XVIII.
Magna ea victoria neque cruenta nobis (neque cruenta nobis: ‘not costly in blood to ourselves’; nobis is dat. of interest.) fuit. quinta ab hora diei (quinta ab hora diei: the Romans divided the day in twelve parts or horae, from 6:oo a.m. to 6:00 p.m., the length of which varied through the year. quinta hora would end at 11:00 a.m.) ad noctem caesi hostes decem milia passuum cadaveribus atque armis opplevere, repertis inter spolia eorum catenis quas in Romanos ut non dubio eventu (ut non dubio eventu: lit. ‘as is the case in an undoubted victory’) portaverant. miles in loco proelii Tiberium imperatorem salutavit (miles in loco proelii Tiberium imperatorem salutavit: in imperial times the right to celebrate a triumph or even to be saluted imperator by the troops was reserved for the emperor as supreme commander. Under the republic, any victorious general could receive these honors, but under Augustus and his successors all a field commander could aspire to were the triumphalia ornamenta (cf. Agricola, ch. 40), save in exceptional circumstances and never outside the royal family.) struxitque aggerem et in modum tropaeorum (in modum tropaeorum: ‘in the manner of a trophy’, a tradition borrowed from the Greeks, who celebrated success this way even for minor engagements or mere skirmishes, as even a cursory reading of a historian like Thucydides will bear out.) arma subscriptis victarum gentium nominibus (subscriptis victarum gentium nominibus: abl. of manner: ‘with the names of the vanquished nations written underneath’) imposuit.