Here’s the latest bulletin from my adventures in trying to read Julius Caesar’s Gallic wars.
Caesar’s sentence:
… et regno occupato per tres potentissimos ac firmissimos populos totius Galliae sese potiri posse sperant.
Here’s the English translation given in the book:
“… and hope that, when they have seized the sovereignty, they will, by means of the three most powerful and valiant nations, be enabled to obtain possession of the whole of Gaul.”
Here’s my bumbling translation:
”… and having seized the kingdom, through three most powerful and brave peoples, they hoped to be able to be made able to all of Gaul … um … ones.”
Let’s zoom in on the phrase I am having trouble with:
sese potiri posse sperant
Now, this looks to me like “they hope [sperant] … to be able [posse] … to be MADE able [potiri] … ones [sese].”
Is it really “they hope to be able to be made able”? That’s just a ridiculous amount of helping verbs. It reminds me of the man quoted by Dave Barry, who allegedly said to his wife after she couldn’t get a ride, “If I’d a’ known you’d a’ wanted to went, I’d a seed you’d a’ got to get to go.”
But let’s look up potiri. I think it’s the passive infinitive of posse “to be able,” but maybe it’s something else.
[Duck-Duck-Go]
Ah-ha! It’s a different verb.
potior, potiris, potiri I, potitus sum (Dep.)Verb
user edited
Translations
| to obtain, to acquire, to grasp, to attain, to reach (goal), to come by (experiences) |
Source: https://www.latin-is-simple.com/en/vocabulary/verb/5550/
OK, so now we have:
“They hope [sperant] to be able [posse] to acquire it [sese potiri] the whole of Gaul [totius Galliae].”
Huh. Looks as if Franz Ruedele knows what he’s doing after all.
For those wondering, it looks as if posse does not actually have a passive infinitive.
Follow me for more deep Latin mysteries! Meanwhile, I’ll be sitting here, throwing in helping verbs until it just feels right.
Out of Babel Books 
I took Latin in high school but I was doomed from Day One because I couldn’t tell you, in English, what counts as “passive infinitive” or any other of all that grammar gobbledygook. My mom knew all that — because when she was taught, they were smart enough to diagram sentences. The downfall of education in the U.S. began…with me, I think. Or my generation.
All I’d get out of that sentence is pure vocabulary: king occupy people Gaul. Well, at least, it’s sort of on the right track. : -)
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Haha that is not too different from how my translation goes at this point! I see the vocab, and I THINK I’m catching some of the grammar, but much of the time, I get the meaning backwards.
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And just how did all those Romance languages come from Latin?
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Wow! Great question.
Rome conquered all the tribes in Europe. In Western Europe, they were Celtic or Germanic tribes. In the Balkans, they were Slavic I guess. Then those conquered peoples started speaking a sort of pidgin Latin. The one I’m most familiar with is Spanish, so here’s an example:
Latin: ego >>> Spanish: yo Means “I”
Latin: ea >>> Spanish: ella (pronounced ea) Means “she”
Latin: sum >>> Spanish: soy Means “I am”
Latin: sumus >>> Spanish: somos Means “we are”
Latin: non >>> Spanish: no Means “no” or “not”
You get the idea. Latin had 3 grammatical genders and a gazillion noun classes and case endings. Spanish dropped the Neuter Gender and kept Masculine and Feminine, and dropped most of the case endings except for Nominative, Accusative, and Dative which mostly show up in the pronouns.
In the case of Italian, I think it just descended directly from Latin.
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