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

‘In times of crisis, the senate sometimes decreed public
days of prayer, on which the whole citizenry, men, women, and children,
went from temple to temple throughout the city praying for divine aid
(supplicationes). In turn, a favorable outcome of such prayers led to public
days of thanksgiving, on which the citizen body gave thanks for their
deliverance.’ 111
After his victory over Mark
Antony at Actium (on the coast of Western Greece) in 31 BC, Octavian
founded the city of Nicopolis (‘Victory City’) nearby. Every five years,
it was to hold Greek games in memory of the victory, modelled on the
Games at Olympia: see Suetonius, Augustus 18. A Roman colony may
have been set up in the vicinity. But, as R. A. Gurval points out, ‘Nicopolis
was, above all, a Greek city with Greek institutions. Its local government,
coinage, and public inscriptions were Greek.’ 112 In establishing Greek forms
of entertainment in Italy and Rome, the senate, then, seems to have tried
to pander to the philhellenic passions of the emperor – much to the ire of
Tacitus, who despised the Greeks. We have already had occasion to discuss
Nero’s ill-fated gymnasium (see above on 15.22.2). The topic will resurface
forcefully later on in the set text. Here it is important to note that the
senators clearly knew how to please their princeps. But in Tacitus’ narrative,
the contrast between the foundational victory of Octavian at Actium,
which brought to an end a century of intermittent civil bloodshed, and the
successful birth of Nero’s doomed baby daughter remains: it strikingly
underscores the utter lack of proportion in the farcical measures proposed.
Two sister goddesses of Fortune were worshipped
in Antium, and their images are taken to the Capitol in Rome in a lunatic’s
idea of honouring Antium, the birthplace of Nero’s un-fortunate daughter.
Jupiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus was Rome’s
supreme divinity; he had his main temple in Rome on the Capitoline Hill.
111 Hickson Hahn (2007) 238. She goes on to note the problem in terminology that ensues:
‘The term “supplication” (supplicatio) illustrates this problem [i.e. how to determine
whether a visual representation of prayer constituted a petition, oath, or thanksgiving]
well. The Romans used the same word to identify public days of prayer and offering for
propitiation, expiation, and thanksgiving.’
112 Gurval (1995) 69.