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I am reading the biography of Themistocles by Cornelius Nepos. He recounts the story of how Themistocles used a deceit to bring about the naval engagement that went down in history as the famous Battle of Salamis, when his compatriots, seeing Athens burn, became restless and wanted to leave the ships to defend their cities.

Themistocles sends an envoy to “the king,” which in this context always seems to be the Persian king Xerxes, with orders to tell him (correctly) that the Greek are about to disperse and that he should attack quickly now when he can beat them all in one place.

Nepos then explains the idea behind this ruse:

Hoc eo valebat, ut ingratis ad depugnandum omnes cogerentur.
This aimed at driving everybody (???) to battle.

I cannot make sense of ingratis. It seems obvious to me that it is supposed to mean something like “against their will, unwillingly.” But why the dative or ablative?

Sebastian Koppehel
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1 Answers1

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It is a contraction of ingratiis, which means "against (their) will", from ingratia "thanklessness". Ingratiis looks like an ablative to me. Lewis & Short mention your passage.

Cerberus
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  • How would you translate it in that sentence? It's not obvious how to work "with thanklessness" into it. – Joonas Ilmavirta Jul 17 '20 at 07:15
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    @JoonasIlmavirta♦: The translation is "against their will", not "with thanklessness". It is an idiomatic expression. – Cerberus Jul 17 '20 at 12:51
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    you're right about the ablative, the OLD has a separate entry for ingratiis, which says "f. abl. pl." – Alex B. Jul 17 '20 at 15:08
  • Hah, I did not think of looking up ingratia. Good find. – Sebastian Koppehel Jul 17 '20 at 20:34
  • @Cerberus: Does the ablative give, literally, "with unwillingness"? Oxford gives "ingratiis", "ingratis" as an adverb = "against the wishes of", "unwillingly". The latter fits, "unwillingly"; but. then there would be no case-ending, for the adverb. – tony Jul 18 '20 at 15:53
  • @tony The untold story appears to be that the noun ingratia by itself hardly exists at all, whereas ingrati(i)s is common. (Well, not common enough for me to know it, but OK.) Or what else do we make of the fact that the only example for ingratia L&S can think of is in Tertullian (a Christian writer from 150 AD!), whereas for ingrati(i)s they have a whole slew of comedic and classical attestations? One is reminded of iussu, an ablative of an otherwise non-existant word. – Sebastian Koppehel Jul 18 '20 at 20:25
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    @tony My point being that you cannot necessarily derive the meaning of ingratiis from the meaning of ingratia. Of course every Latin speaker could coin the word ingratia from gratia at any time, but the meaning is not obvious, because gratia means so many things. By the way, there is also a counterpart grati(i)s, which means “out of favor or kindness; hence, pregn., without recompense or reward, for nothing, gratuitously, gratis.” – Sebastian Koppehel Jul 18 '20 at 20:45
  • @Sebastian Koppehel: Thank you. How about the simplest possible solution: "ingratiis" = (adverb) "unwillingly" (Oxford)? Neither dative nor ablative, by definition. It certainly fits: "....ut ingratis ad depugnandum omnes cogerentur" = "....with the result that all were compelled, unwillingly, for (the purpose of) fighting". Interesting that the use of "cogo" = "compel", already implies the unwillingness. – tony Jul 20 '20 at 12:08
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    @tony: That is true. But the ablative thing was about how the adverb ingrati(i)s had come to be. The dictionaries say it is from ingratia, so the ending that made this an adverb was -is. That is not an adverbial ending. But it is an ablative or dative ending. The ablative case is often used to form adverbial phrases of nouns, like gladio hostem interfeci, "I killed him by sword". And so it stands to reason that ingratiis was really an ablative plural of ingratia, but which later acquired a special meaning, whenceforth it was described as a word unto its own (an adverb). – Cerberus Jul 20 '20 at 14:24
  • @Cerberus: I wondered about the non-adverbial endings "-is"/ "-iis"; there is a tendency to take anything labelled "Oxford" as Gospel truth. Seb wondered about the evolution of "ungrateful" to "unwilling"; if a party is ungrateful for a service rendered, he may be unwilling to return the favour. The one is "massaged" into the other. The possible tautology between "ingratis" & "cogo" would require the omission of "ingratis" = "unwillingly" (adverb) or = "with unwillingness" (ablative) . There was a debate about superfluous adverbs in Q: https://latin.stackexchange.com/q/11127/1982. – tony Jul 21 '20 at 08:17
  • @Sebastian Koppehel: Perhaps "Ingratis" means "with ingratitude", here? Alternatively, with "cogo" = "compel", unwillingness is understood therefore the adverb can be omitted. Thirdly, a simpler adverb, looking like an adverb, e.g. "invite" could have been deployed? – tony Jul 22 '20 at 10:59