Helps to Latin Translation at Sight

by Edmund Luce

As soon as the way was open, we went up to it.

[VII.] Apparebat in sepulcro epigramma, exesis posterioribus partibus versiculorum, dimidiatis fere.

(i.) Vocabulary.—

epigramma = inscription. Cf. epi-gram.

exesis = lit. ‘eaten out’; ex + edo. Cf. ed-ible.

dimidiatis = halved = dis + medius, i.e. divided into halves.

(ii.) Translation.—There was the inscription on the tomb: the latter part of each line was gone, nearly half the verse.

Note.—Notice here the rendering of the Lat. abl. absol., an idiom foreign to our language except for example in the so-called nom. absol. of Milton. Cf. Introduction, [p. 12 (5)].

Cicero adds the following reflection:—‘Ita nobilissima Graeciae civitas, quondam vero etiam doctissima, sui civis unius acutissimi monumentum ignorasset, nisi ab hoimine Arpinate didicisset.’

Thus it was that one of the most renowned of Greek cities, and in ancient times one of the most enlightened, would have remained ignorant of the monument of the greatest genius it ever produced, if it had not learnt it from a man born at Arpinum.[19]