Germania and Agricola Part 7

_Cuneos_. A body of men arranged in the form of a wedge, i.e. narrow in front and widening towards the rear; hence peculiarly adapted to break the lines of the enemy.

_Consilii quam formidinis_. Supply _magis_. The conciseness of T.

leads him often to omit one of two correlative particles, cf. note on _minime_, 4.

_Referunt. Carry into the rear_, and so secure them for burial.

_Etiam in dubiis proeliis_. Even while the battle remains undecided. Gun.

_Finierunt_. In a present or aorist sense, as often in T. So _prohibuerunt_, -- 10; _placuit_ and _displicuit_, 11. cf. Lex. Tac. Bot.

VII. _Reges_, civil rulers; _duces_, military commanders. _Ex_== secundum. So _ex ingenio_, -- 3. The government was elective, yet not without some regard to hereditary distinctions. They _chose (sumunt)_ their sovereign, but chose him from the royal family, or at least one of n.o.ble extraction. They chose also their commander--the king, if he was the bravest and ablest warrior; if not, they were at liberty to choose some one else. And among the Germans, as among their descendants, the Franks, the authority of the commander was quite distinct from, and sometimes (in war) paramount to, that of the king. Here Montesquieu and others find the original of the kings of the first race in the French monarchy, and the _mayors of the palace_, who once had so much power in France. Cf. Sp. of Laws, B. 31, chap. 4.

_Nec_ is correlative to _et. The kings on the one hand do not possess unlimited or unrestrained authority, and the commanders on the other, &c.

Infinita_==sine modo; _libera_==sine vinculo. Wr. _Potestas_==rightful power, authority; _potentia_==power without regard to right, ability, force, cf. note, 42. Ad rem, cf. Caes. B.G. 5, 27. Ambiorix tells Caesar, that though he governed, yet the people made laws for him, and the supreme power was shared equally between him and them.

_Exemplo--imperio_. "_Dative_ after _sunt==are to set an example, rather than to give command_." So Gruber and Dod. But Wr. and Rit. with more reason consider them as ablatives of means limiting a verb implied in _duces: commanders_ (command) _more by example, than by authority_ (official power). See the principle well stated and ill.u.s.trated in Doderlein's Essay on the style of Tacitus, p. 15, in my edition of the Histories.

_Admiratione praesunt. Gain influence, or ascendency, by means of the admiration which they inspire_, cf. note on metus, -- 2.

_Agant_. Subj., ut ad judicium admirantium, non mentem scriptoris trahatur. Gun.

_Animadvertere_==interficere. Cf. H. 1, 46. 68. _None but the priests are allowed to put to death, to place in irons, nor even_ (ne quidem) _to scourge_. Thus punishment was clothed with divine authority.

_Effigies et signa. Images and standards_, i.e. images, which serve for standards. Images of wild beasts are meant, cf. H. 4, 22: depromptae silvis lucisve ferarum imagines.--_Turmam_, cavalry. _Cuneum_, infantry, but sometimes both. _Conglobatio_ is found only in writers after the Augustan age and rarely in them. It occurs in Sen. Qu. Nat. 1, 15, cf.

Freund.

_Familiae_ is less comprehensive than _propinquitates. Audiri_, sc.

solent. Cf. A. 34 _ruere_. Wr. calls it histor. inf., and Rit. p.r.o.nounces it a gloss.

_Pignora_. Whatever is most dear, particularly mothers, wives, and children.--_Unde_, adv. of place, referring to _in proximo_.

_Vulnera ferunt_, i.e. on their return from battle.

_Exigere. Examine_, and compare, to see who has the most and the most honorable, or perhaps to soothe and dress them.--_Cibos et hortamina_.

Observe the singular juxtaposition of things so unlike. So 1: _metu aut montibus_; A. 25: _copiis et laet.i.tia_; 37: _nox et satietas_; 38: _gaudio praedaque_.

VIII. _Constantia prec.u.m==importunate entreaties_.

_Objectu pectorum. By opposing their b.r.e.a.s.t.s_, not to the enemy but to their retreating husbands, praying for death in preference to captivity.

