Who Had Conquered Whom? Reflexives and Reported Speech in a Military Dispatch
A candidate is translating a 27-word historical sentence for a comprehension task: 'Dux militibus dixit se hostes superavisse et, cum ad flumen venisset, pontem rescidisse.' The candidate renders 'se' as 'they' because the soldiers are the nearest plural noun, and translates the cum clause as 'when he had come'. The teacher marks the first choice wrong but the second acceptable, then asks for a rewrite. The sentence is part of a narrative about a general addressing his troops after a battle. The candidate must decide the referent of 'se', the force of 'cum', and whether the infinitive 'rescidisse' depends on 'dixit' or on 'superavisse'. A glossary gives only 'rescidere = cut down, destroy'.
1. Explain the referent of se and translate the indirect statement. Why is 'they' wrong?
Read the worked answer
In indirect statement after dixit, se is reflexive and refers to the subject of the main verb, dux. So: 'The general told the soldiers that he had conquered the enemy...' 'They' would require eos, not se, and would make the soldiers the subject of superavisse. The nearest-noun rule is not a Latin rule; reflexivity is. The point matters because the sentence is about the general's claim about his own achievement. If the writer had meant the soldiers, eos would have been both unambiguous and non-reflexive. The candidate's 'they' misassigns agency and turns the general's report into a report about the troops.
2. Discuss the force of cum and the tense of venisset. Is 'when' acceptable?
Read the worked answer
'When he had come to the river' is acceptable. Cum + pluperfect subjunctive in secondary sequence commonly means 'when/after'. It could be causal ('since he had come'), but nothing in the sentence signals a reason; no tamen marks concession, and the narrative sequence favours time. The subjunctive is expected because the clause sits inside indirect statement. The pluperfect venisset marks the coming as prior to the destruction of the bridge. If the writer wanted a clearly causal clause, a connective or a causal particle would help; without it, 'when' is the safer judgement.
3. Does rescidisse depend on dixit or on superavisse? Explain the difference.
Read the worked answer
It depends on dixit, coordinated with superavisse: 'he said that he had conquered... and that, when he had come..., he had destroyed...' Both infinitives complete the same verb of speaking. If rescidisse depended on superavisse, the sense would be 'he conquered the enemy by destroying the bridge' or 'he conquered... to destroy...', which is not what the syntax says and would make the bridge episode a means rather than a separate reported act. The comma and et support coordination. The cum clause is subordinate inside the indirect statement, so venisset is subjunctive, but the main reported acts are the two perfect infinitives.