego, legere can also be “choose, select,” which is what you want here ↩

  12. ut manibus propriis liberarentur: this is a reference to suicide, reflecting the desperation of the Jews at this moment ↩

  13. semet: the -met is just empathetic, no difference in translation ↩

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