Note 382 — Chapter VII · (Year of Rome 699.) (Book IV of the “Commentaries.”) INCURSIONS OF THE USIPETES AND THE TENCTERI—FIRST PASSAGE OF THE RHINE—FIRST DESCENT IN BRITAIN—CHASTISEMENT OF THE MORINI AND THE MENAPII.

Word for word, this expression signifies that the ships set sail four days after the arrival of the Romans in England. The Latin language often employed the ordinal number instead of the cardinal number. Thus, the historian Eutropius says, “Carthage was destroyed 700 years after it was founded, Carthago septingentesimo anno quam condita erat deleta est.” Are we, in the phrase, post diem quartum, to reckon the day of the arrival?—Virgil says, speaking of the seventeenth day, septima post decimam.—Cicero uses the expression post sexennium in the sense of six years. It is evident that Virgil counts seven days after the tenth. If the tenth was comprised in this number, the expression septima post decimam would signify simply the sixteenth day. On his part, Cicero understands clearly the six years as a lapse of time which was to pass, starting from the moment in which he speaks. Thus, the post diem quartum of Cæsar must be understood in the sense of four days accomplished, without reckoning the day of landing.