XXXIX
Vetustissimos se nobilissimosque Suevorum Semnones (Semnones: the Semnones were east of the Cherusci, between the middle course of the Elbe an Oder rivers.) memorant. Fides antiquitatis (fides antiquitatis: objective genitive after fides) religione firmatur. Stato tempore in silvam auguriis patrum et prisca formidine sacram, (auguriis patrum et prisca formidine sacram: commentators seldom fail to point out the poetic nature of these words (hexameter), vaguely reminiscent of Virgil, probably borrowed from somebody’s poem: ‘hallowed by the presages of their sires and the awe of time long gone’) omnes ejusdem sanguinis populi legationibus coeunt, caesoque publice homine (caesoque publice homine: abl. abs.) celebrant barbari ritus horrenda primordia. Est et alia luco reverentia. Nemo nisi vinculo ligatus ingreditur, ut minor et potestatem numinis prae se ferens, (potestatem numinis prae se ferens: prae se ferens is idiom, ‘reflecting in his demeanor the might of the deity’; prae is prep. governing the abl.; prae se means ‘in front of oneself’, i.e. in one’s exterior or demeanor.) Si forte prolapsus est, attolli et insurgere haud licitum: per humum evolvuntur: (evolvuntur: passive used with reflexive sense.) eoque omnis superstitio respicit, (eoque omnis superstitio respicit: eo in eoque is not adverb, but dative of id, pronoun, in place of ad + acc., as often in Tacitus: ‘the whole system of superstitious beliefs points back to one thing (eo), …’; eo is explained by the following tamquam.) tanquam inde initia gentis, ibi regnator omnium deus, cetera subjecta atque parentia. (tanquam inde initia gentis, ibi regnator omnium deus, cetera subjecta atque parentia: lit. ‘as if their people stemmed from there (inde = ‘from that sacred grove’), and the god, the supreme ruler of the universe, lived in that place, and all else were his subject and subordinate’; the verb after tamquam is an implied sint, as Tacitus regularly has subjunctive with tamquam. The neuter plural nouns subjecta atque parentia are from the participles subiectus and parens used as adjectives: they perhaps form hendiadys, ‘obedient subjects’.) Adjicit auctoritatem fortuna Semnonum: centum pagis habitantur; (centum pagis habitantur: the passive habitantur does not apply here, unless Tacitus uses it in middle sense without authority; many texts have habitant, others have centum pagi iis habitantur.) magnoque corpore efficitur, ut (efficitur, ut: efficio, used here impersonally, is one of those verbs that need a final clause with ut to complete their sense. For a list of such verbs cf. L. 1949-1951.) se Suevorum caput credant.