Tacitus, Annals, 15.20­-23, 33­-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a

Candidates
for the priesthood, girls between 6 and 12 years of age, were offered by
their families for the honour. When they were selected by the chief priest
(Pontifex Maximus), he said, ‘te, Amata, capio’ (I take you, beloved one): this
is the reason for the verb here. 102 The Cornelia in question might have
been the daughter of Cornelius Cossus, one of the consuls of AD 60. 103
Tacitus’ readers would know her gruesome destiny. In AD 91, when she
had become Vestalis maxima, the emperor Domitian had her accused of
incestum (‘sexual impurity and hence profanation of the religious rites’).
She was found guilty and, despite pleading her innocence, executed by
being buried alive. See Suetonius, Domitian 8.4 and the harrowing account
by Pliny, Letters 4.11.6–13.
The Cornelii Cossi went all the way back to the 5th century BC, i.e.
the early years of republican Rome. A member of this branch of the gens
Cornelia, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, was the second one of just three Roman
generals ever who won the so-called spolia opima (‘rich spoils’) – the armour
stripped from an opposing general after he had been killed in single combat
(in Cossus’ case the king of the Etruscan town Veii, Lars Tolumnius: see Livy
4.17–20 for the details). Reflect, before reading on, that the sacred institution
of the Vestal priesthood (with its impeccable republican pedigree and
personnel) provided for the replenishment of its stock of girls in case of
loss: you won’t find monarchy coping half so smoothly with the perils
menacing its self-perpetuation. Now read on:
( 63
Chapter 23
Tacitus’ account of the year AD 63 comprises Annals 15.23–32. The set
text only includes the initial paragraph (23) and then vaults forward
to the start of AD 64 at 15.33. The stretch left out primarily covers – in
spectacularly telling contrast – military developments in the Near East. In
the meantime, we have a royal birth! A daughter! A dead duck.
102 See Wildfang (2006), Ch. 3: ‘Vestal initiation – the rite of captio’.
103 Koestermann (1968) 62.