Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/41

 the occasion, or emergency." If this had been the author's meaning, he would probably have used either the words ad occasionem, or pro re nata. But even allowing the phrase to be susceptible of this meaning, it is not the meaning which Tacitus chose to give it in this passage. That the author meant that the Dictator was created for a limited time, is, I think, evident from the sentence immediately following, which is connected by the copulative neque with the preceding: Dictaturæ ad tempus sumebantur: neque Decemviralis potestas ultra biennium valuit: "The