On all fours..

Hermes Trismegistus

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Brasilia
How to say "on all fours", "to be on all fours" in Latin?


I luv ya guys, Latinists, we're all a family, thank you for sharing your latin-skills to us "tirones".
 

Laurentius

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Lago Duria
But quadrupes is a substantive so I don't think it can always be used to mean that. Perhaps Hermes could tell us in what context this is going to be used.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
But quadrupes is a substantive
It can be a substantive but it's orignially an adjective, and as an adjective it can be used adverbially (so that you can say things like quadrupes eo = "I go on all fours").
 

Laurentius

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Lago Duria
It can be a substantive but it's orignially an adjective, and as an adjective it can be used adverbially (so that you can say things like quadrupes eo = "I go on all fours").
But even as an adjective with an adverbial function, doesn't it sound weird in some contexts where an alternative would be preferred?
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
But even as an adjective with an adverbial function, doesn't it sound weird in some contexts where an alternative would be preferred?
Which alternative do you think might be preferred in some contexts? The only other way to put it that I can think of would be manibus genibusque or something like that. I don't remember actually seeing that anywhere, though, while I've seen quadrupes so I just suggested what I knew was attested. Maybe one or more other wordings are attested somewhere, I don't know, but it's not like the Romans wrote a lot about going on all fours, unfortunately, so we may never know for sure what the most common wording was.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
"To go on all fours" can also be expressed more or less with repere, though maybe you'd need to add something if you want to make it clearly different from "crawling":

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Hermes Trismegistus

Civis

  • Civis

Location:
Brasilia
Something like "He/she was on all fours and The emperor treading on her/him to ride the horse."
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Sounds like what king Shapur allegedly did to emperor Valerian. I'm sure the scene is described in Latin somewhere but I don't remember where.
 

Laurentius

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Lago Duria
It must be this:

Lactantius dixit:
Nam rex Persarum Sapor, is qui eum ceperat, si quando libuerat aut vehiculum ascendere aut equum, inclinare sibi Romanum iubebat ac terga praebere et imposito pede super dorsum eius illud esse verum dicebat exprobrans ei cum risu, non quod in tabulis aut parietibus Romani pingerent.
 
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