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From the Dryden translation of Plutarch's Life of Marcellus:
After many other such affronts offered him by the men of Engyium, Marcellus, having taken them all prisoners and cast them into bonds, was preparing to inflict upon them the last punishment; when Nicias, with tears in his eyes, addressed himself to him. In fine, casting himself at Marcellus's feet, and deprecating for his citizens, he begged most earnestly their lives, chiefly those of his enemies. Marcellus, relenting, set them all at liberty, and rewarded Nicias with ample lands and rich presents. This history is recorded by Posidonius the philosopher.
Bingley
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Here's what Atomica (soon to become Gurunet again, apparently) has:
dep·re·cate (dĕp'rĭ-kât')
tr.v., -cat·ed, -cat·ing, -cates.
To express disapproval of; deplore.
To belittle; depreciate.
[Latin dçprecârî, dçprecât-, to ward off by prayer : dç-, de- + precârî, to pray.]
dep're·cat'ing·ly adv.
dep're·ca'tion n.
dep're·ca'tor n.
USAGE NOTE The first and fully accepted meaning of deprecate is “to express disapproval of.” But the word has steadily encroached on the meaning of depreciate. It is now used, almost to the exclusion of depreciate, in the sense “to belittle or mildly disparage,” as in He deprecated his own contribution. In an earlier survey, this newer sense was approved by a majority of the Usage Panel.
From the quote, I can't think that Nicias is disapproving of or deploring his people, nor warding them off by prayer. I was thinking that, had Dryden added 'himself' after deprecating, it would read a little better. But grovelling gets the idea across pretty clearly, without the extra word.
What is meaning of in fine, please?
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What is meaning of in fine, please? In the end? I believe it's "een fee-nay". 
formerly known as etaoin...
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Well, seeing as you're ahead... 
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"Deprecating " here souncs like "praying for forgiveness".
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From the Latin, deprecatus, which is the past participle of deprecari, which derives from precari (to pray), meaning to save the day through prayer.
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This translation uses "in fine" a lot. From context, it seems to mean something like, to cut a long story short.
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So, how did we get from "to save the day by prayer" to "disapprove of"?
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Thanks for that elucidation Father Steve - it's a fine example of the tendency in Dryden's period to attempt to prettify the raw bones of English with Latinate embellishments. Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College (Cambridge) and in 1668 made poet laureate, Dryden was emblematic of that upper-class post-Elizabethan period of the development of the English language in many ways.
There arose among a group of English authors the idea that the English language could be made more perfect, that it could be turned into as ‘eloquent’ a language as classical Latin. ‘Eloquence’ was a concept first associated with the ancient Greeks. Eloquence made a language more persuasive, and persuasion was central to the Greek ideal of the democratic city states such as Athens. The concept was important to the Romans too, who applied it to the writing of literature as well as public speaking. One linguistic dimension of eloquence was copiousness: the language needed enough words to represent every idea. In fact, it needed more than this: in order to prevent repetition of the same word, a variety of synonyms were needed to provide stylistic variation. This could be achieved either by greatly increasing the word stock or by increasing what was called ‘significancy’ – the ability of words to mean more than one thing (polysemy). […] How, then, could English be made more eloquent so that it could take over from Latin in the writing of poetry and literature, and so that a ‘national’ literature could be created which expressed the emerging cultural identity of England? There were three principal means of creating new vocabulary: words could be invented, using existing principles of word formation; words could be adopted from Latin or Greek; or obsolete words could be brought back into use, perhaps with new meanings. English writers enthusiastically supported the project to increase the English lexicon. It is estimated that during the period 1500-1700 over 30,000 new words were added to the English vocabulary. The process reached its peak in the early 1600s when, on average, over 300 new words were recorded each year. […] The many Latin words introduced into English during this period made the new literary language difficult for many readers to understand… *
So we should not feel so put out to be struggling over the odd word all this time later!
*from:
Graddol, Leith & Swann (1996) English – history, diversity and change, London, Routledge. ISBN: 0415131189
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that's a great quote, thanks, Mav!
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When praying against something, one might be expected to name it, in less than favourable terms. "Oh Lord, deliver us from the awful Philadelphians who are about to invade fair Pittsburgh ..." That sort of thing. One suspects that, in praying against disaster, one disapproves of that which is the identified evil.
But I am just making this up ...
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pretty good conjecture, padre..
to pray for deliverance from > to pray against > to plead earnestly against > to express an earnest wish against > to express earnest disapproval of
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