XV.
Igitur lacessentibus Batavis (lacessentibus Batavis: abl. abs. of causal sense: ‘the Batavi challenging [the Romans] to a fight’; Tacitus relies heavily on ablatives absolute to expedite the action; other examples in the first two sentences are orta trepidatio, notis vadis, omissa … fronte.) ferocissimo cuique nostrorum coeptum certamen, (ferocissimo cuique nostrorum coeptum certamen: ‘the engagement was begun by the most spirited of our men’. ferocissimo cuique is dat. of agent, frequently used by Tacitus with the tenses of passive verbs that require the perfect participle.) deinde orta trepidatio, cum praealtis paludibus arma equi haurirentur. (cum … haurirentur: example of temporal cum used in narration (narrative cum), found only with imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive. ) Germani notis vadis persultabant, omissa plerumque fronte latera ac terga circumvenientes. Neque ut in pedestri acie comminus (comminus: the original text has comminus minus, the added minus being certainly a scribe’s error.) certabatur, sed tamquam navali pugna vagi inter undas aut, si quid stabile occurrebat, totis illic corporibus nitentes, vulnerati cum integris, periti nandi (periti nandi: as in nandi pavidus in previous chapter, nandi is objective genitive after adjectives denoting ability or lack of it.) cum ignaris in mutuam perniciem implicabantur. Minor tamen quam pro tumultu caedes, (minor tamen quam pro tumultu caedes: pro + abl. after a comparative expresses disproportion: lit. ‘less losses than in comparison with the confused fight’; cf. G. 298.) quia non ausi egredi paludem Germani in castra rediere. (quia … rediere: as a rule, if the cause is factual, quia is with any tense of the indicative.) Eius proelii eventus utrumque ducem diversis animi motibus ad maturandum summae rei discrimen (ad maturandum … discrimen: maturandum may be gerund (active), with discrimen as its direct object, or gerundive (passive): in the first case it means ‘to force the final issue’, in the second case it means lit. ‘for the final issue to be forced’.) erexit. Civilis instare fortunae, Cerialis abolere (instare … abolere: hist. infinitives or infinitives of narration) ignominiam: Germani prosperis feroces, Romanos pudor excitaverat. Nox apud barbaros cantu aut clamore, nostris per iram et minas (cantu aut clamore, … per iram et minas: two ways to express means or instrument, simple abl. and per + acc.) acta. (nox … acta [est]: ‘the night was spent in …’)