LXV.
Exequi sententias haud institui nisi insignis per honestum aut notabili dedecore, (exequi sententias haud institui nisi insignis per honestum aut notabili dedecore: lit. ‘I have not undertaken (haud insttui) to relate the decisions [of the senate] unless remarkable for their probity or for their conspicuous infamy.’ per honestum aut notabili dedecore: two ways to express cause, per + acc. or simple abl.; honestum is substantivized neuter adj., meaning ‘honesty’, ‘rectitude’. nisi, here without verb, is adverb, found after a negative clause and meaning ‘other than’, ‘only’, except’.) quod praecipuum munus annalium reor ne virtutes sileantur utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit. (quod praecipuum munus [esse] annalium reor ne virtutes sileantur utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit: ‘because I hold that it is the primary task of history to avoid that (ne) instances of virtue become forgotten and to ensure that (ut) for ignoble words and deeds there is always the fear of infamy in the eyes of posterity.’ ne and ut introduce respectively a negative and a positive purpose clause; ex posteritate et infamia metus: lit. ‘the fear from posterity and infamy’, hendiadys for ‘reprobation from posterity’; ex governs an abl. of the source or origin.) ceterum (ceterum: originally an acc. of relation, ‘as to what remains’, later became in most cases a replacement for sed, starting with Sallust (Ernout).) tempora illa (tempora illa: acc. of time during which: ’during those ill-famed years’; ille, here adj., has often the heightened sense of ‘that famous’ or ‘that infamous’. The same applies to etiam illum below, where ille is demonstrative pronoun.) adeo infecta et adulatione sordida fuere ut non modo primores civitatis, quibus claritudo sua obsequiis protegenda erat, (quibus claritudo sua obsequiis protegenda erat: lit. ‘their exalted state was to be protected by them (quibus)’, where quibus is dat. of the agent with the passive periphrasis using gerundive.) sed omnes consulares, magna pars eorum qui praetura functi (qui praetura functi: ‘who had served as praetors’; praetura is abl. with fungor.) multique etiam pedarii senatores (pedarii senatores: pedarius applies to a senator who had never risen to a rank above questor or aedile at most. Although they had the freedom to speak, as this passage seem to imply, these senators probably rarely did, leaving that privilege to men of consular or praetorian rank. During voting they placed themselves around one of the men who had already spoken and with whom they agreed, hence the idiom pedibus ire in sententiam alicuius.) certatim exsurgerent foedaque et nimia censerent. (adeo infecta … fuere ut … certatim exsurgerent: the correlatives adeo and ut introduce respectively the main and dependent clause of a consecutive sentence, the latter with subjunctive. ‘[those years] were so corrupted that [all senators] would rise in emulation and ….’) memoriae proditur (memoriae proditur: impersonal use of the passive: ‘it is transmitted to memory that ….’ The phrase occurs also in Germania, ch. 8.) Tiberium, quoties curia egrederetur, (quoties curia egrederetur: in indirect discourse after memoriae proditur, hence with subjunctive: ‘…that whenever [Tiberius] left the senate house, …’; quoties is here relative, not interrogative, adverb.) Graecis verbis in hunc modum eloqui solitum (in hunc modum eloqui solitum [esse]: ‘… he was given to (had the habit of) speaking in this way.’) ‘o homines ad servitutem paratos!’ scilicet etiam illum qui libertatem publicam nollet tam proiectae servientium patientiae taedebat. (scilicet etiam illum qui libertatem publicam nollet tam proiectae servientium patientiae taedebat: scilicet or videlicet, probably from scire or videre licet, ‘one may be sure’, ‘it is clear that …’, is adverbial conjunction introducing an explanation, often with a touch of irony: ‘apparently, even he who did not want civil liberty was sick of such unresisting compliance of slaves.’ The impersonal verb taedet takes gen. of the thing that causes disgust and acc. of the person affected. qui libertatem publicam nollet: subjunctive in rel. clause of characteristic; cf. A.G. 535 and G. 631.)