Durant siquidem, etc. On the whole, I am constrained to yield to the authority and the arguments of Wr., Or., Död., and Rit., and place the pause before durant, instead of after it as in the first edition. Durant precedes siquidem for the sake of emphasis, just as quin immo (chap. 14) and quin etiam (13) yield their usual place to the emphatic word. These are all departures from established usage. See notes in loc. cit. Que must be understood, after paulatim: it is inserted in the text by Ritter.
Rarescunt. Become fewer and farther apart. So Virg. Aen. 3, 411: Angusti rarescent claustra Pelori.
Chattos suos. As if the Chatti were the children of the Forest, and the Forest emphatically their country. Passow.
Prosequitur, deponit. Begins, continues, and ends with the Chatti. Poetical==is coextensive with.
Duriora, sc. solito, or his, cf. Gr. 256, 9.—Stricti, sinewy, strong, which has the same root as stringo.
Ut inter Germanos, i.e. pro ingenio Germanorum, Gün. So we say elliptically: for Germans.
Praeponere, etc. A series of infinitives without connectives, denoting a hasty enumeration of particulars; elsewhere, sometimes, a rapid succession of events. Cf. notes, A. 36, and H. 1, 36. The particulars here enumerated, all refer to military proceedings.
Disponere—noctem. They distribute the day, sc. as the period of various labors; they fortify the night, sc. as the scene of danger. Still highly poetical.
Ratione. Way, manner. Al. Romanae.
Ferramentis. Iron tools, axes, mattocks, &c.—Copiis. Provisions.