Hi John,
I'm sure it's a nice effort, but I cannot help noticing a lot of speculative commands in your list. Some of these are necessary of course because we lack some commands, but others seem.. superfluous? Like 'move ad scutum', to take one?
Sometimes meanings seem to have been lost in translation.
For instance:
Quote:Mandata Captate Let op geef acht.
Mandata captate means 'observe orders' and is a passive command, whilst 'geef acht' is an active command (in the Dutch army it is, at least).
Quote:Move Ad Scutum Verplaats richting het schild!
Move being 'forward march' I'd translate that with 'voorwaarts mars', but 'to the shield' can hardly be translated literally like you have done, which makes no sense.
Quote:Cede Maak plaats!
Cede means 'give way' and describes a controlled movement backwards, facing the enemy during the actions. 'Maak plaats' means 'make way' and describes something differently. The command to 'advance' is Antecede.
Quote:Ad Contum, Clina Naar het speer gezicht!
In this case the command is 'ad conto clina' (you have changed it for what reason?), and the Dutch translation (lit. 'the spear to the face!) makes no sense whatsoever. The command (ad conto clina, move) means 'To the right, face, march', and it describes an extending of the line. Or, as Maurikios described it:
Facing to the right or left is called for when the commander wants to move the line by the flank to one side either, as would be likely, to extend the line and outflank the enemy, to avoid being outflanked by them, to obtain more favourable ground, or to pass a defile. If he wants to march it to the right, he orders: 'To the lance, face’ (ad conto clina). Each soldier, then, remaining in place, turns. 'March’ (move). And they move to the designated place. He then gives the command 'return' (redi) And they resume their original front.
Quote:Redi ogen front!
Your translation would mean 'eyes front', but Redi does not mean that. It means 'resume front' and follows an earlier command to extend the line and tells the troops to resume their original frontal formation. (Unlike 'Reverte' which means 'return' (to any original position)
Quote:Ad Contum Oblique, Clina! naar rechts schuin richten!
I really wonder where you got that one from, because I cannot think of a single example in any source. :wink:
I could go on but I'll stop here. Like I said above, a nice effort, but for us Late Romans you seem to have used Maurikios plus a whole lot of other stuff that we cannot use.
