Note 19 — Chapter IV · A New Interpretation

Velleius, II, 105, 3. Dio indeed (56, 18, 2) speaks of the Roman soldiers in Varus’ time as “spending the winter in Germany”. The tense used, however, the imperfect, at the head of a series of the same tenses which are used in the inceptive sense, shows clearly that the word means no more than: “were beginning to spend the winter.” A single instance would be sufficient justification for the expression.