Ea vis numini, i.e. these gods render the same service to the Germans, as Castor and Pollux to the Romans.
Alcis, dat. pl. Perhaps from the Slavonic word holcy==kouros, Greek for Castor and Pollux. Referable to no German root.
Peregrinae, sc. Greek or Roman.—Tamen. Though these gods bear no visible trace of Greek or Roman origin, yet they are worshipped as brothers, as youth, like the Greek and Roman Twins.— Superstitionis==religionis. Cf. notes, His. 3, 58; 5, 13.
Lenocinantur. Cherish, increase. Used rhetorically; properly, to pander.—Arte, sc. nigra scuta, &c.—Tempore, sc. atras noctes, &c. —Tincta==tattooed.
Ipsaque formidine, etc. And by the very frightfulness and shadow of the deathlike army. Umbra may be taken of the literal shadows of the men in the night, with Rit., or with Död. and Or., of the general image or aspect of the army. Feralis, as an adj., is found only in poetry and post-Augustan prose. See Freund.
Gothones. Probably the Getae of earlier, and the Goths of later history. See Or. in loc. and Grimm and other authorities as there cited. The Rugii have perpetuated their name in an island of the Baltic (Rugen).
Adductius. Lit. with tighter rein, with more absolute power cf. His. 3, 7: adductius, quam civili bello, imperitabat. The adv. is used only in the comp.; and the part. adductus is post-Augustan. Jam and nondum both have reference to the writer's progress in going over the tribes of Germany, those tribes growing less and less free as he advances eastward: already under more subjection than the foregoing tribes, but not yet in such abject slavery, as some we shall soon reach, sc. in the next chapter, where see note on jam.
Supra. So as to trample down liberty and destroy it.
Protinus deinde ab, etc. Next in order, from the ocean, i.e. with territory beginning from or at the ocean.
XLIV. Suionum. Swedes. Not mentioned under this name, however, by any other ancient author.