Venus==concubitus.—Pubertas==facultas generandi. Gr. Cf. Caes, B.G. 6, 21: qui diutissime impuberes permanserunt maximam inter suos ferunt laudem.
Virgines festinantur==nuptiae virginum festinantur, poetice. The words properare, festinare, accelerare are used in both a trans. and intrans. sense, cf. Hist. 2, 82: festinabantur; 3, 37: festinarentur. Among the Romans, boys of fourteen contracted marriage with girls of twelve. Cf. Smith's Dic. Ant.
Eadem, similis, pares. The comparison is between the youth of the two sexes at the time of marriage; they marry at the same age, equal in stature and equal in strength. Marriages unequal in these respects, were frequent at Rome.—Pares—miscentur. Plene: pares paribus, validae validis miscentur. On this kind of brachylogy, see further in Död. Essay on style of T., H. p. 15. Miscentur has a middle sense, as the passive often has, particularly in Tacitus. Cf. note 21: obligantur.
Referunt. Cf. Virg. Aen. 4, 329: parvulus Aeneas, qui te tamen ore referret. See note, 39: auguriis.
Ad patrem. Ad is often equivalent to apud in the best Latin authors; e.g. Cic. ad Att. 10, 16: ad me fuit==apud me fuit. Rhenanus by conjecture wrote apud patrem to correspond with apud avunculum. But Passow restored ad with the best reason. For T. prefers different words and constructions in antithetic clauses. Perhaps also a different sense is here intended from that which would have been expressed by apud. Wr. takes ad in the sense, in respect to: as in respect to a father, i.e. as they would have, if he were their father.
Exigunt, sc. hunc nexum==sororum filios.
Tanquam. Like Greek os to denote the views of others, not of the writer. Hence followed by the subj. H. 531; Z. 571.
Et in animum. In==quod attinet ad, in respect to. The commonly received text has ii et animum, which is a mere conjecture of Rhen. According to K., teneant has for its subject not sororum filii, but the same subject as exigunt. Render: Since, as they suppose, both in respect to the mind (the affections), they hold it more strongly, and in respect to the family, more extensively.
Heredes properly refers to property, successores to rank, though the distinction is not always observed.—Liberi includes both sons and daughters.
Patrui, paternal uncles; avunculi, maternal.