_Hoc--vinculum_, So, § 13: haec apud illos toga. In both passages the allusion is to Roman customs (for which see Becker's Gallus, Exc. 1. Scene 1). In Germany, _these presents_ take the place of the _confarreatio_ (see Fiske's Manual, p. 286. 4. ed.), and the various other methods of ratifying the marriage contract at Rome; _these_, of the religious rites in which the parties mutually engaged on the wedding day (see Man., p. 287).--_Conjugales deos_. Certain gods at Rome presided over marriage, e.g. Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Jugatinus, Hymenaeus, Diana, &c. _Extra_. Cic. would have said _expertem_ or _positum extra_. But T. is fond of the adv. used elliptically. _Auspiciis==initiatory rites_. _Denuntiant, proclaim, denote.--Accipere_ depends on _denuntiant_ or _admonetur_. _Rursus, quae--referantur_. Rhenanus conjectured; rursusque--referant, which has since become the common reading. But _referantur_ is the reading of all the MSS., and needs no emendation; and _quae_, with as good authority as _que_, makes the construction more natural and the sense more apposite. The passage, as Gr. well suggests, consists of two parts (_accipere--reddat_, and _quae--accipiant--referantur_), _each_ of which includes the _two_ ideas of _receiving_ and _handing down_ to the next generation. Render thus: _she is reminded that she receives gifts, which she is to hand over pure and unsullied to her children; which her daughters-in-law are to receive again_ (sc. from her sons, as she did from her husband), _which are to be transmitted by them to her grand-children_. _Referantur_. In another writer, we might expect _referant_ to correspond in construction and subject with _accipiant_. But Tacitus is fond of varying the construction. Cf. Bötticher's Lex Tac., and note, 16: _ignorantur_. XIX. _Septa_. So the MSS. for the most part. Al. _septae_. Meaning: _with chastity guarded_, sc. by the sacredness of marriage and the excellent institutions of the Germans. _Nullis--corruptae_. Here, as every where else in this treatise, T. appears as the censor of Roman manners. He has in mind those fruitful sources of corruption at Rome, public shows, (cf. Sen. Epist. 7: _nihil vero est tam damnosum bonis moribus, quam in aliquo spectaculo desidere_), convivial entertainments (cf. Hor. Od. 3, 6, 27), and epistolary correspondence between the two sexes. _Litterarum secreta_==litteras secretas, _secret correspondence_ between the sexes, for this limitation is obvious from the connexion.-- _Praesens. Immediate_. _Maritis permissa_, sc. as a _domestic_ crime, cf. Caes. B.G. 6, 19: Viri in uxores, sicut in liberos, vitae necisque habent potestatem. Cf. Beck. Gall., Exc. 1. Sc. 1. _Accisis crinibus_, as a special mark of _disgrace_, cf. 1 Cor. 11, 6. So in the laws of the Lombards, the punishment of adulteresses was _decalvari et fustigari.--Omnem vicum, the whole village_, cf. Germania omnis, § 1.--_Aetate==juventa_.