_Monstrata--captivitate_. _Cominus_ limits _captivitate_, pointing to captivity as just before them.--_Impatientius_. _Impatienter_ and _impatientia_ (the adv. and the subst.) are post-Augustan words. The adj.

(impatiens) is found earlier. Cf. Freund.

_Feminarum--nomine_, i.e. propter feminas suas. Gun. So Cic.: tuo nomine et reipublicae==on your account and for the sake of the republic. But it means perhaps more than that here, viz. in the person of. They dreaded captivity more for their women than for themselves. _Adeo==insomuch that_.

_Inesse_, sc. feminis. _They think, there is in their women something sacred and prophetic_. Cf. Caes. B.G. 1, 50, where Caesar is informed by the prisoners, that Ariovistus had declined an engagement because the _women_ had declared against coming to action before the new moon.-- _Consilia, advice_ in general; _responsa, inspired answers_, when consulted.

_Vidimus_, i.e. she lived in our day--under the reign of Vespasian.-- _Veledam_. Cf. H. 4, 61. 65.

_Auriniam_. Aurinia seems to have been a common name in Germany for prophetess or wise woman. Perhaps==Al-runas, women knowing all things. So _Veleda_==wise woman. Cf. Wr. in loc.

_Non adulatione_, etc. "Not through adulation, nor as if they were raising mortals to the rank of G.o.ddesses." Ky. This is one of those oblique censures on Roman customs in which the treatise abounds. The Romans in the excess of their adulation to the imperial family _made_ ordinary women G.o.ddesses, as Drusilla, sister of Caligula, the infant daughter of Poppaea (Ann. 15, 23), and Poppaea herself (Dio 63, 29). The Germans, on the other hand, really thought some of their wise women to be divine. Cf. His. 4, 62, and my note ibid. Reverence and affection for woman was characteristic of the German Tribes, and from them has diffused itself throughout European society.

IX. _Deorum_. T. here, as elsewhere, applies Roman names, and puts a Roman construction (Romana interpretatione, -- 43), upon the G.o.ds of other nations, cf. -- 3.

_Mercurium_. So Caes. B.G. 6, 17: Deum maxime Mercurium colunt. Probably the German _Woden_, whose name is preserved in our Wednesday, as that of Mercury is in the French name of the same day, and who with a name slightly modified (Woden, Wuotan, Odin), was a prominent object of wors.h.i.+p among all the nations of Northern Europe. _Mars_ is perhaps the German G.o.d of war (Tiw, Tiu, Tuisco) whence Tuesday, French Mardi, cf.

Tur. His. Ang. Sax. App. to B. 2. chap. 3. _Herculem_ is omitted by Ritter on evidence (partly external and partly internal) which is ent.i.tled to not a little consideration. Hercules is the G.o.d of strength, perhaps Thor.

_Certis diebus_. Statis diebus. Gun.

_Humanis--hostiis_. Even _facere_ in the sense of _sacrifice_ is construed with abl. Virg. Ec. 3, 77. _Quoque_==even. For its position in the sentence, cf. note, 3.

_Concessis animalibus_. Such as the Romans and other civilized nations offer, in contradistinction to _human_ sacrifices, which the author regards as _in_-concessa. The attempt has been made to remove from the Germans the stain of human sacrifices. But it rests on incontrovertible evidence (cf. Tur. His. Ang. Sax., App. to B. 2. cap. 3), and indeed attaches to them only in common with nearly all uncivilized nations. The Gauls and Britons, and the Celtic nations generally, carried the practice to great lengths, cf. Caes. B.G. 6, 15. The neighbors of the Hebrews offered human victims in great numbers to their G.o.ds, as we learn from the Scriptures. Nay, the reproach rests also upon the Greeks and Romans in their early history. Pliny informs us, that men were sacrificed as late as the year of Rome 657.

_Isidi_. The Egyptian Isis in Germany! This shows, how far the Romans went in comparing the G.o.ds of different nations. Gr. Ritter identifies this G.o.ddess with the Nertha of chap. 40, the Egyptian Isis and Nertha being both equivalent to Mother Earth, the Terra or Tellus of the Romans.

