XX.
At (at: introduces a change of subject; the particle is often ignored in traslation) Caecina, velut relicta post Alpis saevitia ac licentia, modesto agmine per Italiam incessit. ornatum ipsius municipia et coloniae in superbiam trahebant, (ornatum ipsius municipia et coloniae in superbiam trahebant: ‘municipal towns and colonies ascribed his garb to arrogance.’) quod versicolori sagulo, bracas [barbarum tecgmen] indutus togatos adloqueretur. (quod versicolori sagulo, bracas [barbarum tecgmen] indutus togatos adloqueretur: ‘because it was in a coarse, variegated, woollen plaid and wearing Gallic trousers (a barbarian body cover) that he addressed toga-wearing citizens’; quod …adloqueretur: quod is followed by subjunctive whenever the reason given reflects the opinion of someone other than the writer; bracas indutus: the passive indutus has middle sense and admits a direct object, like the perfect participle of deponent verbs; cf. B. 175, 2. d. The bracae were part of the typical Gallic dress and, in Roman eyes, indicative of barbarian customs, so much so in fact that Gallia Cisalpina, where the toga was worn, was called Gallia togata and Gallia Narbonensis Gallia bracata; Roman soldiers stationed in Gaul or Germany soon learnt to appreciate the bracae as protection against the cold climate. barbarum tecgmen: often expunged from the text because viewed as an interlinear comment by some ancient reader, added by mistake to the text by a subsequent copyst.) uxorem quoque eius Saloninam, quamquam in nullius iniuriam insignis equo ostroque veheretur, tamquam laesi gravabantur, (uxorem quoque eius, quamquam in nullius iniuriam insignis equo ostroque veheretur gravabantur: ‘ they also criticized his wife, although she just rode by on a horse with a purple coverlet, without intending harm to anyone’. uxorem gravabantur: the verb is deponent: ‘they bore his wife with reluctance’, ‘they viewed her with distaste’. quamquam …veheretur: quamquam is often found in Tacitus followed by subjunctive. insignis: ‘conspicuous’; in nullius iniuriam: lit. ‘for the injury of no one’; in + acc. noun can express purpose, ‘with a view to…’; uxorem …eius: not uxorem suam, as Caecina is not subject of the clause; cf. B. 85, 86.) insita mortalibus natura recentem aliorum felicitatem acribus oculis introspicere modumque fortunae a nullis magis exigere quam quos in aequo viderunt. Caecina Padum transgressus, temptata Othonianorum fide per conloquium et promissa, isdem petitus, postquam pax et concordia speciosis et inritis nominibus iactata sunt, consilia curasque in obpugnationem Placentiae magno terrore vertit, gnarus ut initia belli provenissent famam in cetera fore. (gnarus ut initia belli provenissent [ita] famam in cetera [belli] fore: lit. ‘conscious of the fact that, to the extent the outset of the war had been prosperous, so his good fame would remain for the rest [of the war]; provenissent: lit. ‘would have turned out to be favorable’. Note that the comparative sentence introduced by ut …[ita] is in indirect discourse after gnarus. The verb of the ut or dependent clause, provenissent, is in the subjunctive, that of the main or [ita] clause, fore or futurum esse, in the infinitive, in keeping with the rules governing indir. discourse.)