'residem' in Livy

[socratidion]

Livy is telling the story of the 'First Secession of the Plebs', where the (Plebeian) rank and file of the army, resenting that the Patricians refused to discharge them from service, went on strike, and sat it out on a nearby mountain. So now, everyone is panicking...

Pauor ingens in urbe, metuque mutuo suspensa erant omnia. Timere relicta ab suis plebis uiolentiam patrum; timere patres residem in urbe plebem, incerti manere eam an abire mallent: quamdiu autem tranquillam quae secesserit multitudinem fore? (Livy 2.32)

To save time, I'll quote the Loeb
"There was great panic in the City, and mutual apprehension caused by the suspension of all activities. The Plebeians, having been abandoned by their friends, feared violence at the hands of the senators. The senators feared the Plebeians who were left behind in Rome, being uncertain whether they had rather they stayed or went. Besides, how long would the seceding multitude continue peaceable?


The normal meaning of 'residem' (from 'reses') is 'inactive/lazy', and I haven't yet found any other instance where it means 'left behind'. So is the Loeb translator right (and the Penguin too)? It seems a bit inelegant to have the idea of the 'residual plebs' twice in consecutive sentences (relicta ab suis plebis... residem in urbe plebem') even to point up a contrast. And there's a good case to be made for the usual meaning here: the soldiers are inactive on the mountain, and maybe the plebs in the city are too? That seems to be supported by 'tranquillam... multitudinem'.

Lewis and Short too cite this passage in the sense 'remaining'. Is this an error?

 

[Aurifex]

Several of the old variorum editions, including Drakenborch's, have the following note:

"Credibile est ex notis errorem ortum esse, ac librarios residē, (id est residem), et resid'e, (id est residere) confudisse: residem autem Doujatius exponebat, otiosam. Eo sensu hanc vocem saepe obcurrere verum est, etiam apud Liv. xxv. 6. 'Clamorem pugnantium crepitumque armorum exaudimus resides ipsi ac segnes.' Dubito tamen, an ita hic accipi possit, et non potius per 'plebem residem' intelligenda sit plebs quae in Urbe permansit, quae in ea adhuc residet; quo sensu certe 'residuos' ab eadem origine deductum saepissime obcurrit."

Under Forcellini's entry for reses the words timere patres residem in urbe plebem are cited from this passage and accompanied by a note:
"hoc est quae, cum milites per secessionem abiissent, eos non sequebatur."

 

[socratidion]

Thanks: helpful and to the point as usual, Aurifex. It doesn't exactly solve my problem -- I assumed it likely that the vast weight of scholarly opinion would be with 'remaining' rather than 'inactive', and that is what you have shown; except that now I have Doujatius on my side. But it is, apparently, just opinion, and open to question.
Trying to boil down the issues... Imagine Livy had written "timere patres segnem in urbe plebem":
1) is there any objection to 'in urbe' rather than 'quae in urbe erat'. I'm not inclined to be very worried about it, but maybe it's a problem?
2) Is 'in urbe' sufficient to make the necessary point that the patricians were scared of the plebs in the city as opposed to the soldiers on the mountain (who were also Plebeian, and who were also rather alarming, but not the object of this particular fear). Do we need some word like 'relicta' to make the contrast work? Do we deduced that Livy wrote 'residem' because he didn't want to repeat 'relicta' from the previous clause? (or contrarily that Drakenborch was unduly influenced by 'relicta'?)
3) Would 'remaining' be otiose? -- sorry, couldn't resist the pun -- I mean, is a the idea of 'remaining' surplus to requirements, easily intelligible from the context, and in fact inelegant precisely because we have it in our minds from the previous clause? Wouldn't Livy want to add something new here? We actually haven't heard much about the urban plebs up till this point -- it's all been about the soldiers: it might be a good moment to mention that the urban plebs have not risen up in sympathetic revolt, or have similarly engaged in peaceful protest.
4) Could 'residem' actually be some kind of wordplay, ie Livy precisely chose a word for 'inactive' which had a suggestion of 'residuus' in it, as if to imply that the 'rest' of the Plebs were almost by definition likely to be inactive? (Did you see what I did there? Boom boom. Actually my pun is pretty much the same as Livy's...)

Anyway, sorry for the angels-on-a-pinhead thing, but it's become kind of important to at least have a strong conviction one way or the other, so any opinions/arguments would be most helpful.

 

[malleolus]

As far as I know the quote you gave is the only example where Livy used reses,resedis meaning having stayed (back)
Livy uses resedem meaning lazy in eum residem tempus terere (AUC , book 6).

 

[Aurifex]

I don't think the preposition phrase in urbe qualifying plebem is a problem, especially not if we are to take residem to mean "left behind", in which case the word is parallel in function as well as meaning to relicta in the previous clause. There are in any case other examples in Livy of preposition phrases qualifying nouns, such as I, 9, 11 ex plebe homines; XXI, 15, 6 pugna ad Trebiam.

Like you, I can only make an educated guess why Livy used the word residem and what he wanted his readers to understand by it. If I have interpreted your views correctly I think I am in the same camp as you. My feeling is that it shouldn't be translated merely as "left behind", partly because it would then seem not much more than an elegant variation on relicta. A stronger reason is that "left behind" misses the extra dimension given to the passage if we take residem to mean, or at least connote, "inactive, slothful". Firstly there is the etymological wordplay, as you point out. Secondly there may be a deliberate if faint note of contempt in it, reflecting as it does the thoughts of a patrician body whose fear of the rabble is not only mingled with a certain disdain for their ineffectual indolence but heightened by what this indolence may portend.