Germania and Agricola Part 23

25: pigrum ac prope immotum. The modern reader need not be informed, that this is an entire mistake, as to the matter of fact; those seas about Britain are never frozen; though the navigators in this voyage might easily have magnified the perils and hards.h.i.+ps of their enterprise, by transferring to these waters what they had heard of those further north.

_Perinde_. Al. _proinde_. These two forms are written indiscriminately in the old MSS. The meaning of _ne perinde_ here is _not so much_, sc. as other seas. Cf. note, G. 5.

_Ne ventis--attolli_. Directly the reverse of the truth. Those seas, are in fact, remarkably tempestuous.

_Quod--impellitur_. False philosophy to explain a fict.i.tious phenomenon, as is too often the case with the philosophy of the ancients, who little understood natural science, cf. the _astronomy_ of T. in 12.

_Neque--ac_. Correlatives. The author a.s.signs two reasons why he does not discuss the subject of the _tides_: 1. It does not suit the design of his work; 2. The subject has been treated by many others, e.g. Strab. 3, 5, 11; Plin. N.H. 2, 99, &c.

_Multum fluminum. Multum_ is the object of _ferre_, of which _mare_ is the subject, as it is also of all the infinitives in the sentence.

_Fluminum_ is not rivers but currents among the islands along the sh.o.r.e.

_Nec littore tenus_, etc. "_The ebbings and flowings of the tide are not confined to the sh.o.r.e, but the sea penetrates into the heart of the country, and works its way among the hills and mountains, as in its native bed_." Ky. A description very appropriate to a coast so cut up by aestuaries, and highly poetical, but wanting in simplicity.

_Jugis etiam ac montibus. Jugis_, cf. G. 43. _Ac. Atque_ in the common editions. But _ac_, besides being more frequent before a consonant, is found in the best MSS.

XI. _Indigenae an advecti_. Cf. _note_, G. 2: _indigenas_.

_Ut inter barbaros_, sc. fieri solet. Cf. ut in licentia, G. 2; and ut inter Germanos, G. 30.

_Rutilae--a.s.severant_. Cf. the description of the Germans, G. 4. The inhabitants of Caledonia are of the same stock as the other Britons. The conclusion, to which our author inclines below, viz. that the Britons proceeded from Gaul, is sustained by the authority of modern ethnologists. The original inhabitants of Britain are found, both by philological and historical evidence, to have belonged to the Celtic or Cimmerian stock, which once overspread nearly the whole of central Europe, but were overrun and pushed off the stage by the Gothic or German Tribes, and now have their distinct representatives only in the Welsh, the Irish, the Highland Scotch, and a few similar remnants of a once powerful race in the extreme west of the continent and the islands of the sea. Cf. note on the Cimbri, G. 37.

_Silurum_. The people of Wales.

_Colorati vultus. Dark complexion_. So with the poets, colorati Indi, Seres, Etrusci, &c.

_Hispania_. Nom. subject of _faciunt_, with _crines_, &c.

_Iberos_. Properly a people on the Iberus (Ebro), who gave their name to the whole Spanish Peninsula. They belonged to a different race from the Celtic, or the Teutonic, which seems once to have inhabited Italy and Sicily, as well as parts of Gaul and Spain. A dialect is still spoken in the mountainous regions about the Bay of Biscay, and called the Basque or Biscayan, which differs from any other dialect in Europe. Cf. Prichard's Physical Researches, vol. III. chap. 2.

_Proximi Gallis_. Cf. Caes. B.G. 5, 14: Ex his omnibus longe sunt humanissimi, qui Cantium (Kent) incolunt, quae regio est maritima omnis, _neque multum a Gallica differunt consuetudine. Et--also: those nearest the Gauls are also like them_.

_Durante vi. Either because the influence of a common origin still continues_, etc.

_Procurrentibus--terris. Or because their territories running out towards one another_, literally, _in opposite directions_, Britain towards the south and Gaul towards the north, so as to approach each other. See Rit., Dod. in loc., and Freund ad _diversus_.

_Positio--dedit_. The idea of similarity being already expressed in _similes_, is understood here: their situation in the same climate (_coelo_) has given them the _same_ personal appearance.

_Aestimanti_. Indef. dat. after _credibile est_, cf. note, G. 6.

_Eorum_ refers to the Gauls. You (indef. subject, cf. quiescas, G. 36) may discover the religion of the Gauls (among the Britons) in their full belief of the same superst.i.tions. So Caes. B.G. 6, 13: disciplina in Britannia reperta atque inde in Galliam translata esse existimatur; and he adds, that those who wished to gain a more perfect knowledge of the Druidical system still went from Gaul to Britain to learn. Sharon Turner thinks, the system must have been introduced into Britain from the East (perhaps India) by the Phenicians, and thence propagated in Gaul. His.

