In Catilinam 4 — I can’t even understand the translation

Jiacheng Liu

Jiacheng Liu

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Decrevit quondam senatus, ut L. Opimius consul videret, ne quid res publica detrementi caperet; nox nulla intercessit, interfectus est propter quasdam seditionum suspiciones C. Gracchus, clarissimo patre, avo, maioribus, occisus est cum liberis M. Fulvius consularis.
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I was doing fine understanding the beginning of the phrase: “Once the Senate decided that the Consul L. Opimius should see…”, but then with ne quid res publica everything went south for me. I don’t rememebr video + quid in the sense of “see that” was acceptable until much later Medieval Latin, nisi omino fallor, so what is the quid doing here?

I would assume that res goes with publica because if res isn’t nominative singular then publica would have nothing applicable to modify. So, in a more typical subject-object-verb order, would this phrase be “ne [res publica] [quid detrementi] caperet (the republic did not seize what which is of hazard)”?

Also, although it seems that I understand “nox nulla intercessit,” I am not sure how it fits in this sentence. Is it saying that there was no night intervening between the event that (i.e. it was in the same night that) Gracchus was killed and that Fulvius was killed?
 
Маркус

Маркус

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Yes: quid = aliquid there, so: ...vidēret nē rēs pūblica [ali]quid dētrīmentī caperet... ("...~that the Republic should suffer no injury/~that nothing bad should happen to the Republic...")

As for the the nox part: he's saying that not even one night had elapsed (nox nūlla intercessit) before Gracchus and Fulvius were put to death for mere suspicion of rebellion (propter quāsdam sēditiōnum suspiciōnēs). He's alluding to how fast the Senate used to deal with rebels and potential rebels in the past, even with underwhelming evidence, which is the kind of mentality they could use when dealing with Catiline, as far as Cicero is concerned, since they have more than rumours that Catiline is plotting something.
 
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