Narrative in Eighth Book of the " Gallic War" 7 



cited is circumire. The verb peragcrc does not naturally lend 

 itself to the meaning "inspect," "make the round of," and seems 

 never to have been so employed.^-' Its essential and invariable 

 meaning is, " to go through with," " to bring to completion." It 

 ma}^ be applied to the work of completing a building, although this 

 usage is comparatively rare.^** It frequently takes as object nouns 

 in which the time element is prominent ; so also other compounds, 

 as well as the simple verb agere. The lexicons furnish abundant 

 illustrations. That hiberna may bear the meaning " winter," 

 "season in winter quarters," is sufficiently evidenced.^' If pera- 

 gere can not mean "inspect," and if the meaning "construct" is 

 excluded by facts from the present passage, Drumann and Lange 

 were right in taking hibernis pcractis to mean " at the end of 

 winter." Hiberna is employed instead of hienis to indicate the 

 place in addition to the season.^® But they went too far in using 

 the phrase as positive evidence for June (April or May of the 

 reformed calendar) as the date of the augural election. From a 

 military standpoint, winter, although not naturally to be thought 

 of as extending so far as the middle of August (the equivalent 

 in the reformed calendar of October i of the current calendar), 

 was more elastic in its application than in ordinary speech and 

 need not refer to the early spring months. The phrase hibernis 

 /'^rac/^u, therefore, while not necessarily implying so early a month 

 as June, suggests an earlier time than October i or late Septem- 

 ber for Caesar's first journey to Italy. 



The interpretation of hibernis pcractis adopted above and the 

 inference drawn therefrom are borne out by the relation of B. G., 



^^ P. Groebe expresses doubt as to Nissen's interpretation, Drumann- 

 Groebe, Gesch. Ronis, III, p. 349, 3. See also Hofifmann, De Origine, pp. 

 102-03. 



^*Suet., Otho 7, ad peragendam auream domum. The phrase hibernis 

 pcractis of our present passage can not be referred to the construction of 

 quarters for the winter of 50/49; these were established much later, after 

 the review of the army (cc. 52, i ; 54, 4). 



"Liv. XXIII, 46, 9, per hiberna; IX, 28, 2, XXXIV, 22, hiberna agere; 

 Verg., Aen. I, 266, hiberna transire (hiberna as subject) ; cf. Liv. XXVII, 

 8, 19; 21, 3, aestiva agere. 



^ See Conington on Verg., /. c. 



299 



