92 SYLVA CRITICA CANADENSIUM. 



On this passage Conington remarks tliat " Keiglitley seems right 

 ia saying that in agmine ought to have been strictly in acie. There 

 may be some rhetorical point in the catachresis to show the rapidity 

 with which the line of march is exchanged for line of battle." I think 

 that it is possible to give agmine its proper meaning, without assuming 

 any catachresis. The heavy burden of stakes under which the Roman 

 soldier is described, in the preceding line, as toiling along, would enable 

 him, as Conington says, to exchange with rapidity the line of march 

 for line of battle. As I take it, the idea conveyed is, that an enemy 

 surprises the Romans while on the march ; instantly each man plants 

 his stakes, and, to the amazement of the enemy, there is a stockade 

 to storm instead of a column with unprotected flanks. This may be 

 brought out, I think, without difficulty, by laying stress on agmine. 

 I would render thus : " Not otherwise than when the brave Roman 

 in the arms of his fathers, beneath an unequal burden wends his 

 way, and unexpectedly, with ' pitched camp confronts the foe, though 

 on the march." Perhaps, however, it is batter to make hosti depend 

 upon expectatum ; in which case the force of et will be more apparent ; 

 thus, " when, beneath an unequal burden, he wends his way ; and 

 suddenly, all unexpected by the foe, stands with pitched camp though 

 on the march." 



13. Juvenal, Satire XIII., v. 197. 



"Poena autem vehemens ac multo saevior illis, 

 Quas et GcBcUcius gravis invenit aut Rhadamantlius, 

 Noote dieque suum gestare in pectoi'e testem." 



Who the Csedicius here mentioned was, the commentators are unable 

 to discover. The scholiast, as usual, makes a guess, and gravely states 

 that Csedicius was either a cruel judge, or something else, in the reign 

 of Nero. It strikes me that the name is one coixied from the verb 

 cmdo, in which case it would be pretty nearly equivalent to " strike- 

 'em." Thus it would do duty either for the " Jack Ketch " of the 

 day, or for the cruel Draco of antiquity. 



14. Propei-tius, V. ix. 5. 



"Qua Velabra suo stagnabant flumine, quaque 

 Nauta per urbanas velilicabat aquas." 



"We have here one of those amusing attempts at derivation, in which 

 the ancients were fond of indulging. Mr. Paley has the following 

 note on this passage : " Velabra. — The low part of the city called the 

 Velabrum is here derived from vela, on the theory that it was once, 



