DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22272#0037
THE ANTONINE WALL REPORT.
19
ut potius sola consuescendo armis ao
viriliter dimicando terrain substanti-
olam conjuges liberos et quod his majus
est libertatem vitamque totis viribus
vindiearet, et gentibus nequaquam sibi
fortioribus nisi segnitia et torpore
dissolverentur ut inermes vinclis vin-
ciendas nullo modo sed instructas
peltis ensibus hastis et ad caedem
promptas protenderet manus, sua-
dentes ; quia et hoc putabant aliquid
derelinquendo populo commodi adcres-
cere, murum, non ut alteram, suraptu
publico privatoque adjunctis secum
miserabilibus indigenis, solito struc-
ture more, tramite a mari usque ad
mare inter urbes quae ibidem forte ob
metum hostium collocatae fuerant
directo librant . . . et valedicunt
tanquam ultra non reversuri.
xv. Itaque illis ad sua remeantibus
emergunt certatim de eurucis quibus
sunt trans Tithicam vallem vecti, quasi
in alto Titane incalescenteque canmate
de artissimis foraminum cavernulis
fusci vermiculorum cunei, tetri Scot-
orum I'ictorumque greges, moribus ex
parte dissidentes et una eademque
sanguinis fundendi aviditate Concordes
furciferosque magis vultus pilis quam
corporum pudenda pudendisque prox-
ima vestibus tegentes ; cognitaque con-
debitorum reversione et reditus de-
negatione, solito confidentius omnem
aquilonalem extremamque terrae par-
tem pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt.
Statuitur ad haec in edito arcis acies
segnis ad pugnam inhabilis ad fugam
trementibus praecordiis inepta, quae
diebus ac noctibus stupido sedili
marcebat. Interea non cessant un-
cinata nudorum tela quibus miserrimi
cives de muris tracti solo allidebantur.
Hoc scilicet eis proficiebat immaturae
mortis supplicium qui tali funere rapie-
bantur, quo fratrum pignorumque
suorum miserandas imminentes poenas
cito exitu devitabant. Quid plura ? Re-
withstand them. The Romans, there-
fore, left our country, intimating that
they could not any longer be annoyed
by making such laborious expeditions,
nor suffer the Roman standard (?) and
such and so great an army to be worn
out by land and sea against these
unwarlike and vagabond thieves, but
advising that the islanders should
rather, by accustoming themselves to
arms and fighting manfully, protect
their land, their substance, their wives,
their children, and what is greater
than these, their liberty and life with
all their strength; and that they should
be not dispersed like unarmed men tied
in chains by races no stronger than
themselves, unless it were for their
own idleness and torpor, but that they
should stretch forth their hands armed
with shields, swords, and spears ready
for battle. Because, too, they thought
this also would accrue to the advantage
of the people they were about to leave,
they, at the public and private cost
and with the assistance of the miserable
natives, erect a wall, not like the other
but made in the ordinary way of build-
ing, on a straight line, from sea to sea
between the cities, which in these parts
had happened to be built for fear of the
enemy. . . Then they bid farewell as
never to return.
XV. Forthwith, on their returning
to their own country, there emerge
from the currachs in which they had
been carried across the Tithican valley
(or the sea ?), like tawny troops of worms
coming out into the burning heat
of high noon from the narrowest
recesses of their holes, dread swarms
of Picts and Scots, differing from each
other in some customs but agreeing in
one and the same thirst for bloodshed,
and more desirous to cover their
villainous faces with beards than to
clothe their loins; knowing of the
departure of our allies, and of their
refusal to come again, they, with more
than their wonted confidence, seize all
the northern and further part of the
land as far as the wall. There is
placed to resist them, on the top of the
fortification, an army slow to fight and
ill-fitted to flee, useless, with trembling
hearts, who wasted their days and nights
in stupid inaction. Meanwhile the
hooked weapons of the naked enemy were
not idle, and with them the wretched
people were dragged from the wall and
dashed to the ground. This doom of
19
ut potius sola consuescendo armis ao
viriliter dimicando terrain substanti-
olam conjuges liberos et quod his majus
est libertatem vitamque totis viribus
vindiearet, et gentibus nequaquam sibi
fortioribus nisi segnitia et torpore
dissolverentur ut inermes vinclis vin-
ciendas nullo modo sed instructas
peltis ensibus hastis et ad caedem
promptas protenderet manus, sua-
dentes ; quia et hoc putabant aliquid
derelinquendo populo commodi adcres-
cere, murum, non ut alteram, suraptu
publico privatoque adjunctis secum
miserabilibus indigenis, solito struc-
ture more, tramite a mari usque ad
mare inter urbes quae ibidem forte ob
metum hostium collocatae fuerant
directo librant . . . et valedicunt
tanquam ultra non reversuri.
