LXVII.
Tunc contractos in principia iussosque dicta cum silentio accipere temporis ac necessitatis monet. (temporis ac necessitatis monet: temporis and necessitatis form hendiadys: ‘he warns of the gravity of the moment.’ Unlike admoneo, which admits genitive (e.g. admonitus erroris), no other case of moneo with genitive can be found; monet is hist. present.) unam in armis salutem, sed ea consilio temperanda manendumque intra vallum, (ea consilio temperanda manendumque [esse] intra vallum: example of both personal and impersonal use of the passive periphrastic conjugation in indirect speech after monet: lit. ‘but that such things were to be regulated by prudence and that it should be stayed inside the rampart’.) donec expugnandi hostis spe propius succederent; (donec expugnandi hostis spe propius succederent: donec requires subjunctive whenever intention, suspense, or expectation is expressed, but Tacitus (and Livy as well) is rather consistent in using subjunctive in all cases: ‘until the enemy would get closer in the hope of storming the camp’; expugnandi spe: a change from the expected spe expugnandi, where expugnandi is objective genitive gerund after a noun.) mox undique erumpendum: illa eruptione ad Rhenum perveniri. (illa eruptione ad Rhenum perveniri: perveniri is impersonal use of the passive of an intransitive verb: lit. ‘that by means of that sudden outbreak it would be arrived at the Rhine’; the sense is that their return march would not be opposed from then on. For potential sense of perveniri see next note.) quod si fugerent, pluris silvas, profundas magis paludes, saevitiam hostium superesse; (quod si fugerent, … superesse: conditional sentence in indirect speech after monet: quod in quod si is merely a connective particle without a definite function in the conditional clause; it is variously translated as ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘instead’, ‘whereas’, or ignored. See G. 610, R. 2. The condition si fugerent is potential (si fugiamus in direct speech); superesse in the apodosis would also be present subjunctive, supersint, in direct speech (see A.G. 516, b.). It may be of interest to note that superesse, i.e the use of infinitive in oratio obliqua, reveals one of the limitations of the Latin language, in that the potential sense of supersint is lost, whereas the English translation, ‘the …would remain’, preserves it, as do languages that possess the conditional mood, like French, German, Italian, and others. Another example of this limitation is ad Rhenum perveniri above, whose potential sense (ad Rhenum perveniatur, ‘it might be arrived at the Rhine’) is effaced by the obligatory use of infinitive in indir. speech.) at victoribus decus gloriam. quae domi cara, quae in castris honesta, memorat; reticuit de adversis. equos dehinc, orsus a suis, (orsus a suis: orsus, from dep. ordior, is passive in form but active in meaning: ‘beginning from himself’; the same phrase is found in Agricola: cf. note for a se suique orsus in ch. 19.) legatorum tribunorumque nulla ambitione (nulla ambitione: abl. of manner: ‘without favor of any kind’, i.e. without regard to personal preference or concessions to entreating.) fortissimo cuique bellatori tradit, ut hi, mox pedes in hostem invaderent. (ut hi, mox pedes in hostem invaderent: ‘in order that these men and then the infantry might hurl themselves at the enemy’)