Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a
Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a
Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
misfired: once brought into the presence of the emperor, Poppaea succeeded<br />
in getting Nero infatuated <strong>with</strong> her, but, after the first adulterous night,<br />
played hard to get by insisting that she could not give up her marriage to<br />
Otho. To get rid of his rival, Nero broke his ties of friendship <strong>with</strong> Otho,<br />
debarred him from court, <strong>and</strong> ultimately appointed him as governor of<br />
Lusitania (present-day Portugal); there he remained for ten years until<br />
the outbreak of civil war in 68. After recording the appointment, <strong>Tacitus</strong><br />
abruptly discontinues his account of what happened between Nero <strong>and</strong><br />
Poppaea. One person who is an absent presence during this narrative<br />
stretch is Nero’s first wife Octavia, the daughter of his predecessor Claudius.<br />
<strong>Tacitus</strong> has Poppaea mention Acte (Nero’s concubine), but not Octavia. But<br />
once she displaced the emperor’s concubine, she also managed to have<br />
Octavia banished <strong>and</strong>, ultimately, killed – a gruesome sequence of events<br />
to which <strong>Tacitus</strong> devotes significant narrative space to end <strong>Annals</strong> 14 <strong>with</strong> a<br />
bang. Upon the trumped-up charge of having committed adultery <strong>with</strong> the<br />
prefect of the praetorian guard <strong>and</strong> then procured an abortion, Octavia was<br />
executed by Nero’s henchmen at the age of 20: after putting her in binds<br />
<strong>and</strong> opening her veins, they cut off her head <strong>and</strong> paraded it through the<br />
streets of Rome. Much to the delight of Poppaea.<br />
Poppaea herself was accidentally kicked to death by Nero in AD 65, when<br />
she was again pregnant, <strong>with</strong> the emperor acting just like other tyrants in<br />
the Greco-Roman tradition, such as Peri<strong>and</strong>er of Corinth. 105 <strong>Tacitus</strong> narrates<br />
the incident <strong>and</strong> its aftermath at 16.6, underscoring again how much the<br />
emperor loved his wife <strong>and</strong> would have liked to have children:<br />
Post finem ludicri Poppaea mortem obiit, fortuita mariti iracundia, a quo<br />
gravida ictu calcis adflicta est. neque enim venenum crediderim, quamvis<br />
quidam scriptores tradant, odio magis quam ex fide: quippe liberorum<br />
cupiens et amori uxoris obnoxius erat. corpus non igni abolitum, ut Romanus<br />
mos, sed regum externorum consuetudine differtum odoribus conditur<br />
tumuloque Iuliorum infertur. ductae tamen publicae exsequiae laudavitque<br />
ipse apud rostra formam eius et quod divinae infantis parens fuisset aliaque<br />
fortunae munera pro virtutibus.<br />
[After the close of the festival, Poppaea met her end through a chance<br />
outburst of anger on the part of her husb<strong>and</strong>, who felled her <strong>with</strong> a kick<br />
105 See Diogenes Laertius, Life of Peri<strong>and</strong>er: ‘However, after some time, in a fit of anger, he<br />
killed his wife by throwing a footstool at her, or by a kick, when she was pregnant,<br />
having been egged on by the sl<strong>and</strong>erous tales of concubines, whom he afterwards burnt<br />
alive.’ We cite the translation by R. D. Hicks in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge,<br />
Mass. <strong>and</strong> London, 1925) – <strong>with</strong> thanks to John Henderson for the reference.
Change language