[157] Here the consul, to try the disposition of the inhabitants, and, should they allow him, to take advantage of the situation of the place, etc.--_Huc consul, simul tentandi gratiâ, et si paterentur, opportuniatis loci, praesidium imponit._ This is a _locus veratissimus_, about which no editor has satisfied himself. I have deserted Cortius and followed Dietsch, who seems to have settled the passage, on the basis of Havercamp's text, with more judgment than any other commentator. Cortius read, _Huc consul simul tentandi gratiâ, si paterent opportunitates loci_, etc., taking _opportuniatates_ in the sense of _munitiones_, "defenses;" but would Sallust have said _that Metellus put a garrison in the place, to try if its defenses would be open to him?_ Havercamp's reading is, _simul tentan si gratiâ, et si paterentur opportunitates loci_, etc. Palmerius conjectured _simul tentandi gratiâ, si paterentur; et opportunitate loci,_ which Gerlach and Kritsius adopt, except that they change the place of the _et_, and put it before _si_. Allen thinks that he has amended the passage by reading _Huc consul, simul si paterentur tentandi, et opportunitatis loci, gratiâ;_ but this conjecture is liable to similar objection with that of Cortius. Other varieties of reading it is needless to notice. But it is observable that four manuscripts, as Kritzius remarks, have _propter opportunitates,_ which led me long ago to suppose that the true reading must be _simul tentandi gratiâ, simul propter opportunitates loci. Simul propter_ might easily have been corrupted into _si paterentur_. [158] Frequent arrival of supplies--_Commeatum._ "Frumenti et omnium rerum quarum in bello usus est, largam copiam." _Kritzius_. I follow the text of Cortius (retaining the words _juvaturum ecercitum_) which Kritzius sufficiently justifies. There is a variety of readings, but all much the same in sense. [159] Extraordinary earnestness--_Impensius modo._ Cortius and Kritzius interpret this _modo_ as the ablative case of _modus; i. e. quam modus erat,_ or _supra modum;_ but Dietsch and Burnouf question the propriety of this interpretation, and consider the _modo_ to be the same as that in _tantummodo, dummodo,_ etc. The same expression occurs again in c. 75. [160] XLVIII. Running parallel with the stream--_Tractu pari._ It may be well to illustrate this and the following chapter by a copy of the lines which Cortius has drawn, "to excite," as he says, "the imagination of his readers:"