Ang. Sax., B. 1, chap. 5.

_Persuasione_. See the same use of the word, His. 5, 5: eademque de infernis persuasio.

_In--periculis_. The same sentiment is expressed by Caesar (B.G. 3, 19).

_Ferociae_. In a good sense, courage, cf. 31: virtus ac ferocia.

_Praeferunt_==prae se ferunt, i.e. _exhibit_.

_Ut quos. Ut qui_, like _qui_ alone, is followed by the subj. to express a reason for what precedes. It may be rendered by _because_ or _since_ with the demonstrative. So _quippe cui placuisset_, 18. Cf. Z. 565 and H.

519, 3.

_Gallos floruisse_. Cf. G. 28.

_Otio_. Opposed to _bellis, peace.--Amissa virtute_. Abl. abs. denoting an additional circ.u.mstance. Cf. 2: _expulsis--professoribus_, note.-- _Olim_ limits _victis_.

XII. _Honestior. The more honorable_ (i.e. the man of rank) _is the charioteer, his dependents fight_ (on the chariot). The reverse was true in the Trojan War.

_Factionibus trahuntur_==distrahuntur in factiones. Dr., and Or. T. is fond of using simple for compound verbs. See note 22; also numerous examples in the Index to Notes on the Histories.

_Civitatibus_. Dat. for Gen.--_Pro n.o.bis_. Abl. with prep. for dat.

Enallage. R.--_Conventus. Convention_, meeting.

_Coelum--foedum_. The fog and rain of the British Isles are still proverbial.--_Dierum spatia_, etc. Cf. Caes. 513.

_Quod si==and if_. From the tendency to connect sentences by relatives arose the use of _quod_ before certain conjunctions, particularly _si_, merely as a copulative. Cf. Z. 807. also Freund sub v. The fact alleged in this sentence is as false as the philosophy by which it is explained in the next, cf. G. 45: in ortus, note.

_Scilicet--cadit_. This explanation proceeds on the a.s.sumption that night is caused by the shadow of mountains, behind which the sun sets; and since these do not exist in that level extremity of the earth, the sun has nothing to set behind, and so there is no night. The astronomy of T.

is about of a piece with his natural philosophy, cf. 10.--_Extrema-- terrarum_. Cf. note, 6: _inania honoris_.

_Non erigunt_, lit. do not elevate the darkness, i.e. do not cast their shadow so high (_infraque--cadit_), as the sky and the stars; hence they are bright (_clara_) through the night!! Pliny also supposed the heavens (above the moon) to be of themselves perpetually luminous, but darkened at night by the shadow of the earth. N.H. 2, 7.

_Praeter. Beyond_. Hence either _besides_ or _except_. Here the latter.-- _Fecundum_. More than _patiens, fruitful even.--Proveniunt_. Ang. _come forward_.

_Fert--aurum_, etc. This is also affirmed by Strabo, 4, 5, 2, but denied by Cic. ad Att., 4, 16, 7, and ad Div., 7, 7. The moderns decide in favor of T. and Strabo, though it is only in inconsiderable quant.i.ties that gold and silver have ever been found in Britain.

_Margarita_. The neuter form of this word is seldom used, never by Cicero. See Freund sub v.

_Rubro mari_. The _Red Sea_ of the Greeks and Romans embraced both the Arabian and the Persian Gulfs; and it was in the latter especially, that pearls were found, as they are to this day. Cf. Plin. N.H. 9, 54: praecipue laudantur (margaritae) in _Persico sinu maris rubri_. For an explanation of the name (Red Sea), see Anthon's Cla.s.sical Dictionary.

_Expulsa sint. Cast out_, i.e. _ash.o.r.e, by the waves_. Subj. in a subordinate clause of the oratio obliqua. H. 531; Z. 603.

_Naturam--avaritiam_. A very characteristic sentence, both for its ant.i.thesis and its satire.

XIII. _Ipsi Britanni. Ipsi_ marks the transition from the country to the people, cf. ipsos Germanos, G. 2.

_Obeunt_ properly applies only to _munera_, not to _tributa_ and _delectum_, which would require _tolerant_ or some kindred verb. Zeugma.

H. 704, I. 2; Z. 775.

_Igitur==now_. In the first sentence of the section the author has indicated his purpose to speak of the _people_ of Britain. And _now in pursuance of that design_, he goes back to the commencement of their history, as related to and known by the Romans. Cf. note, G. 28.

_Divus_. Cf. note, G. 28: D. Julius. For Julius Caesar's campaigns in Britain, see Caes. B.G. 4, 21. seq.; 5, 5. seq.; Strabo, Lib. 4, &c.

_Consilium_. His _advice_ (to his successor). See Ann. 1, 11.-- _Praeceptum_. A _command_ (of Augustus, which Tib. affected to hold sacred). Ann. 1, 77; 4, 37.