Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a
Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a
Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
<strong>Tacitus</strong> here records a telling dynamic that also informs – mutatis<br />
mut<strong>and</strong>is – the Neronian fire. The people of Rome, he reports, are wont<br />
to ascribe responsibility for disasters to their leader, whom they charge<br />
<strong>with</strong> disregarding crucial pieces of supernatural intelligence that – so the<br />
assumption – could have averted the catastrophes if properly heeded.<br />
<strong>Tacitus</strong>, adopting the stance of enlightened <strong>and</strong> skeptical historiographer,<br />
mocks the people for positing causalities where there are none. Yet at the<br />
same time, both he (<strong>and</strong> the emperor) realize that these popular delusions<br />
about causal relationships between political <strong>and</strong> religious leadership on<br />
the one h<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> general well-being or, conversely, suffering on the other<br />
are very real in their consequences. If the groundswell of negative opinion<br />
intensified, it could destabilize the political order, lead to riots, <strong>and</strong> cause<br />
a regime change (or at least a swap on top). 150 Tiberius achieves a moodswing<br />
through some swift <strong>and</strong> decisive action: a well-orchestrated, public<br />
show of concern, combined <strong>with</strong> material generosity towards all <strong>and</strong><br />
sundry. These measures are so effective that his popularity ratings rise<br />
again. Catastrophes, then, put leaders under pressure, not least in the<br />
court of public opinion: they can either be deemed to have risen to the<br />
challenge or to have failed to meet it. Tiberius proved adept in his crisismanagement.<br />
He pulled off a similar stunt towards the end of his reign.<br />
Here is <strong>Annals</strong> 6.<strong>45.</strong>1–2 (AD 36, the year before his death):<br />
Idem annus gravi igne urbem adfecit, deusta parte circi quae Aventino<br />
contigua, ipsoque Aventino; quod damnum Caesar ad gloriam vertit<br />
exsolutis domuum et insularum pretiis. miliens sestertium in munificentia<br />
ea conlocatum, tanto acceptius in vulgum, quanto modicus privatis<br />
aedificationibus...<br />
[The same year saw the capital visited by a serious fire, the part of the<br />
Circus adjoining the Aventine being burnt down along <strong>with</strong> the Aventine<br />
itself: a disaster which the Caesar converted to his own glory by paying<br />
the full value of the mansions <strong>and</strong> tenement-blocks destroyed. One<br />
hundred million sesterces were invested in this act of munificence, the<br />
more acceptably to the multitude as he showed restraint in building on<br />
his own behalf...]<br />
150 A fictional compar<strong>and</strong>um occurs in the first chapter of J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter <strong>and</strong> the<br />
Half-Blood Prince: ‘The Other Minister’, where the British (Muggle) Prime Minister is held<br />
responsible by his political opponents for a series of catastrophes (some nasty murders,<br />
the collapse of a bridge, a hurriance, the dismal weather): they gloatingly explain ‘why<br />
each <strong>and</strong> every one of them was the government’s fault’.
Change language