XCIV.
Ceterum (ceterum: ignored in translation; see note for ceterum in ch. 21.) non ita ducibus indulsit Vitellius ut non plus militi liceret. (non ita ducibus indulsit Vitellius ut non plus militi liceret: consecutive sentence with the correlstive particles ita …ut non heading the main clause and the dependent clause respectively: lit. ‘Vitellius did not so indulge his generals that more was not permissible to the soldiers’; both indulgeo and licet govern dative. Noteworthy is the fact that the verbs of the two parts of a consecutive sentence need not be in the same mood or tense.) sibi quisque militiam sumpsere: (sibi quisque militiam sumpsere: ‘every one selected the branch of army service for himself’; the singular quisque is often found with a plural verb; sibi is dat. of advantage.) quamvis indignus, si ita maluerat, urbanae militiae adscribebatur; (si ita maluerat, urbanae militiae adscribebatur: logical conditional sentence with indicative in both protasis and apodosis: simply stated, one set of facts is accompanied by another; given A, B follows. The use of pluperfect indicative in the protasis and imperfect in the apodosis indicates repeated occurrence in the past; in such cases si can be taken as meaning ‘given that …’ or ‘every time that …’. Cf. A.G. 514, D. 2.) rursus (rursus: ‘on the other hand’) bonis remanere inter legionarios aut alaris volentibus permissum. nec deerant qui vellent, (nec deerant qui vellent: subjunctive in rel. clause of characteristic; cf. note for nec deerant …qui … quidam … mercarentur in Book 1, ch. 88.) fessi morbis et intemperiem caeli incusantes; robora tamen legionibus alisque subtracta, convulsum castrorum decus, viginti milibus (viginti milibus: Vitellius had disbanded the urban militia of nine praetorian and three urban cohorts (cf. ch. 67); to replace these he now he enrols sixteen praetorian and (probably) four urban cohorts, each with a strength of one thousand men.) e toto exercitu permixtis magis quam electis. Contionante Vitellio (contionante Vitellio: abl. abs. in place of a temporal clause) postulantur ad supplicium Asiaticus et Flavus et Rufinus duces Galliarum, (Asiaticus et Flavus et Rufinus duces Galliarum: these three men are otherwise unknown.) quod pro Vindice bellassent. (quod pro Vindice bellassent: quod + subjunctive, since the reason given is not the author’s, but one alleged by Vitellius’ troops; for Vindex see Book 1, ch. 6.) nec coercebat eius modi voces Vitellius: super insitam [mortem] ([mortem]: probably a word added as a gloss on supplicium (above) by a reader of the earliest surviving manuscript copy of the Histories. As such it can be ignored.) animo ignaviam conscius sibi instare donativum (conscius sibi instare donativum: ‘well-aware that the donative was moving in on him’; sibi is dat. with instare.) et deesse pecuniam omnia alia militi largiebatur. liberti principum (liberti principum: variously interpreted as ‘imperial freedmen’, ‘the freedmen of the palace’, ‘the freedmen of Vitellius’ predecessor’, ‘the freedmen of prominent citizens’; in any case, ex-slaves who had done well for themselves.) conferre pro numero mancipiorum ut tributum (ut tributum: ‘in the manner of a tribute’) iussi: ipse sola perdendi cura (sola perdendi cura: abl. abs., ‘his only concern being of squandering’) stabula aurigis extruere, circum gladiatorum ferarumque spectaculis opplere, tamquam in summa abundantia pecuniae inludere. (extruere … opplere … inludere: infinitives of narration or hist. infinitives)