Historiae 2

[CSGD]

That's true.
But qius day would I then understand like "which day =which of many possible days'' would that be, but qui dies I would understand as "what kind of day =what will this day look like". Is my understanding of these pronouns wrong? It would seem more logical to me that Vespasian is pondering the second option als what it will be like ...

There really is no difference between quis used adjectivally and qui. Your take that it can or should be read in the sense of "qualis", i.e. what that day will look like, seems fine to me, but it doesn't really hinge on whether the author uses qui or quis. They're interchangable.

 

[Katarina]

Oh really? I thought there was a difference.

 

[Pacifica]

Well, there sometimes is. For instance, if you say quis ille est? you're probably asking "who is that man?" in the sense of inquiring about his identity (his name and the like), whereas if you say qui ille est? you're more likely asking what kind of person he is is. But there is some leeway with these tendencies, and I don't see this distinction being really applicable to the Tacitus sentence that you quoted.

 

[Katarina]

ut primum tantae altitudinis obfusam oculis caliginem disiecit, militariter locutus laeta omnia et affluentia excepit;

I have difficulties understanding that part. My commentary suggest these are phrases for congratulation. I can't find anything like that in any dictionary so I am checking also your experiences. How would you understand this? I can see logic with congratulations but I have seen also different translations, though they doesn't seem as logical to me ...

 

[Katarina]

sexaginta milia armatorum sequebantur, licentia corrupta; calonum numerus amplior, procacissimis etiam inter servos lixarum ingeniis;

To Vitellius and his agmen followed another 60.000 soldiers, corrupted by licence. But with them was even more servants of these soldiers and the sutlers were the most insolent even between the slaves.
The first problem here is that the sutlers were not slaves as far as I know. But the calones were. Am I right? Sow how can this sentence stand? If he was saying that sutlers were so insolent that they were even more insolent than slaves I would find strange this sentence since that would be something normal I suppose but T. is explaining here how corrupted everything was ...

 

[Inak]

But it's servos lixarum - slaves of sutlers, not sutlers - to whom he compares calones.

 

[Dantius]

I don't think that's right — lixarum goes with ingeniis ("with the ingenia of the lixae being especially procacia even among slaves"); in this case I think lixae and calones are being used fairly equivalently. In the L&S entry for lixa, we see "A. In plur.: lixae, camp-followers, consisting of sutlers, cooks, servants, etc."