Cicero In Catalinam and Gerund (??)

[Jiacheng Liu]

Hello! I haven’t been here for a while and oh am I rusty. I’m reading Cicero’s In Catalinam, and I’m stuck on this phrase

Nihilne te nocturnum praesidium…nil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus … moverunt?

I am not sure how to treat the “habendi.” My rusty instinct tells me that it seems to be a genitive of the gerund, essentially equivalent to saying “munitissimus locus habendi [causa] senatus(acc. pl.)” or “the extremely fortified place for hosting the senates.”

Am I right? My biggest doubt is in which noun case is senatus and its relation with habendi.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Matthaeus]

Your second translation is more like it.

 

[Jiacheng Liu]

Your second translation is more like it.

Hmmm I believe that I only had one translation up there (??). Since we can’t scan a prose, can we tell if senatus is indeed in accusative plural?

 

[Quasus]

Habere senatum means "to have a session of the Senate". Here senatus is gen. sing. and habendi is gen. sing. of the gerundive agreeing with senatus.

 

[Matthaeus]

Ah, sorry. Quasus already explained it well. Very literally, it's something like "an extremely well fortified place for having the senate."

 

[Godmy]

This more what I like: the original Cicero, no nerfed version!

 

[Matthaeus]

Plane equidem tibi assentior!

 

[Matthaeus]

Et ego totam fere orationem memoria olim tenebam...sed multa iam evanuerunt.