The annals of Tacitus

90 NOTES
Seneca de Clementia 23 (addressed to Nero !) writes : pessimo loco
pietas fuit, postquam saepius culleos uidimus quam cruces [Mayor];
who (on Juvenal I.e.) adds these particulars from other writers
' Sewn up in a sack with impious animals, the impious man
is carried down to the sea on a wagon drawn by black oxen.
Excluded from the air of heaven and from burial in earth, the
criminal is shut up, like with like, with the parricide viper, the
ape that squeezes its young to death, and impious creatures that
fight with their parents.'
10. exsequi accusationem adigitur, a poetical and Tacitean
use. Cf. c. 45.
13. exprobrauerat, ' had thrown in his teeth.'
17. medium tempus uarie arguens, ' bringing various charges
with regard to the interval.'
18. etiam si tormeiita...euenissent, 'even though, owing to
the obstinacy of the slaves, the examination by torture disproved
his guilt.'
30
1. dictis sententils, i.e. in the Senate.
2. more maiorum, i.e. by scourging to death. Cf. ii 32
more prisco aduirtere.
quo molliret inuidiam, ' in order to mitigate the odium.'
intercessit. The Emperor had the power of veto bv virtue of
his potestasjfihiniiri/i. See Introduction v.
3. Gyaro, one of the Cyclades, a common place of exile.
Donusa, a small island near Naxos, either the modern Stenosa
or Heraclia.
4. aspernatus est, ' rejected.'
5. uitae usus, ' means of living,' 'necessaries of life.'
8. de praemiis accusatorum abolendis. See c. 20, and
Introduction vi. /v'lll C^))
maiestatis postulatus. Cf. c. 31.
10. ibatur in earn sententiam, 'the motion was being carried,'
i.e. ' on the point of being carried.'
11. contra...palam, ' with unusual openness.'
12. inrltas leges, sc. fore.
in praecipiti, ' on the brink of a precipice.'
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