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

With ipse, Tacitus introduces a shift in focus. So far, he has adopted a panoramic
survey approach towards recording what happened at the party; now he
zooms in on the emperor. After conveying a general sense of the proceedings,
we get a detailed, close-up look at what Nero himself got up to. Apparently,
the emperor indulged his depraved appetites without inhibition at the party, a
factoid that Tacitus uses as a foil for something even more obscene, an account
of his mock-marriage to Pythagoras. Nero’s erotic license also attracted the
attention of other writers. Suetonius, for instance, devotes two full chapters of
his biography to the sexual transgressions of the emperor (28–29), including the
tid-bit that Nero, when his aptly named freedman Doryphorus (Greek for the
‘Spear-bearer’ – Suetonius’ equivalent to Tacitus’ Pythagoras), ‘finished him off’
on his ‘wedding night’ went so far as ‘to imitate the cries and lamentations of a
maiden being deflowered.’ Tacitus’ reticence contrasts (favourably?) with the
sensationalist gusto of the biographer who lovingly dwells on each unsavoury
detail. Whereas Nero (and his biographers) glory in letting it all hang out,
Tacitus abides by the principle, enshrined in his own name [Tacitus ~ tacitus
= the perfect passive participle of taceo, ‘I make no utterance, am silent, say
nothing’], that some stuff is best shrouded in the veils of narrative obscurity.
Put differently, Suetonius strips, Tacitus teases. 144
Neronian vice covers the entire spectrum of
possibilities, but Tacitus uses an oxymoron to articulate the comprehensive
nature of his debauchery. In principle, it is difficult to defile oneself per licita,
but Nero somehow manages the impossible. Conversely, Tacitus intimates
that in Nero’s perverse indulgence in public disgrace, even otherwise
sanctioned forms of erotic activity become filthy and hideous.
A very strong and ugly verb, suggesting how utterly Nero
disgraced himself and sullied any sense of public morals.
flagitii is a partitive genitive dependent on nihil. The
pronounced hyperbole again makes clear Nero’s degeneracy, suggesting
that Nero saw this party as an opportunity to debase himself and made
sure he left nothing out.
144 Cf. Annals 11.27 where Tacitus dismissively speaks of imperial Rome as a society in
which there are no secrets and no topic is off-limits (in civitate omnium gnara et nihil
reticente). His historiography is not least an attempt to establish a dignified voice within
this sea of incessant, shameless chatter.