This is about my translation from this thread. Judging by the feedback I received elsewhere, I might not be using the past tenses in it correctly. In particular:
- Ad viās dīrigendās grōmīs, perticīs, fūnibusque ūsī sunt (Rōmānī) - does this work as a general statement or does it sound like a description of some specific situation, one event in a sequence etc? For classical examples cf. this and search PHI for dixerunt, scripserunt in descriptions of olden linguistic practice.
- rotae quoque mēnsōriae numerōs reddidērunt mīrē quam subtīliter - ditto for this. This does seem to call for the imperfect much more, probably because the sentence is accessory to the former and thus invites being backgrounded.
- Viae pūblicae ūsque ad 7 metrōs seu 23 pedēs lātitūdinis habuērunt - I don't think the imperfect works here because the roads are pretty permanent, many still extant. The imperfect habēbant implies they had this width for a time only and I don't think it can express a repetition of the action of being constructed with that width.
- Itaque legiōnāriī sēnī ōrdine singulō prōgredī potuērunt - I'm being told it's absolutely impossible, but it doesn't seem so to me. To me the imperfect expresses something like "they could pass 7 at a time - if necessary", while the perfect seems to mean "they were able", as a situation and a practice which obtained thanks to the construction of wide enough roads: prīmō nōn poterant, tum vērō potuērunt.
- quī tabulās itinerāriās adhibuērunt ut... - I'd use the imperfect in an abstract description of the merchants' habits, but like with the above what I had in mind is a causal connection with the previous ūtī coepērunt. The backgrounding imperfect turns the verb into a backdrop to the preceding perfect (the only possible choice), reversing the sequence.
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