How to say "as" emphatically?

Question

Consider the sentence "Marcus spoke as a manager". Imagine that Marcus was speaking at a company event, and he gave his speech as a manager, not as a coworker — as a representative of the company, not his private self. To emphasize this aspect, one might say "Marcus spoke in the capacity (or role) of manager". I am not sure if I master the English idiom perfectly, but I hope my point gets across.

Now, I would like to be able to add this emphasis in Latin, too. The best starting point would be an apposition, I believe:

Marcus dux locutus est.
Marcus spoke as a manager.

Dux might not be a good translation for "manager", but that is irrelevant. But how to form a more emphatic version? I imagine some of these might work:

Marcus in/e munere ducis locutus est.
Marcus in/ex officio ducis locutus est.

I prefer classical Latin if attested examples are available.

Answer 1

Another option (in addition to the several excellent ones in answers so far) is to use (in) loco + gen., as in the phrase in loco parentis "as a parent, in the position of a parent".

Lewis and Short (part IID of the entry) give a number of examples of this usage, such as:

• “in uxoris loco habere,” Ter. Heaut. 1, 1, 52: "to consider as a wife"
• “in liberum loco esse,” Cic. de Or. 2, 49, 200: "to be in the position of sons"
• “hostium loco esse,” Liv. 2, 4, 7: "to be in the position of an enemy"

So you could say e.g. Marcus ducis loco locutus est.

Answer 2

I suggest that simple word order would also do the trick here:

Marcus locutus est dux [or procurator or whatever].

Answer 3

A common and classically attested way of saying "to perform the role of X" is munere X fungi, where "X" is an adjective or genitive noun. Here is an example:

fungar enim iam interpretis munere, ne quis me putet fingere. (Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, 3.41)

I will now play the role of an interpreter, lest anyone accuse me of making things up.

(Note that vice X fungi is also a common expression, with an important difference in meaning: it means to "assume the role of another" outside the normal course of things.)

My proposed translation of your sentence is thus:

Marcus, munere ducis fungens, locutus est.

I did a quick corpus search and think a short caveat is in order: the present participle of fungens is not very common, probably because it is deponent. Here is one clear attested example though:

Datames militare munus fungens primum, qualis esset, aperuit in bello, quod rex aduersus Cadusios gessit. (Cornelius Nepos, Vitae Dat., 1.2)

As a final note, I recommend praepositus or praefectus as better translations of "manager".

Answer 4

I should like to extend @brianpck's answer by providing two further suggestions.

1. A neat way to express this is by using qua, as in these examples:

— Ad hoc stipatum tribunal, atque etiam ex superiore basilicae parte qua feminae qua viri et audiendi — quod difficile — et — quod facile — visendi studio imminebant. [Pl. Sec. ep.6, 33]

— nam gladiatoribus qua dominus qua aduocati sibilis conscissi [Cic. Att. 2, 19]

As in Marcus qua procurator locutus est.

2. You might also consider using in statu. The best-known example is in statu pupillari, widely used at Cambridge University, while old wills use a similar construction. In or ex statu procuratoris might serve.