xv. Itaque illis ad sua remeantibus
emergunt certatim de eurucis quibus
sunt trans Tithicam vallem vecti, quasi
in alto Titane incalescenteque canmate
de artissimis foraminum cavernulis
fusci vermiculorum cunei, tetri Scot-
orum I'ictorumque greges, moribus ex
parte dissidentes et una eademque
sanguinis fundendi aviditate Concordes
furciferosque magis vultus pilis quam
corporum pudenda pudendisque prox-
ima vestibus tegentes ; cognitaque con-
debitorum reversione et reditus de-
negatione, solito confidentius omnem
aquilonalem extremamque terrae par-
tem pro indigenis muro tenus capessunt.
Statuitur ad haec in edito arcis acies
segnis ad pugnam inhabilis ad fugam
trementibus praecordiis inepta, quae
diebus ac noctibus stupido sedili
marcebat. Interea non cessant un-
cinata nudorum tela quibus miserrimi
cives de muris tracti solo allidebantur.
Hoc scilicet eis proficiebat immaturae
mortis supplicium qui tali funere rapie-
bantur, quo fratrum pignorumque
suorum miserandas imminentes poenas
cito exitu devitabant. Quid plura ? Re-
withstand them. The Romans, there-
fore, left our country, intimating that
they could not any longer be annoyed
by making such laborious expeditions,
nor suffer the Roman standard (?) and
such and so great an army to be worn
out by land and sea against these
unwarlike and vagabond thieves, but
advising that the islanders should
rather, by accustoming themselves to
arms and fighting manfully, protect
their land, their substance, their wives,
their children, and what is greater
than these, their liberty and life with
all their strength; and that they should
be not dispersed like unarmed men tied
in chains by races no stronger than
themselves, unless it were for their
own idleness and torpor, but that they
should stretch forth their hands armed
with shields, swords, and spears ready
for battle. Because, too, they thought
this also would accrue to the advantage
of the people they were about to leave,
they, at the public and private cost
and with the assistance of the miserable
natives, erect a wall, not like the other
but made in the ordinary way of build-
ing, on a straight line, from sea to sea
between the cities, which in these parts
had happened to be built for fear of the
enemy. . . Then they bid farewell as
never to return.
XV. Forthwith, on their returning
to their own country, there emerge
from the currachs in which they had
been carried across the Tithican valley
(or the sea ?), like tawny troops of worms
coming out into the burning heat
of high noon from the narrowest
recesses of their holes, dread swarms
of Picts and Scots, differing from each
other in some customs but agreeing in
one and the same thirst for bloodshed,
and more desirous to cover their
villainous faces with beards than to
clothe their loins; knowing of the
departure of our allies, and of their
refusal to come again, they, with more
than their wonted confidence, seize all
the northern and further part of the
land as far as the wall. There is
placed to resist them, on the top of the
fortification, an army slow to fight and
ill-fitted to flee, useless, with trembling
hearts, who wasted their days and nights
in stupid inaction. Meanwhile the
hooked weapons of the naked enemy were
not idle, and with them the wretched
people were dragged from the wall and
dashed to the ground. This doom of