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

equirement of someone who took on the role of ‘princeps’: the elevated
position of ‘the first or most outstanding member of society’ required
permanent justification, not least vis-à-vis those who had held that
role before. Nero could clearly not hold his own in terms of military
achievement, so he decided to excel in a field of social practice on which no
princeps had hitherto left a conspicuous mark: cultural activities cultivated
in Greece. Meanwhile, as John Henderson reminds us, what he forgot was
the meaning of the dual Fortunes’ rule over Antium – ‘Fortune’ and (her
opposite number) ‘Mis-Fortune’ (Or as Horace puts it at Odes 1.35.1–4: O
diva, gratum quae regis Antium, | praesens vel imo tollere de gradu | mortale
corpus vel superbos | vertere funeribus triumphos; ‘Divine Fortune, who rules
over pleasing Antium, ready to raise a mortal body from the lowest rung or
change proud triumphs into funeral processions’). He might have reflected
both on what befell the gens Iulia when Bovillan Augustus’ daughter Julia
was born (he divorced her mother Scribonia and took the baby ‘on the same
day’: Dio 48.34.4) and that these games were most likely one feature of
Tiberius’ celebration of Augustus’ death and deification (or ‘deathification’).
And as for the Claudian clan, it was more lunacy to insist simultaneously
on both Nero’s adoptive and birth lineage; and it was less than fortunate
a reminder to recall the end of the last Claudian princess Octavia, whose
gruesome death Tacitus had just recounted at the end of the previous book.
exortae adulationes censentium honorem divae et pulvinar aedemque et
sacerdotem. atque ipse ut laetitiae, ita maeroris immodicus egit.
quae is a connecting
relative (= ea). fuere = fuerunt. All the efforts were as written on water. Tacitus
announces this anticlimax with laconic brevity and a mocking f-alliteration.
quartum intra mensem defuncta infante is a good example of another hallmark
of Tacitean style, that is, the surprising distribution of information across
main and subordinate clauses. Here the ‘vital’ element is packed into a
(causal) ablative absolute, with the participle (defuncta) and noun (infante)
further delayed for special effect. The language is very matter-of-fact and
unelaborated, again contrasting the simple reality of the death with the
extravagant honours previously listed. In terms of syntax (and placement
in the sentence) the phrase mirrors dato et Poppaeae eodem cognomento at 23.1
and the two ablative absolutes thus bracket the birth and the death of Nero’s
daughter, adding to the overall sense of futility and finality.