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

he had never before been in the habit of dreaming, after he had killed his
mother it seemed to him that he was steering a ship in his sleep and that
the helm was wrenched from his hands; that he was dragged by his wife
Octavia into thickest darkness, and that he was covered with a swarm
of winged ants, and now was surrounded by the statues of the nations
which had been dedicated in Pompey’s theatre and stopped in his tracks.
A Spanish steed of which he was very fond was changed into the form of
an ape in the hinder parts of its body, and its head, which alone remained
unaltered, gave forth tuneful neighs’).]
amore is an ablative of
comparison after the comparative leviores. Nero stressed repeatedly (note
the frequentative verb dictito) that love for this country outweighed any of
his other concerns. But the way that Tacitus puts the point still makes Nero
appear selfish: sibi is a dative of interest, whereas cura, in the parlance of
politics, refers to the diligent management of state affairs, public duties,
and civic responsibilities. The use of this term here in the basic sense of
‘thought’ or ‘concerns’ is thus disconcerting (not to say perverse), especially
in contrast to the effusive and emotional term amor. It points up Nero as an
incompetent regent of the empire, who oscillates between selfish interests
and empty gestures of affection for his people.
36.3 vidisse maestos civium vultus, audire secretas querimonias, quod
tantum itineris aditurus esset, cuius ne modicos quidem egressus
privatis necessitudinibus proxima pignora praevalerent, ita in re publica
populum Romanum vim plurimam habere parendumque retinenti.
This and the next two sentences are in indirect speech, reporting what
Nero said.
The two
asyndetic phrases are well balanced: two verbs of perceiving at the
beginning (vidisse, audire; see end of note for the shift from perfect to
present), followed by two accusative objects, consisting of an attribute
(maestos, secretas) and a noun (vultus, querimonias), with the genitive civium
best understood as modifying both. Despite the placement of civium in the