[878] An obscure sentence: 'Per hospitia quodammodo vestra discurritis qui per patriam navigatis.' The idea seems to be: 'You have to sail about from one room to another of your own house, and therefore Ravenna will seem like a neighbouring inn.'
[879] The next four sentences describe the movement of the ships when towed along the channels of the streams (Brenta, Piave, Tagliamento, &c.) the deposits from which have made the lagunes.
[880] 'Venetiae praedicabiles.' An allusion, no doubt, as other commentators have suggested, to the reputed derivation of Venetia from Αινετοι, 'the laudable.'
[881] Alluding probably to the story of the floating island of Delos.
[882] 'Earum similitudine.' Does Cassiodorus mean 'like the water-fowl,' or 'like the Cyclades?'
[883] The reading of Nivellius (followed by Migne), 'Domicilia videntur sparsa, quae Natura non protulit sed hominum cura fundavit,' seems to give a better sense than that of Garet, who omits the 'non.'
[884] 'Inde vobis fructus omnis enascitur, quando in ipsis, et quae non facitis possidetis.'
[885] 'Moneta illic quodammodo percutitur victualis.' Some have supposed that these words point to a currency in salt; but I think they are only a Cassiodorian way of saying 'By this craft ye have your wealth.'
[886] This is the only translation I can suggest of 'quatenus expensas necessarias nulla difficultate tardetis, qui pro qualitate aeris compendium vobis eligere potestis itineris.'