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Translation help: Apocolocyntosis 5.2-5.3

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quaesisse se cuius nationis esset: respondisse nescio quid perturbato sono et voce confusa; non intellegere se linguam eius: nec Graecum esse nec Romanum nec ullius gentis notae.

esse in the final clause could have two different subjects. The first is Claudius, with the clause expressing a conclusion drawn from the preceding description of the messenger’s interrogation; that is, Claudius is neither Roman, nor Greek, nor of any other known people.

Alternately, it could be taking the linguam from the previous clause as its subject, with the three possibilities raised refering back to it, emphasizing the unknown nature of Claudius with the fact that the language he is speaking is not even important enough to have an adjective in Latin.. Also note that Graecum and Romanum are in the accusative, while ullius gentis notae is in the genitive. This may be a simple possessive genitive referring back to linguam, or a case usage retained from earlier Latin to mark the inferiority of the words put into the genitive relative to those in the accusative.

tum Iuppiter Herculem, qui totum orbem terrarum pererraverat et nosse videbatur omnes nationes, iubet ire et explorare quorum hominum esset.

The use of explorare is interesting in this context, given its connection to the Roman army’s exploratores, its scouts and spies. The implication that Hercules is intended to spy on Claudius to learn about him is particularly amusing given that Hercules is explicitly stated to be a man of minime vafro in 6.1.

quorum hominum could be a possessive genitive or a genitive of description, but requires a bit of wrangling to sound natural in English. Literally “of which people he was,” it works better if translated as “who his people were” or more loosely “what country he was from” or “where he was from,” the sense of which is provided in the assertion that Hercules is being sent for his knowledge of various nations. The fact that this is the question that Hercules is sent to answer supports the interpretation of the preceding clause as addressing Claudius’ nationality rather than the language he speaks, in my opinion.

The use of homo instead of vir, which would normally be used of Roman men, is another calculated insult against Claudius.

Translation help: Nero 39.

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ignominia ad Orientem, legionibus in Armenia sub iugum missis aegreque Syria retenta.

The primary issue with this section is the phrase in the middle, legionibus in Armenia sub iugum missis. To begin with, this is an ablative absolute, describing a military disaster.

A frequent translation of this seems to be that the legions have been sent into Armena in order to subjugate the people there, taking the words effectively as legionibus missis in Armenia sub iugum; this reading does not work. First, in this case, in would have to take the accusative rather than the ablative as it actually appears. Further, mitto sub iugum is an idiom, referencing “an arrangement of two vertical and one transverse spear under which a conquered army was made to pass” [OLD iugum 5]. Taking the idiom collectively to mean “conquered,” “defeated” or “subjugated” conveys the sense of this quite effectively.

Thus in order to accurately deal with the Latin presented here, the order legionibus in Armenia missis sub iugum is better; that is, the legions in Armenia, whether recently sent there or stationed there on a permanent basis, have been subjugated. Alternately, in Armenia could simply be describing where they suffered their defeat, though that would be ignoring the positioning of the prepositional phrase between the noun and the participle modifying it, which seems ill-advised when it reads well as written.

Once the meaning of the ablative absolute has been understood, the preceding and following comments are given important context: the loss of the legions is the shame in the East, and Syria is barely held onto because the troops tasked with that have been killed or enslaved.