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

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The (Senonian) Gauls had captured and burned Rome in 390 BC on this same date. This is indeed a fascinating coincidence; but we must remember that there were a great number of fires in Rome, and that the dating of such earlier conflagrations may well have been both less than precise and open to a little massaging, way back in Rome’s history. The sack of Rome by the Gauls was remembered fearfully throughout Rome’s life as one of its lowest points, so the comparison here is an indication of how dire an event the Great Fire seemed to people. Notice how Tacitus stresses that the previous fire was during a military capture (captam), both reinforcing his imagery of the fire as an invading army and hinting further at the more inglorious causes attached to this modern fire (i.e. the emperor himself starting it – ‘then it was our great enemies, now it is our own leader!’). (Conversely, the coincidence could well be mustered as an argument against the suspicion that Nero played arsonist, at least of the first fire: would he have chosen a date that would inevitably have associated him with one of Rome’s worst enemies and nightmares?) alii eo usque cura progressi sunt ut totidem annos mensesque et dies Miller has the following rather curious note here: ‘from 390 B.C. to A.D. 64 is (on Roman inclusive reckoning) 454 years: this can be expressed as 418 years, 418 months (34 years, 10 months) and 418 days (14 months). The calculation has about as much real significance as have attempts to express the names of, e.g., Napoleon or Hitler in terms of the number of the Beast in Revelation 13,18, and Tacitus’ comment indicates his opinion of such activities’ 175 – curious since there are compelling scholarly arguments that the number of the Beast in Revelation in fact signifies – Nero! 176 Given the apocalyptic anticipations in the run-up to the year 2000 (are you old enough to remember the hysteria caused by the ‘Y2K bug’ and the ‘millennium doomwatch’?) or, more recently, the press coverage of the ancient Mayan calendar insofar as it predicted the end of the world on 21 December 2012, we are in a good position to appreciate the kind of anxieties caused by prophecies that circulated in Neronian Rome. Tacitus makes abundantly plain that he views this alleged coincidence as very contrived. The phrase eo usque, the strong verb progressi sunt (gone, advanced) and the result clause (ut...) all indicate that the men who made these calculations were stretching things rather. Nevertheless, he wants to 175 Miller (1973) 93. 176 Klauck (2003).
include it as a potentially amusing little nugget of information (and perhaps a derisive comment on how far some people go on these occasions to make supernatural sense of things). Cf. Cassius Dio 62.18.3: ‘When some portents took place at this time, the seers declared that they meant destruction for him and they advised him to divert the evil upon others.’ John Henderson recommends reading this passage with Livy in mind: ‘Tacitus expects those who know the historian Livy’s account of the Gallic Sack to remember how (well) Camillus underlines the count of years – 365, yes indeed: a significant number under the new Julian calendar! – that the gods looked after Rome since the foundation by Romulus: far too much to throw away ... (5.54.5: the religious arguments ‘moved them’ most to stay put in their ruins, 5.55.1!).’ An ablative of cause. ( Nero’s architectural hubris attracted significant attention from litterateurs. Two voices that can usefully be compared with Tacitus’ account in the following chapters are those of Suetonius and Martial. See Suetonius, Nero 31.1–3: Non in alia re tamen damnosior quam in aedificando domum a Palatio Esquilias usque fecit, quam primo transitoriam, mox incendio absumptam restitutamque auream nominavit. De cuius spatio atque cultu suffecerit haec rettulisse. Vestibulum eius fuit, in quo colossus CXX pedum staret ipsius effigie; tanta laxitas, ut porticus triplices miliarias haberet; item stagnum maris instar, circumsaeptum aedificiis ad urbium speciem; rura insuper arvis atque vinetis et pascuis silvisque varia, cum multitudine omnis generis pecudum ac ferarum. 2 In ceteris partibus cuncta auro lita, distincta gemmis unionumque conchis erant; cenationes laqueatae tabulis eburneis versatilibus, ut flores, fistulatis, ut unguenta desuper spargerentur; praecipua cenationum rotunda, quae perpetuo diebus ac noctibus vice mundi circumageretur; balineae marinis et albulis fluentes aquis. Eius modi domum cum absolutam dedicaret, hactenus comprobavit, ut se diceret quasi hominem tandem habitare coepisse. 3 Praeterea incohabat piscinam a Miseno ad Avernum lacum contectam porticibusque conclusam, quo quidquid totis Baiis calidarum aquarum esset converteretur; fossam ab Averno Ostiam usque, ut navibus nec tamen mari iretur, longitudinis per centum sexaginta milia, latitudinis, qua contrariae quinqueremes commearent. Quorum operum perficiendorum gratia quod ubique esset custodiae in Italiam deportari, etiam scelere convictos non nisi ad opus damnari praeceperat.