_Liburnae_. A light galley, so called from the Liburnians, a people of Illyric.u.m, who built and navigated them. The _signum_, here likened to a galley, was more probably a rude crescent, connected with the wors.h.i.+p of the moon, cf. Caes. B.G. 6, 21: Germani deorum numero duc.u.n.t Solem et _Lunam_.

_Cohibere parietibus_==aedificiis includere, K. T. elsewhere speaks of temples of German divinities (e.g. 40: templum Nerthi; Ann. 1, 51: templum Tanfanae); but a consecrated grove or any other sacred place was called _templum_ by the Romans (templum from [Greek: temno], cut off, set apart).

_Ex magnitudine_. _Ex_==secundum, cf. _ex n.o.bilitate_, _ex virtute_ -- 7.

_Ex magnitudine_ is predicate after _arbitrantur: they deem it unbecoming the greatness_, etc.

_Humani--speciem_. Images of the G.o.ds existed at a later day in Germany (S. Tur. His. of Ang. Sax., App. to B. 2. cap. 3). But this does not prove their existence in the days of T. Even as late as A.D. 240 Gregory Thaumaturgus expressly declares, there were no images among the Goths. No traces of temple-walls or images have been discovered in connection with the numerous sites of ancient altars or places of offering which have been exhumed in _Germany_, though both these are found on the _borders_, both south and west, cf. Ukert, p. 236.

_Lucos et nemora_. "Lucus (a [Greek: lukae], crepusculum) sylva densior, ob.u.mbrans; nemus ([Greek: nemos]) sylva rarior, in quo jumenta et pecora pasc.u.n.tur." Bredow.

_Deorumque--vident. They invoke under the name of G.o.ds that mysterious existence, which they see_ (not under any human or other visible form, but) _with the eye of spiritual reverence alone_. So Gr. and K. Others get another idea thus loosely expressed: They give to that sacred recess the name of the divinity that fills the place, which is never profaned by the steps of man.

_Sola reverentia_, cf. _sola mente_ applied by T. to the spiritual religion of the Jews, H. 5, 5. The religion of the Germans and other northern tribes was more spiritual than that of southern nations, when both were Pagan. And after the introduction of Christianity, the Germans were disinclined to the image-wors.h.i.+p of the Papists.

X. _Auspicia sortesque_. _Auspicia_ (avis-spicia) properly divination by observing the flight and cry of birds; _sortes_, by drawing lots: but both often used in the general sense of omens, oracles.

_Ut qui maxime_, sc. _observant_. Ellipsis supplied by repeating _observant_==to the greatest extent, none more.

_Simplex_. Sine Romana arte, cf. Cic. de Div. 2, 41, K. The Scythians had a similar method of divining, Herod. 4, 67. Indeed, the practice of _divining_ by _rods_ has hardly ceased to this day, among the descendants of the German Tribes.

_Temere_, without plan on the part of the diviner.--_Fortuito_, under the direction of chance. Gr.

_Si publice consuletur_. If the question to be decided is of a public nature. _Consuletur_, fut., because at the time of drawing lots the deliberation and decision are future. Or it may refer to the consultation of the G.o.ds (cf. Ann. 14, 30: _consulere deos_): _if it is by the state that the G.o.ds are to be consulted_. So Ritter in his last edition.

_Ter singulos tollit_. A three-fold drawing for the sake of certainty.

Thus Ariovistus drew lots three times touching the death of Valerius (Caes. B.G. 1, 53). So also the Romans drew lots three times, Tibul. 1, 3, 10: sortes ter sustulit. Such is the interpretation of these disputed words by Gruber, Ritter and many others, and such is certainly their natural and obvious meaning: _he takes up three times one after another_ all the slips he has _scattered_ (_spargere_ is hardly applicable to _three_ only): if the signs are twice or thrice favorable, the thing is permitted; if twice or thrice unfavorable it is prohibited. The language of Caesar (in loc. cit.) is still more explicit: _ter sortibus consultum_. But Or., Wr. and Dod. understand simply the taking up of three lots one each time.