Heavy Construction

321.

a. A Demonstrative or Relative adverb is often equivalent to the corresponding Pronoun with a preposition (see §308. g): -

• eo [ in ea] imponit vasa (Iug. 75), upon them (thither, thereon, on the beasts) he puts the camp-utensils.

  

• eo milites imponere (B. G. i. 42), to put soldiers upon them (the horses).

  

• apud eos quo [ ad quos] se contulit (Verr. iv. 38), among those to whom (whither) he resorted.

  

• qui eum necasset unde [ quo] ipse natus esset (Rosc. Am. 71), one who should have killed his own father (him whence he had his birth).

  

• o condiciones miseras administraudarum provinciarum ubi [ in quibus] severitas periculosa est (Flacc. 87), O! wretched terms of managing the provinces, where strictness is dangerous.

b. The participles dictum and factum, when used as nouns, are regularly modified by adverbs rather than by adjectives; so occasionally other perfect participles: -

• praeclare facta (Nep. Timoth. 1), glorious deeds (things gloriously done).

  

• multa facete dicta (Off. i. 104), many witty sayings.

c. A noun is sometimes used as an adjective, and may then be modified by an adverb: -

• victor exercitus, the victorious army.

  

• admodum puer, quite a boy (young).

  

• magis vir, more of a man (more manly).

  

• populum late regem (Aen. i. 21), a people ruling far and wide.

NOTE: Very rarely adverbs are used with nouns which have no adjective force but which contain a verbal idea: -

• hinc abitis (Plaut. Rud. 503), a going away from here.

  

• quid cogitem de obviam itione (Att. xiii. 50), what I think about going to meet (him). [Perhaps felt as a compound.]

d. A few adverbs appear to be used like adjectives. Such are obviam, palam, sometimes contra, and occasionally others: -

• fit obviam Clodio (Mil. 29), he falls in with (becomes in the way of) Clodius. [Cf. the adjective obvius: as, - si ille obvius el futurus non erat (id. 47), if he was not likely to fall in with him.]

  

• haec commemoro quae sunt palam (Pison. Il), I mention these facts, which are well-known.

  

• alia probabilia, contra alia dicimus (Off. ii. 7), we call some things probable, others the opposite (not probable). [In this use, contra contradicts a previous adjective, and so in a manner repeats it.]

  

• eri semper lenitas (Ter. And. 176), my master's constant (always) gentleness. [An imitation of a Greek construction.]

NOTE: In some cases one can hardly say whether the adverb is treated as an adjective modifying the noun, or the noun modified is treated as an adjective (as in c above).

For propius, pridie, palam, and other adverbs used as prepositions, see §432.