Infinitive phrases in Cicero

Quercus

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"[...] quoniam, ut praeclare scriptum est a Platone, non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici, atque, ut placet Stoicis, [1] quae in terris gignantur, ad usum hominum omnia creari, [2] homines autem hominum causa esse generatos, ut ipsi inter se aliis alii prodesse possent, in hoc naturam debemus ducem sequi." (Cicero, De officiis, 1.22)

I gather that those two infinitive phrases are direct objects of the implicit verb "vindicant", whose subject would be, also implicitly, though in a quite loose manner, "patria atque amici" (that is, from atque up to generatos: "and [our country and friends also vindicate], as the Stoics insist, [1] that vegetables should be cultivated for the common good and, [2] on the other hand, that people should be generated for the sake of people"), or am I missing the mark?

Thanks.
 
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Pacifica

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The part quae in terris gignantur, ad usum hominum omnia creari, homines autem hominum causa esse generatos, ut ipsi inter se aliis alii prodesse possent has no relation to patria and amici. Rather, that whole part is what placet Stoicis.

The sentence is weirdly constructed. You normally wouldn't expect quae in terris etc. to be in the accusative-and-infinitive, since ut placet Stoicis is parenthetical. You'd expect quae in terris etc. to be presented as a direct statement, just as non nobis solum etc. after ut praeclare scriptum est a Platone. But some kind of attraction occurred because Cicero was still thinking of these as someone else's words.
 

Quercus

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Thank you, Pacifica.

Maybe the period makes perfect syntactic sense, even though stylistically maybe a bit fluttered (who am I to judge Cicero, though?), if we take the double adverbial causal clause introduced by "quoniam" (up to "amici") as coordinated (through "atque") with the adverbial final clause beginning with "ut ipsi" (up to "possent"), then taking the whole in-between passage from "ut placet Stoicis" to "generatos" as an adverbial manner clause modifying the final one itself, being antecipated to it. The structure of the period would be as follows, then (the boldfaced passage representing the two subordinate sections coordinated with one another through atque):

(CAUSAL QUONIAM [...] amici [since we have not been born for ourselves, and our country and friends vindicate such and such]

atque

FINAL UT ipsi [...] possent [in order for people to benefit one another]

(
modifyied by the manner UT placet [...] generatos [such as that thing — the two infinitive phrases — seems right to the Stoics]))

MAIN CLAUSE in hoc naturam debemus ducem sequi


Does that make sense, or am I pushing it?
 
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Pacifica

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It rather goes like this:

Dependent on quoniam are two parts joined by atque:

1) ut praeclare scriptum est a Platone, non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici

2) ut placet Stoicis, quae in terris gignantur, ad usum hominum omnia creari, homines autem hominum causa esse generatos, ut ipsi inter se aliis alii prodesse possent

Each of these two parts is made up of an ut clause of manner (ut praeclare scriptum est a Platone in the first, ut placet Stoicis in the second) and of a "main" causal statement (non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici in the first and quae in terris gignantur, ad usum hominum omnia creari, homines autem hominum causa esse generatos, ut ipsi inter se aliis alii prodesse possent in the second). You'd expect the two "main" statements to be constructed the same way—both like the first—but, as I explained in my first post, they aren't (because Cicero wanted to put the second as indirect speech). However, they still have parallel functions and the whole can be translated as if it were quoniam, ut praeclare scriptum est a Platone, non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici, atque, ut placet Stoicis, quae in terris gignuntur, ad usum hominum omnia creantur, homines autem hominum causa sunt generati, ut ipsi inter se aliis alii prodesse possent.

The last ut clause (ut ipsi inter se aliis alii prodesse possent) is a clause of purpose depending on esse generatos.

In hoc naturam debemus ducem sequi is, as you say, the main clause—or rather the beginning of the main clause, for the main clause goes on with communes utilitates etc. through hominum inter homines societatem.
 

Quercus

New Member

Well, I'll have then to come to terms with that unsettling weirdness of coordinating a finite clause and an infinitive one. It disturbs so much my reading of the period, and my last shot was an attempt to solve it, but I guess I'll have to live with it and get over it.
 
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Pacifica

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I agree it is weird. You have to assume either an attraction into indirect speech because Cicero still thought of those words as someone else's (such things aren't unheard of), or else a corruption of the text. I googled to see if any variants were around, and I found one version where the ut wasn't there, and another that had ita instead of it. Those may be attempts at emendation by editors who were bothered by the irregularity. The vast majority of hits, however, have ut placet Stoicis.
 

Pacifica

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because Cicero still thought of those words as someone else's
You see, you'd want non nobis solum etc. and quae in terris etc. to have the same construction, but...

Ut praeclare scriptum est implies that Cicero totally agrees, so he has no problem stating the same thing on his own part, as a direct statement—the normal way. Ut placet, on the other hand, sounds much more like "this is just their opinion", which may have caused the statement that follows to be turned into indirect speech even if Cicero tended to agree.
 

Pacifica

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Now that we've dealth with the main issue, note a couple of other problems in your attempted translation:
that vegetables should be cultivated for the common good and, [2] on the other hand, that people should be generated for the sake of people
- There is no "should."

- The first part isn't about growing vegetables, it's about everything that's born on earth in general.

+ some non-ideal vocabulary choices.

The idea is "the things that are born on earth are all created for the use of humans, and humans were generated for the sake of humans."
 

Quercus

New Member

Oh yes, I forgot to disclaim I wasn't even trying to be precise in designation (that was an on-the-fly translation for framing the syntactic problem), but thanks anyway.

I found your observation of the contrast between "ut praeclare scriptum est" and "ut placet" as a hint for explaning the thought process behind the syntactic abnormality a very acute one.
 
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