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In the following text, the dative relative pronoun (or whatever it could be) does not start the clause:

Hic templum Iunoni ingens Sidonia Dido
condebat, donis opulentum et numine divae
aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina nexaeque
aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aenis.

This passage tells us about the foundation of a Temple dedicated to Juno in Carthage, describing the richness of the place (donis opulentum). (Aeneid, book I, lines 446-449)

Firstly, the pronoun does not show any antecedent (elliptical or not). Furthermore, it does not begin its clause.

Is Cui actually a relative here? If it isn't, what could it be?

I considered that cui can have only singular nouns as antecedents. But all the nouns reasonably close to cui are plural: I tried to take numine and divae as the antecedent, but I couldn't figure out what the clause would mean.

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    Why do you think there's no antecedent? What do you think this passage means?
    – Cairnarvon
    Commented Aug 13 at 19:00
  • @ Cairnarvon Answering the last question, this passage tells us about the foundation of a Temple dedicated to Juno in Carthage, describing the richness of the place (donis opulentum). Now, Regarding the first question, I considered that cui can have only singular nouns as antecedents. But all the nouns reasonably close to cui are plural (I tried to take numine and divae as the antecedent, but I coudn't figure out what the clause would mean).
    – Iesus Hominum Salvator
    Commented Aug 13 at 20:17
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    @IesusHominumSalvator "But all the nouns reasonably close to cui are plural" – that's a strange thing to say, there is only one plural noun (donis) before this cui. Anyway, since the relative clause is all about architecture and building materials, why not look for a noun that's a kind of building? That said, this use of the dative is rather opaque, as is the ablative gradibus, and translations seem to vary wildly in the details.
    – Sebastian Koppehel
    Commented Aug 13 at 20:45
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    @IesusHominumSalvator Closeness is no criterion (grammatical congruence is, though). By "opaque" I mean difficult to understand, especially gradibus. OK, steps are somehow involved, but how exactly? What are we to make of translations like this: "the threshold with its rising steps was bronze"? What threshold has steps?
    – Sebastian Koppehel
    Commented Aug 13 at 22:03
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    T.C. Williams unhelpfully completely forgets to mention any thresholds or steps. This one by A.S. Kline – "with bronze entrances rising from stairways" – seems most reasonable to me, although to be honest I still couldn't draw you a picture of the situation.
    – Sebastian Koppehel
    Commented Aug 13 at 22:07

1 Answer 1

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I agree that this is a difficult passage, though I think it is fairly clear based on context that the cui refers to the templum Dido was building. The first part is clear enough:

Hic templum Iunoni ingens Sidonia Dido
condebat, donis opulentum et numine divae

My translation:

Here Sidonian Dido was building an enormous temple to Juno, rich with gifts and with the presence of the goddess...

Setting aside the problematic cui, the rest is also (mostly) straightforward:

aerea ... gradibus surgebant limina nexaeque
aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aenis.

My translation:

Bronze entrances and timbers joined together with bronze rose up on steps; the hinge creaked on bronze doors.

(N.B. I say this translation is "mostly" straightforward because Virgil uses the ablative pretty loosely here. It may be, as noted in the comments by Sebastian, that gradibus implies motion from, i.e. "from the steps.")

So, what is the cui doing? It's evident that the entrances, timbers, and hinge belong to...the templum ingens that dominates the sentence. I interpret it as a dative of reference or perhaps even a dative of possession. Literally, you might say, "...an enormous temple, with reference to which, on steps..." or (even better) "...an enormous temple, on whose steps...."

I'm not 100% confident in this reading, so I'd be grateful to hear if there is a more determinate way of interpreting the passage.

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    I've just taken a look at this work [jamesenge.com/Pharr.Vergil.Aeneid.1through6.1930.pdf], which says the following on page 56: "cui gradibus 'on the steps of which'. cui is dative of reference, with the force of a genitive". According to some scholars, this use of the dative (cui) instead of a more expected genitive (cuius) is frequent in Virgil (cf. some relevant notes in dcc.dickinson.edu/vergil-aeneid/vergil-aeneid-i-441-463 ).
    – Mitomino
    Commented Aug 14 at 1:19
  • @Mitomino Helpful and (I think) consonant with what I wrote. I'm not sure if there is a sharp dividing line between the dative of reference and possession in a context like this.
    – brianpck
    Commented Aug 14 at 14:37
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    I think you're fully right when saying that there is no sharp dividing line between these two types of datives here. BTW, a point of divergence has to do with the following note you'll find in my second link above: "“Its threshold of bronze rose on steps; of bronze its posts were bound; on doors of bronze creaked the hinges. The verb after trabes is not surgebant but erant (understood) (G.P. Goold, “Hypermeter and Elision in Vergil,” in Vertis in Usum, Studies in Honor of Edward Courtney [Munich: Saur, 2002], p. 82)." Cf. your translation above with the one given in this note.
    – Mitomino
    Commented Aug 14 at 16:44
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    I see your point but the reading in this link is also coherent with the triple series aerea...aere...aenis. See the full note: "In these two lines, Vergil describes (1) the whole entrance, limina; (2) the superstructure, trabes, covering the lintel over the huge doors, as well as the beams of the architrave; and (3) the doors themselves, fores, through which Aeneas enters the temple (F-B). aerea...aere...aenis: the special point emphasized is the use of costly bronze such as the Romans employed in many of their grand temples."
    – Mitomino
    Commented Aug 14 at 17:30
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    I’ve just taken a quick look at Goold (2002: 82; see ref. above). His statements “the verb after trabes is not surgebant but erant (understood)" & “Here are three sentences: 'Its threshold of bronze rose on steps; of bronze its posts were bound; on doors of bronze creaked the hinges’” are coherent but I’ve been unable to find his motivation beyond his observation that there is a stylistic/structural parallelism between “the tricolon at 1.448” and the one at 10.781. BTW, Prof. Goold revised the 2nd ed. of the transl. of Aeneid for Loeb but I’ve only been able to consult the 1st ed.
    – Mitomino
    Commented Aug 14 at 23:41

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