Mittuntur ad Caesarem confestim a Cicerone litterae magnis propositis praemiis si pertulissent.
Letters are immediately sent to Caesar by Cicero, with great rewards being offered, if they had carried them through.
I think my translation is correct but I have trouble analyzing the sentence. Is this sequence of tenses or what? I am wondering why pertulissent is pluperfect.
translation problem
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spqr
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Hylander
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Re: translation problem
First, mittuntur is "historical" present, representing a past action in the present tense to make the narrative more vivid. The verb would otherwise be in the perfect tense: missae sunt litterae.
magnis propositis praemiis is ablative absolute. It's equivalent to a statement in the perfect tense: magna praemia proposita sunt, but here there is an implication of someone speaking -- namely, Cicero -- in offering the reward. The implication is that what was said to the messengers was in the future tense, something like magna praemia habebitis. In indirect discourse, that would be something like promisit magna praemia habituros esse . . . (We don't need to be told exactly who was sent to deliver the message, but the sentence implies it was more than one person.)
si pertulissent represents the condition on which the future reward was promised. It's a part of the promise Cicero made. In direct speech, Cicero would have said, magna praemia habebitis si [litteras] pertuleritis, using the future perfect indicative pertuleritis because the reward wouldn't be given until after the messengers had successfully delivered the letter.
But here indirect discourse is implicit in propositis. This is "secondary sequence" because the main verb of the sentence, mittuntur, is historical, even though its tense is present tense in form. So what would have been a future perfect indicative verb in direct discourse is pluperfect subjunctive, pertullissent, according to the normal rules of moods in subordinate clauses and sequence of tenses.
Your translation should read: "Letters were immediately sent to Caesar by Cicero, with great rewards being offered, if they carried them through." You might even add "successfully" to capture the meaning of the prefix per-.
Does that help?
magnis propositis praemiis is ablative absolute. It's equivalent to a statement in the perfect tense: magna praemia proposita sunt, but here there is an implication of someone speaking -- namely, Cicero -- in offering the reward. The implication is that what was said to the messengers was in the future tense, something like magna praemia habebitis. In indirect discourse, that would be something like promisit magna praemia habituros esse . . . (We don't need to be told exactly who was sent to deliver the message, but the sentence implies it was more than one person.)
si pertulissent represents the condition on which the future reward was promised. It's a part of the promise Cicero made. In direct speech, Cicero would have said, magna praemia habebitis si [litteras] pertuleritis, using the future perfect indicative pertuleritis because the reward wouldn't be given until after the messengers had successfully delivered the letter.
But here indirect discourse is implicit in propositis. This is "secondary sequence" because the main verb of the sentence, mittuntur, is historical, even though its tense is present tense in form. So what would have been a future perfect indicative verb in direct discourse is pluperfect subjunctive, pertullissent, according to the normal rules of moods in subordinate clauses and sequence of tenses.
Your translation should read: "Letters were immediately sent to Caesar by Cicero, with great rewards being offered, if they carried them through." You might even add "successfully" to capture the meaning of the prefix per-.
Does that help?
Bill Walderman
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spqr
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Re: translation problem
Thank you Hylander. This indeed helps a lot. I had indeed thought secondary sequence implicit in propositis but at the time I thought I was off on a tangent. I should have gone with my first instinct. I did not however think of mittuntur as historical present. I still have problems with the understanding of terms like historical present, historical infinitive and such. I have not encountered any explanation of these which eased my confusion. But thanks anyway for the cogent response.