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The passage is important, as illustrating the spirit and design of the whole Treatise. The work was not written as a blind panegyric on the Germans, or a spleeny satire on the Romans. Neither was it composed for the purpose of stirring up Trajan to war against Germany; to such a purpose, such a clause, as urgentibus imperii fatis, were quite adverse.
Maneat, quaeso, duretque gentibus, si non amor nostri, at certe odium sui: quando, urgentibus imperii fatis, nihil jam praestare fortuna majus potest, quam hostium discordiam. XXXIV. Angrivarios et Chamavos a tergo Dulgibini et Chasuarii cludunt aliaeque gentes, haud perinde memoratae. A fronte Frisii excipiunt.
Urgentibus fatis, sc. to discord and dissolution, for such were the forebodings of patriotic and sagacious minds ever after the overthrow of the Republic, even under the prosperous reign of Trajan. XXXIV. A tergo, i.e. further back from the Rhine, or towards the East A fronte, nearer the Rhine or towards the West. Frisii, the Frieslanders. Majoribus virium.
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