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SUBJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS IN TACITUS

BY

HERBERT C. NUTTING

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS IN CLASSICAL Philology

Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 143-195

Issued June 12, 1923

SUBJUNCTIVE CONDITIONS IN TACITUS

BY

HERBERT C. NUTTING

I. STANDARD FORMS

It is a well-known fact that, after the Ciceronian period, there was a growing tendency to couple subjunctive protasis with indicative "apodosis," with a corresponding shrinkage in the number of cases in which the subjunctive was used in both clauses of a conditional period.1

Even so, it is somewhat surprising to find that the works of Tacitus contain less than fifty examples of subjunctive conditional sentences which conform to the regular standard types.2 Arranged according to tense, the various forms are thus represented:

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Most of this material can be handled very briefly, following the order here set down.

1. si sit-sit

Dial. 16: Quod spatium temporis, si ad infirmitatem corporum nostrorum referas, fortasse longum videatur; si ad naturam saeculorum ac respectum immensi huius aevi, perquam breve et in proximo est.

1 See especially Blase, Der Konjunctiv des Präsens in Bedingungsatze, Archiv für lat. Lexikographie und Grammatik, IX, 17 ff.

2 This total excludes certain sentences in which the apodosis is a hortatory subjunctive in indirect discourse, or otherwise dependent.

The subject of the condition here is indefinite; so Ann. iii. 54. Two other cases (Dial. 26 and Agr. 46) have an independent subjunctive in apodosis.

The example cited in full is interesting, in view of the shift to the indicative at the end. The mood of videatur is hardly to be explained by the presence of fortasse. There is, too, some manuscript authority for reading videtur, which would be quite in the style of Tacitus, as will appear under a subsequent heading.*

2. si sit fuerit

The exact analysis of the sole example here to be listed is by no means a simple matter:

Ann. xiv. 56: Non tua moderatio, si reddideris pecuniam, nec quies, si reliqueris principem, sed mea avaritia, meae crudelitatis metus in ore omnium versabitur. Quod si maxime continentia tua laudetur, non tamen sapienti viro decorum fuerit, unde amico infamiam paret, inde gloriam sibi recipere.

These words are a part of the speech of Nero, in which he declines to allow Seneca to sever his connection and to retire to private life. In attempting to determine whether fuerit is subjunctive or not, it is well to remember that a Roman would not be forced to a conscious decision; and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that a writer, confronted after a lapse of time with his own words, might find it difficult to say whether he originally intended an ambiguous form to be understood as subjunctive or indicative.

In constructing an argument for a subjunctive interpretation of fuerit in the above passage, it must not be forgotten that the ambiguous forms in -eris in the opening sentence are indicatives, as shown by versabitur. Moreover, the clause si maxime

laudetur is concessive; and, as will appear in another connection, such subjunctive expressions combine readily with an indicative in the main clause.

3 In Ann. vi. 8 the use of the subjunctive is due to another factor. 4 See No. II. 5.

5 See No. II. 4.

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