XCVIII.
Ac (ac: has more or less the same force as et; Latin is very fond of using connectives to open a new paragraph, more so than English.) primo Valerius Festus legatus (Valerius Festus legatus: apparently in Africa to keep an eye on the governor Lucius Piso. Festus will appear again in Book 4, ch. 48, 49.) studia provincialium cum fide iuvit; mox nutabat, palam epistulis edictisque Vitellium, occultis nuntiis Vespasianum fovens et haec illave defensurus, (haec illave defensurus: lit. ‘ready to defend these or those’, i. e. Vitellius’ or Vespasian’s party. As noted more than once, the free use of the future participle as an adjective is post-classical. The enclitic –ve is for vel or aut) prout invaluissent. (prout invaluissent: ‘in the measure that they might have shown promise’; prout is here with subjunctive to express a potential idea.) deprehensi cum litteris edictisque Vespasiani per Raetiam et Gallias militum et centurionum quidam ad Vitellium missi necantur: plures fefellere, fide amicorum aut suomet (suomet: -met is an emphatic postfix.) astu occultati. ita Vitellii paratus noscebantur, Vespasiani consiliorum pleraque ignota, primum (primum: adverb, ‘first of all’; not to be confused with primo, ‘at first’) socordia Vitellii, dein Pannonicae Alpes (Pannonicae Alpes: the Julian Alps, the mountains between SW Austria and Slovenia on one side and NE Italy on the other.) praesidiis insessae nuntios retinebant. mare quoque etesiarum flatu (etesiarum flatu: the etesian winds blow from the northwest during the summer, making it difficult to sail from the Middle East to southern Europe.) in Orientem navigantibus secundum, inde adversum erat.