Can Gerundives be predicates of Ablative Absolutes?

Question

I was wondering if Gerundives, the verbal adjectives referred to as "future passive participles" by Latin grammarians, can appear as predicates of Ablative Absolute constructions.

As is well-known, the predicates of Ablative Absolutes can be passive perfect participles (e.g., Cicerone occiso), present participles (e.g., Cicerone loquente), nouns (e.g., Cicerone consule), and adjectives (e.g., Cicerone vivo). Interestingly, as pointed out by Lavency (1985: 196) in his excellent descriptive grammar of Latin (VSVS. Grammaire latine. Description du latin classique en vue de la lecture des auteurs. Paris: Duculot), future active participles are also found as predicates of Ablative Absolutes, as in the following example from Livy:

Carthaginienses prima luce oppugnaturis hostibus castra saxis augent vallum. (Liv. 28, 15)

In contrast, Gerundives, which, as noted above, have sometimes been (wrongly) referred to as "future passive participles", seem to be prevented from appearing as predicates in (true) Ablative Absolutes. But perhaps such a prohibition is not well-grounded and examples similar to the following one are also attested/possible. Any thoughts?

Carthaginienses prima luce oppugnandis castris saxis augent vallum.

---

NB I: true Ablative Absolutes (AAs) involve functioning on sentence level. Accordingly, examples like Insectandis patribus tribunatum gessit (Livy 3, 65,4) 'He spent his tribunate in attacking the patricians' are not to be regarded as true AAs but rather as dominant participle-like constructions that involve lower syntactic embedding (e.g., in this case, Verbal Phrase (VP)-embedding rather than sentential one). As a result, the agent of insectari must be the same as that of the main verb. Importantly, such a restriction does not necessarily apply to (true) AAs. Accordingly, true AAs are those AAs that satisfy the following two conditions: (i) they function as adverbial subordinate clauses AND (ii) they do not necessarily involve an obligatory sharing of participants/arguments with the ones of the main clause. This said, it is worth pointing out that for other people only one condition (or even other conditions) must be satisfied.

NB II: the present post is also related to Joonas's insightful point on what a predicate of an Ablative Absolute can be: see his specific question on the (im)possibilitify of finding locative Prepositional Phrases (PPs) acting as predicates of Ablative Absolutes. As pointed out in my answer to his intriguing question, my intuition is that locative/PP phrases cannot be predicates in Ablative Absolutes either.

Answer 1

Yes, the predicate of an ablative absolute can be a gerundive.

But the matter is complicated by the question what a real ablative absolute is and what separates it from other constructions. You have specified your own, somewhat formal criteria. Others draw a distinction between the various functions of the ablative, the absolute being distinct from the instrumental, and so on.

For example, Hofmann and Szantyr (sorry, I found no English equivalent) contend that the following may be accepted as an ablativus absolutus, but is a “borderline case,” where one should “rather speak of” an ablativus causae or respectus (Cic. Brut. 144):

Antonius coniectura movenda aut sedanda suspicione aut excitanda incredibilem vim habebat

Antonius had an incredible ability to suggest a conjecture, to dispel or arouse a suspicion

You would presumably reject this because it “necessarily involves an obligatory sharing of participants with the main clause” (Antonius having the power, Antonius having his way with the audience's ideas and suspicions).

On the other hand, they also put the following example in the same category (Cic. Att. 4, 1, 6):

quo senatus consulto recitato cum [populus] more hoc insulso et novo plausum meo nomine recitando dedisset, habui contionem.

When this senatus consultum had been read out, as the people had given applause in this tasteless and new manner when my name was read out, I spoke to the assembly.

(As a side note, the real star of this sentence is plausum dare more hoc insulso et novo – imagine Cicero being the sleepy business traveller sitting on an airplane full of tourists.)

This should meet your criteria: It is an adverbial subordinate clause, and it does not share anything with the main clause.

In any event, Hofmann and Szantyr accept these examples only grudgingly as ablatives absolutes, but then go on to aver that ablatives absolutes with gerundives are often and freely used in late Latin, the gerundive taking on the role of a future passive participle. They give the following examples:

Pauca itaque super [benivolo omnium flumine] Nilo, quem Aegyptum Homerus appellat, praestringi conveniet, mox ostendendis aliis, quae sunt in his regionibus admiranda. (Amm. 22, 15, 3)

And so it is hopefully appropriate to touch a little on the matter of the Nile, the most benevolent of rivers, which Homer called Aegyptus, before covering the other things that are remarkable in these lands.

You might cavil this example because (while grammatically the clauses are clearly disjunct) logically the actor is in both cases the narrator who does the praestringere before turning to the ostendere. But even then you should have no complaint with the next example:

at in Galliis bellorum tenore gliscente, diffusis per nostra Germanis, iamque Alpibus ad vastandam Italiam perrumpendis nihil, multa et nefanda perpessis hominibus, praeter lacrimas supererat et terrores. (Amm. 25, 4, 25)

And, with the progression of wars increasing in Gaul, and Germans sweeping our lands, the Alps already about to be crossed in order to lay waste to Italy, the people, wo had suffered so many and so abominable injuries, had nothing left but tears and dread.

They also give as a third example Hilarius, Tractatus Mysteriorum 2, 10, 2 (ipso mundo […] resolvendo).