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

‘oderam te’, inquit. ‘nec quisquam tibi fidelior militum fuit, dum amari
meruisti: odisse coepi, postquam parricida matris et uxoris, auriga et histrio
et incendiarius extitisti.’
[He said: ‘I hated you. No one of the soldiers was more loyal to you while
you deserved to be loved. I began to hate you after you became the murder
of your mother and your wife, a charioteer and actor, and an arsonist.’]
To come to terms with Tacitus’ account of the fire, it will be useful to begin
by establishing some background, which we will do under the following
four headings: (a) Emperors and fires in the Annals; (b) Other accounts
of the Neronian fire; (c) Tacitus’ creative engagement with the urbs-capta
motif; (d) Nero’s assimilation of the fire of Rome to the fall of Troy.
Annals
Tacitus mentions other significant fires elsewhere in his Annals; they had
been a staple item in the city of Rome’s annual records from the year
dot: but now Tacitus makes sure each time to comment on the fact that
the event shaped the relation between the emperor and his subjects.
These passages provide telling foils and benchmarks for the way Nero
dealt with the challenge. Here is Annals 4.64 on events from AD 27 that
occurred right after that collapse of the amphitheatre at Fidena (see above
on 15.34.2):
Nondum ea clades exoleverat cum ignis violentia urbem ultra solitum
adfecit, deusto monte Caelio; feralemque annum ferebant et ominibus
adversis susceptum principi consilium absentiae, qui mos vulgo, fortuita
ad culpam trahentes, ni Caesar obviam isset tribuendo pecunias ex modo
detrimenti. actaeque ei grates apud senatum ab inlustribus famaque apud
populum, quia sine ambitione aut proximorum precibus ignotos etiam et
ultro accitos munificentia iuverat.
[The disaster had not yet faded from memory, when a fierce outbreak of
fire affected the city to an unusual degree by burning down the Caelian Hill.
‘It was a fatal year, and the decision of the princeps to absent himself had
been adopted despite evil omens’ – so men began to remark, converting,
as is the habit of the crowd, the fortuitous into the culpable, when the
Caesar checked the critics by a distribution of money in proportion to loss
sustained. Thanks were returned to him; in the senate, by the noble; among
the people, by a rise in his popularity: for without respect of persons, and
without the intercession of relatives, he had aided with his liberality even
unknown sufferers whom he had himself encouraged to apply.]