4. Sordes omnium ac torpor procerum.] This is the punctuation of Ritter and Kritz. All lived in carelessness and filth, and even their chiefs were indolent. Or it may mean, 'All were filthy; the chiefs were both filthy and indolent.' Comp. Ch. 15, fortissimus quisque ac bellicosissimus nihil agens. 5. In Sarmatarum habitum foedantur.] 'They are debased into a resemblance to the Sarmatae.' 'Habitus' probably includes both physical and mental characteristics. The Sarmatae had something of the repulsiveness of the Tartar appearance and character. 6. Ex moribus.] Sc. from the manners of the Sarmatae. 7. Quidquid inter, &c.] 'Wherever a wood or a hill rises,' or perhaps a hendiadis for wooded hills.' 8. Domos figunt.] 'They have fixed habitations.' 9. Redeunt quoque, &c.] The young men come back to it from hunting; the old make it their abode (receptaculum) through the day. 10. Ingemere agris.] 'To groan over field-labour.' Comp. Virgil's expression, Georg. I. 46, 'ingemere aratro' of the bull. II. Illaborare domibus.] To toil at building houses.' Kritz, however, takes it to mean 'toiling within doors;' sedentary occupation as opposed to field labour. 12. Suas versare.] 'To subject the fortunes of theraselves and others to the alternations of hope and fear.' The notion, perhaps, is that of the anxious life of the trader, whose gains and losses depend to a great extent on fortune. 13. Securi, &c.] 'Careless of mankind, careless of the gods' (C and B). 14. Cetera jam fabulosa, &c.] 'Every thing else now becomes fabulous,' &c. Comp. for the use of jam Ch. 44, Nullis jam exceptionibus, and Ch. 45, Ergo jam dextro Suevici littore, &c. It is not difficult to see how such stories may have originated. Pliny, H. N. IV. 27, says that there were reported to be islands, of which the inhabitants were called Hippopodes. Comp. also Ann. II. 24, where we are told that some of the Roman soldiers of Germanicus' army who had been wrecked on the fleet's return, brought back strange tales of sea-monsters, half man, half beast (monstra maris, ambiguas hominum et beluarum formas). 15. In medium relinquam.] 'I will leave to be an open question.' 'In medium' is equivalent to ' ut medium sit.' Cicero (pro Coelio, 20) uses the phrase 'in medio relinquam' with the same meaning. |