- Source
- Julius Caesar. Aulus Hirtius. C. Iuli Commentarii Rerum in Gallia Gestarum VII A. Hirti Commentarius VII. Holmes, T. Rice (Thomas Rice), editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914.
- Translation
- AI-generated (gemini-3.5-flash) — machine translation; may contain errors
- Languages
- 日本語 · English · 简体中文 · 한국어
- CTS URN
- urn:cts:latinLit:phi0448.phi001.humanitext-lat2:5.23.1-5.23.6
- Generated
- Humanitext Reader · reader.humanitext.ai · 2026-10-29
Caesar receives hostages and decides to transport his army back to the continent in two trips using the repaired ships. Although no ships carrying soldiers are lost, most of the empty returning vessels fail to arrive, forcing Caesar to pack his soldiers tightly onto the remaining ships for a safe return.
Obsidibus acceptis exercitum reducit ad mare, naves invenit refectas.
Having received the hostages, he leads the army back to the sea, and finds the ships repaired.
His deductis,1 quod et captivorum magnum numerum habebat, et nonnullae tempestate deperierant naves, duobus commeatibus exercitum reportare instituit.
When these were launched, because he both had a great number of captives and some ships had been lost in the storm, he determined to bring back the army in two voyages.
Ac sic accidit, uti ex tanto navium numero tot navigationibus neque hoc neque superiore anno ulla omnino navis, quae milites portaret, desideraretur; at ex eis, quae inanes ex continenti ad eum remitterentur et prioris commeatus expositis militibus et quas2 postea Labienus faciendas curaverat numero LX, perpaucae locum caperent,3 reliquae fere omnes reicerentur.
And so it happened that, out of so great a number of ships in so many voyages, neither in this nor in the preceding year did any ship at all, which carried soldiers, go missing; but of those which were sent back empty to him from the continent, both after the soldiers of the first voyage had been landed, and those sixty in number which Labienus had subsequently cared to have built, very few reached their destination, and almost all the rest were driven back.
Quas cum aliquamdiu Caesar frustra exspectasset, ne anni tempore a navigatione excluderetur, quod aequinoctium suberat, necessario angustius milites collocavit ac summa tranquillitate consecuta, secunda inita cum solvisset vigilia,4 prima luce terram attigit omnesque incolumes naves perduxit.
When Caesar had waited for these in vain for some time, lest he should be excluded from navigation by the season of the year, because the equinox was near, he of necessity stowed the soldiers more closely, and a great calm having ensued, when he had set sail at the beginning of the second watch, he reached land at dawn and brought all the ships over safe and sound.
- 5.23.2His deductis
An ablative absolute construction using the perfect participle of deducere, which in a nautical context means 'to launch' or 'to draw down (ships) into the water'.
- 5.23.4at ex eis, quae... et quas...
The main verbs of this clause are 'caperent' and 'reicerentur', which depend on the result clause introduced by 'accidit uti' in §5.23.3. Two relative clauses, 'quae... remitterentur' and 'quas... curaverat' (connected by 'et'), modify the implied antecedent of 'ex eis'.
- 5.23.4locum caperent
A Latin nautical technical idiom meaning 'to reach port (one's destination)' or 'to make land'.
- 5.23.6secunda inita cum solvisset vigilia
'secunda inita vigilia' is an ablative absolute meaning 'when the second watch had begun'. 'solvisset' is a common elliptical nautical expression for 'naves solvisset' (to loose the ships, i.e., to set sail).