Key to Reading Unit 17

1. A full stomach argues about fasts without difficulty.
   
   
2. The envoys of the Germans said that they would report these things to their people and, when the matter had been considered, would return to Caesar after the third day. (Caesar, de Bello Gallico, IV, 9, 1 adapted)
   
   
3. I am happy, father, to be praised by you, a praised man. (from the tragedy Hector proficiscens of Naevius, one of the earliest Roman writers (late 3rd century BC); only the barest fragments of his works survive)
   
   
4. Caesar, after arranging the supply of corn and choosing cavalry, made a journey to those places in which he heard the Germans were. (Caesar, de Bello Gallico, IV, 7, 1 adapted)
   
   
5. To this (lit. these things) Caesar replied that there could be no friendship for him with them if they stayed in Gaul, and it was not right for those who could not guard their own territories to occupy those of others. (Caesar, de Bello Gallico, IV, 8, 1 adapted)
   
   
6. When we are in good health we all give correct advice to the sick without difficulty. (Terence, Andria, 309)
   
   
7. The person who says you are vicious, Zoilus, is lying. You are not a vicious man, Zoilus, you are vice. (Martial, XI, 92)
   
   
8. Whatever you want you say that it is nothing, shameless Cinna; if you want nothing, Cinna, [then] Cinna, I refuse you nothing (lit. I deny nothing to you). (Martial, III, 61)
   
   

9. Ambiorix spoke in this fashion: he admitted that he owed Caesar much for his favours (lit. for Caesar’s favours to him he owed much to him) because through his (i.e. Caesar’s) doing he had been freed of the tribute which he had paid to his neighbours, the Aduatuci, and because both his son and his brother’s son, whom the Aduatuci had kept in slavery and chains after they had been sent in a group of hostages, had been returned to him; and what he had done in the matter of the siege of the camp he had done through neither his judgement nor his will but through the coercion of his community. (Caesar, de Bello Gallico, V, 27, 2-3 adapted)

10. They worship the god Mercury most of all. Of him there are many images; they say that he is the inventor of all skills, that he is the guide for travels and journeys, [and] they consider that he has great power for the acquisition of money and for trade (questūs and mercaturās are plural but we would use singular nouns in English). After him [they worship] Apollo and Mars and Jupiter and Minerva. About these they have pretty much the same idea as other peoples: that Apollo drives off diseases, Minerva supplies the fundamentals of handicrafts and trades, Jupiter holds sway over the celestials (i.e. gods and goddesses), Mars rules wars. To this [last god], when they have decided to fight in battle, they normally vow as a sacrifice what they take (lit. will have taken) in war. When they have been victorious they sacrifice all living things captured and they bring everything else into one spot. In many communities mounds of these objects have been raised in sacred places. And it does not often happen that through neglect of religious feeling anyone dares either to hide captured objects in his house or to take them when set up (lit. placed), and a heavy punishment with torture has been decreed for this offence (lit. thing). (Caesar, de Bello Gallico, VI, 17 adapted)

(c) Gavin Betts 2000