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

the hands of the divine power of the temple. The implied accusative object
of exterrente is eum/Neronem. The strengthened verb exterrente makes clear
just how much the numen managed to frighten the emperor (if it did).
The second option
is stressed by its length and its more complex syntax. The advanced
position of facinorum draws attention to them as the likely cause of Nero’s
sudden trembling. The litotes of numquam timore vacuus stresses the power
of the frightful memories lodged in his brain. It is an arresting image: Nero,
as he looks upon the images of the gods, breaking down in terror as he
remembers the crimes he has committed.
Tacitus will be thinking especially of Nero’s murder of his
half-brother Britannicus in AD 55, whose drink he poisoned; of his mother
Agrippina in AD 59, stabbed by his soldiers at his behest; and of the many
senators whom he forced to die. (The murder of Silanus is still fresh in
the mind of Tacitus’ readers and, so Tacitus suggests, also stayed fresh in
the mind of the emperor.) Tacitus emphasises Nero’s fear elsewhere in the
Annals. See, for instance, 14.10.1 (in the wake of the matricide): Sed a Caesare
perfecto demum scelere magnitudo eius intellecta est. reliquo noctis modo per
silentium defixus, saepius pavore exsurgens et mentis inops lucem opperiebatur
tamquam exitium adlaturam (‘But only with the completion of the crime was
its magnitude realized by the Caesar. For the rest of the night, sometimes
dumb and motionless, but not rarely starting in terror to his feet with a sort
of delirium, he waited for the daylight which he believed would bring his
end.’).
[Extra information:
For Nero suffering from bouts of religious anxiety, see also Suetonius,
Nero 46.1: Terrebatur ad hoc evidentibus portentis somniorum et auspiciorum
et omnium, cum veteribus tum novis. Numquam antea somniare solitus occisa
demum matre vidit per quietem navem sibi regenti extortum gubernaculum
trahique se ab Octavia uxore in artissimas tenebras et modo pinnatarum
formicarum multitudine oppleri, modo a simulacris gentium ad Pompei theatrum
dedicatarum circumiri arcerique progressu; asturconem, quo maxime laetabatur,
posteriore corporis parte in simiae speciem transfiguratum ac tantum capite
integro hinnitus edere canoros (‘In addition he was frightened by manifest
portents from dreams, auspices and omens, both old and new. Although