Gallis—Pannoniis. People used for the countries. Cf. His. 5,6: Phoenices. Gaul, now France; Rhaetia, the country of the Grisons and the Tyrol, with part of Bavaria; Pannonia, lower Hungary and part of Austria. Germany was separated from Gaul by the Rhine; from Rhaetia and Pannonia, by the Danube.—Rheno et Danubio. Rhine and Rhone are probably different forms of the same root (Rh-n). Danube, in like manner, has the same root as Dnieper (Dn-p); perhaps also the same as Don and Dwina (D-n). Probably each of these roots was originally a generic name for river, water, stream. So there are several Avons in England and Scotland. Cf. Latham's Germania sub voc.
Sarmatis Dacisque. The Slavonic Tribes were called Sarmatians by the ancients. Sarmatia included the country north of the Carpathian Mountains, between the Vistula and the Don in Europe, together with the adjacent part of Asia, without any definite limits towards the north, which was terra incognita to the ancients—in short, Sarmatia was Russia, as far as known at that time. Dacia lay between the Carpathian mountains on the north, and the Danube on the south, including Upper Hungary, Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia.
Mutuo metu. Rather a poetical boundary! Observe also the alliteration. At the same time, the words are not a bad description of those wide and solitary wastes, which, as Caesar informs us (B.G. 6, 23), the Germans delighted to interpose between themselves and other nations, so that it might appear that no one dared to dwell near them.—Montibus. The Carpathian.—Cetera. Ceteram Germaniae partem.
Sinus. This word denotes any thing with a curved outline (cf. 29, also A. 23); hence bays, peninsulas, and prominent bends or borders, whether of land or water. Here peninsulas (particularly that of Jutland, now Denmark), for it is to the author's purpose here to speak of land rather than water, and the ocean is more properly said to embrace peninsulas, than gulfs and bays. Its association with islands here favors the same interpretation. So Passow, Or., Rit. Others, with less propriety, refer it to the gulfs and bays, which so mark the Baltic and the German Oceans.—Oceanus here, includes both the Baltic Sea, and the German Ocean (Oceanus Septentrionalis).
Insularum—spatia. Islands of vast extent, viz. Funen, Zealand, &c. Scandinavia also (now Sweden and Norway) was regarded by the ancients as an island, cf. Plin. Nat. His. iv. 27: quarum (insularum) clarissima Scandinavia est, incompertae magnitudinis.
Nuper—regibus. Understand with this clause ut compertum est. The above mentioned features of the Northern Ocean had been discovered in the prosecution of the late wars, of the Romans, among the tribes and kings previously unknown. Nuper is to be taken in a general sense==recentioribus temporibus, cf. nuper additum, § 2, where it goes back one hundred and fifty years to the age of Julius Caesar.—Bellum. War in general, no particular war.—Versus. This word has been considered by some as an adverb, and by others as a preposition. It is better however to regard it as a participle, like ortus, with which it is connected, though without a conjunction expressed. Ritter omits in.
Molli et clementer edito. Of gentle slope and moderate elevation in studied antithesis to inaccesso ac praecipiti, lofty and steep. In like manner, jugo, ridge, summit, is contrasted with vertice, peak, height, cf. Virg. Ecl. 9, 7: molli clivo; Ann. 17, 38: colles clementer assurgentes. The Rhaetian Alps, now the mountains of the Grisons. Alp is a Celtic word==hill. Albion has the same root==hilly country. Mons Abnoba (al. Arnoba) is the northern part of the Schwartzwald, or Black Forest.—Erumpat, al. erumpit. But the best MSS. and all the recent editions have erumpat: and Tacitus never uses the pres. ind. after donec, until, cf. Rup. & Rit. in loc. Whenever he uses the present after donec, until, he seems to have conceived the relation of the two clauses, which it connects, as that of a means to an end, or a condition to a result, and hence to have used the subj. cf. chap. 20: separet; 31: absolvat; 35: sinuetur; Ann. 2, 6: misceatur. The two examples last cited, like this, describe the course of a river and boundary line. For the general rule of the modes after donec, see H. 522; Z. 575. See also notes H. 1, 13. 35.—Septimum. According to the common understanding, the Danube had seven mouths. So Strabo, Mela, Ammian, and Ovid; Pliny makes six. T. reconciles the two accounts. The enim inserted after septimum in most editions is not found in the best mss. and is unnecessary. Or. & Rit. omit it.
II. Ipsos marks the transition from the country to the people—the
Germans themselves. So A. 13: Ipsi Britanni.
Crediderim. Subj. attice. A modest way of expressing his opinion, like our: I should say, I am inclined to think. H. 486, I. 3; Z. 527.
Adventibus et hospitiis. Immigrants and visitors. Adventibus certae sedes, hospitiis preregrinationes significantur. Gün. Both abstract for concrete. Död. compares [Greek: epoikoi] and [Greek: metoikoi].