W. M. Lindsay, Syntax of Plautus

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The Ablative Absolute (see E. Bombe ‘de abl. abs. apud antiquiss. Romanorum scriptores usu.’ Greifswald, 1877) is sometimes loosely used of the Subject of the sentence, e.g.

• Amph. 542 “ut quom absim me ames, me tuam te absente tamen”,
• Ter. Heaut. 913 “qui se vidente amicam patiatur suam”;
• cf. Rud. 712 “meas mihi ancillas invito me eripis”,
• Most. 230 “quam te me vivo unquam sinam egere aut mendicare”,
Stich. 132.

Similar is an Ablative (without a Noun) like auspicato, Pers. 608 “vide ut ingrediare auspicato” (cf. “praefinito” Ter. Hec. 94), and (without a Verb) e.g. Poen. 728 “quid si recenti re aedes pultem?”, Most. 916 “me suasore atque impulsore.” Other examples of this Ablative (sometimes called in Grammars the ‘Ablative of Accompaniment’ or of ‘Attendant Circumstances’) are

• Trin. 446 “bonis tuis rebus meas res irrides malas” (tuis in rebus A),
• Trin. 376 “tua re salva”,
Truc. 75 “re placida atque otiosa, victis hostibus” (but Poen. 524 “praesertim in re populi placida atque interfectis hostibus”; cf. Pseud. 1021),
• Bacch. 599 “tuo ego istaec igitur dicam illi periculo”,
Mil. 513 “quam magno vento plenumst undarum mare” (‘when the wind is high’), and the curious phrase in Cas. 525 “nunc enim tu demum nullo scito scitus es” (cf. Leo's note on Pseud. 1047).

This may be the true explanation of the Old Latin use of fini. ‘as far as’ with Ablative, Men. 859 “osse fini dedolabo assulatim viscera”, Cato R.R. 31, 2 “operito terra radicibus fini”, lit. ‘the bone being the limit,’ ‘with the roots as limit.’