The Ambiguous Ablative in a Curtius Passage
You are translating a 55-word unseen prose passage (adapted from a historian describing a siege) for Section I. One sentence reads: His rebus cognitis, Caesar pontem, quem paucis ante diebus fecerat, rescindi iubet, ne hostes flumen transire possent. You render it: 'Having learned these things, Caesar ordered the bridge, which he had made a few days before, to be cut down, so that the enemy could not cross the river.' Your teacher marks paucis ante diebus as a problem: you had written 'a few days before' without comment. The passage continues with quibus rebus and ea re within the next two sentences, and the total mark scheme awards 3 of 15 marks for 'accuracy of case and construction'. You have 12 minutes remaining to check the whole passage.
1. Explain the case and function of *paucis ante diebus* and justify your rendering. What would a more literal alternative be, and why is your version preferable in English?
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Diebus is ablative plural of dies, governed by the temporal preposition ante used postpositively (ante + accusative normally, but here ante functions adverbially with paucis diebus as an ablative of time 'by a few days'). The phrase is a standard idiom: paucis ante diebus = 'a few days earlier/before'. Paucis agrees with diebus (abl. pl.).
A literal rendering 'before by a few days' is not English. 'A few days before' is correct and idiomatic. The exam-relevant point is that you must be able to state the construction if asked, and that you must not misread ante as a preposition taking accusative here - there is no accusative noun for it to govern. Note also quam is missing: this is not comparative ante quam. Candidates lose marks for translating 'before which few days', which misparses word order.
2. The passage repeats *his rebus*, *quibus rebus* and *ea re*. How should a translator handle this repetition, and what does it tell you about the author's style?
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These are resumptive ablative absolutes / ablatives of cause: his rebus cognitis ('when these things were known'), quibus rebus ('by which things'), ea re ('for that reason'). Latin historians use such connectives to chain clauses paratactically. In English, repeating 'these things' three times is clumsy; vary with 'this news', 'accordingly', 'therefore', while preserving the causal/logical link.
Stylistically, the repetition signals a 'periodic' or annalistic narrative manner - each event triggers the next. Recognising this helps you avoid treating quibus rebus as a relative pronoun referring to a single noun; it refers to the whole preceding clause. A candidate who writes 'which things' mechanically may lose fluency marks even if grammatically defensible.
3. With 12 minutes left, how would you prioritise checking this passage? Give a concrete checklist.
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- Verbs first: confirm every finite verb has a subject and that infinitives (rescindi, transire, possent) are correctly attached (iubet + passive infinitive = 'ordered ... to be cut down'; posse in a ne clause after a verb of ordering/hindering).
- Check all ablatives absolutes are rendered as clauses, not as loose phrases.
- Check relative clauses (quem ... fecerat) have the right antecedent and tense sequence.
- Check ne + subjunctive is purpose ('so that ... not'), not a negative statement.
- Read the English aloud for sense; fix anything that reads as word-for-word. Do not spend time polishing style before grammatical accuracy - the mark scheme weights construction.