LXII.
Igitur Romanus qui aderat exercitus sextum post cladis annum (sextum post cladis annum: ‘after the sixth year of the debacle’, in place of the regular sexto anno post cladem, ‘in the sixth year after the debacle’) trium legionum ossa, nullo noscente alienas reliquias an suorum humo tegeret, (nullo noscente alienas reliquias an suorum humo tegeret: abl. abs. with dependent double indirect question: ‘no one knowing whether he was burying the remains of strangers or of their own [soldiers]’; Tacitus seldom uses a particle to introduce the first part of a double question and only an stands in the second.) omnis ut coniunctos, ut consanguineos, aucta in hostem ira, maesti simul et infensi condebant. primum extruendo tumulo (extruendo tumulo: use of dative gerundive to indicate purpose: the construction is frequently found in the Annals in place of ad + acc., more than in any other Latin author (Furneaux).) caespitem Caesar posuit, gratissimo munere in defunctos et praesentibus doloris socius. (gratissimo munere in defunctos et praesentibus doloris socius: gratissimo munere is most probably instrumental abl.: lit. ‘by this gratifying tribute in honor of (in + acc.) the dead soldiers [being] also a sharer of the grief among those around him.’ In any case, the grammar here seems very loose.) quod Tiberio haud probatum, (quod Tiberio haud probatum [est]: quod refers to the neuter munere: ‘the gesture was not approved by Tiberius.’ Tiberio is dat. of agent after the passive probatum [est]. Usually restricted to the agent of the gerund and gerundive, this dative is far from rare in poetry (cf. G. 214-215 and 355, Note) and in later Latin, especially with the passive of certain verbs such as probor, audior, cognoscor, sumor, etc.) seu cuncta Germanici in deterius trahenti, sive exercitum imagine caesorum insepultorumque tardatum ad proelia et formidolosiorem hostium credebat; neque imperatorem auguratu et vetustissimis caerimoniis praeditum adtrectare feralia debuisse. (seu cuncta Germanici in deterius trahenti, sive exercitum imagine caesorum insepultorumque tardatum ad proelia et formidolosiorem hostium credebat; neque imperatorem auguratu et vetustissimis caerimoniis praeditum adtrectare feralia debuisse: seu …sive brings in a condition in the form of an alternative, the first part without a verb, the second with sive …credebat as the condition and the rest in oratio obliqua after the verb of thinking: lit. ‘either construing everything of Germanicus for the worse, or he thought that the army would have been made less willing to fight and more timorous of the enemy by the spectacle of the fallen and unburied soldiers, and that a general, vested with the augurship and its most ancient religious rituals, should not have handled anything associated with death.’ seu …sive: the use of seu …sive or sive …seu, in place of the classical sive …sive, is poetic or later Latin trahenti agrees with Tiberio in previous line. neque … adtrectare feralia debuisse: auxiliary verbs such as debeo, possum, oportet, etc. (see list in G. 423), which have an infinitive as object, do not have special forms to express the conditional sense of the unreal if they are infinitive (e.g. in oratio obliqua, as here). Other verbs do it by means of a periphrasis with future participle in -urus + fuisse or with futurum fuisse ut + subjunctive if they lack the supine (cf. G. 659), whereas these auxiliary verbs merely rely on the perfect infinitive, in this case debuisse (debuit in direct speech: cf. A.G. 517, c.) which expresses the unreal for both past and present in the infinitive. See also A.G. 589, b., L. 2330-2334, and Agricola, ch. 4 for more examples. In English both debuisse and its direct speech counterpart debuit are rendered by ‘should’ or ’ought to’ followed by the perfect of the complementary infinitive accompanying debuisse (e.g. ‘he ought not to have handled….’).