XXXII
Proximi Chattis (proximi Chattis: Chattis is dative with proximi. ‘next to the Chatti’. The Usipii were west of the Chatti near the Rhine, the Tencteri were NE of the Usipii and north of the Chatti) certum jam alveo Rhenum, quique terminus esse sufficiat, Usipii ac Tencteri colunt. (certum jam alveo Rhenum, quique terminus esse sufficiat, Usipii ac Tencteri colunt: ‘the Usipii and Tencteri inhabit the Rhine, now settled in its bed, so as to be a stable boundary’. certum …alveo: ‘a well-defined river bed’, i.e. not diffuse and uncertain, as perhaps it then was south of Mainz and the Chatti. quique terminus esse sufficiat: qui has here the sense of talis: ‘such that it may suffice to be a boundary’; the clause is a relative clause of characteristic with consecutive force, thus requiring subjunctive. Cf. A.G. 534, 535. The Usipii (or Usipi, or Usipetes) were settled along the east bank of the Rhine between Cologne in the north and the confluence of the Moselle at Koblenz in the south. The Tencteri were north of the Usipii, facing the Ubii (or Agrippinenses) on the opposite side of the Rhine.) Tencteri, super solitum bellorum decus, equestris disciplinae arte praecellunt: nec major apud Chattos peditum laus, quam Tencteris (Tencteris: dative in place of apud Tencteros, to avoid using apud + acc. a second time; see also gentibus, used in the same manner, near the end of next chapter.) equitum. Sic instituere majores, posteri imitantur; hi lusus infantium, haec juvenum aemulatio, perseverant senes: inter familiam et penates et jura successionum (inter familiam et penates et jura successionum: inter has here the sense of ‘along with’, ‘as part of’; familia refers, as it often does in Latin authors, to the domestic apparatus that includes all the servants in a household, from famel, an Oscan word for servant; penates: here metonymy for ‘household’, ‘homestead’, ‘living place’; jura successionum: all that descends to the heir by right of succession) equi traduntur; excipit filius, non, ut cetera, maximus natu, sed prout ferox bello et melior. (prout ferox bello et melior: ‘depending on whether [the chosen son] is fierce in war and a more meritorious man [than his brothers]’; bello is not abl. of place, but abl. of respect or specification.)