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Mathew Owen and Ingo Gildenhard Tac
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Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45 La
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Contents 1. Preface and acknowledge
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1. Preface and acknowledgements
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as to inform. Finally, for each cha
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At the outset of his Annals, which
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69 - 79 Vespasian In Rome from 75 o
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It would be misleading... to concep
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the Roman aristocracy remained a hi
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a text, early imperial Rome comes a
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in which he employed yet another ge
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Period Regime/ emperor in charge Ch
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In his history of Rome and Roman hi
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to the two high magistrates who ent
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One conspicuous aspect of the Annal
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centre of gravity is displaced to a
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judiciously aporetic stance on whet
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Stage 1: AD 54-58 Stage 2: AD 59-63
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this policy involves his presence i
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The passage offers excellent insigh
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interfered. Moreover, he identifies
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3. Latin text with study questions
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exim Cretensis, -e reus agor, agi,
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privatus, -i, m. viso, -ere, visi,
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adsensus, -us, m. celebro, -are, -a
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ultra (+ acc.) appello, -are, -avi,
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in dies cupido, -inis, f. adigo, -e
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arbitror, -ari, -atus sum providus,
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munus, -eris, n. frequento, -are, -
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omitto, -ere, -misi, -missum in inc
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adquiro, -ere, -quisivi, -quisitum
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prodo, -ere, -didi, -ditum circus,
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ago, -ere, egi, actum Palatium, -ii
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demum imus, -a, -um Esquiliae, -aru
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insula, -ae, f. numerum ineo, -ire,
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ceterum ruina, -ae, f. proinde ...
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Gallicus, -a, -um distinctio, -onis
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piaculum, -i, n. Sibyllae libri, -o
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confero, -ferre, -tuli, -latum perv
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The assigned portion of text begins
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Then a sudden transition in narrati
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starring Thrasea Paetus, are an exc
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conveys a sense of function, purpos
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additional offence outweighs the ot
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e (or traditionally were)? We may a
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. Illustration (sic...) c. Gnomic g
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disapproved of flowery rhetoric as
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[Therefore, after everything was pr
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omnibus libidinum inlecebris replet
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‘tu regere imperio populos, Roman
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whereby (quo)... we depart from the
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conducive to Thrasea’s argument -
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thinly masked by rhetorical general
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especially arresting. (Note that as
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The construction - a conditional se
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for almost everyone else the mind a
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We are still in AD 62, but Tacitus
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senatorumque interitus, quamvis pro
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he visits Roman society like a wrat
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Tacitus thus twins the abomination
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Candidates for the priesthood, girl
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Rufus chose for his tombstone (6.10
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Rufus and refocus attention from re
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during pregnancy. That poison playe
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who had made vows for his health wh
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‘In times of crisis, the senate s
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equirement of someone who took on t
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Take this as a benchmark and you co
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(in predicative position and govern
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This is another instance of Tacitea
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the major hyperbaton cupidine ... p
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Tacitus here takes a step back. Ner
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Nero imagines that his feats on sta
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position in the list, seems highly
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[62] M. Licinio L. Calpurnio consul
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at the spur of the moment. Possibly
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foedissima eius aulae ostenta is th
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The asyndetic tricolon, which consi
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up the disgust: as if the bluest of
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urial and the validity of the accus
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took a detour with the character po
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Tacitus endows Nero’s formulation
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the hands of the divine power of th
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first phrase, the second is slightl
Page 174 and 175: Tacitus goes on to explain why the
Page 176 and 177: ( Chapter 37 locis struere convi
Page 178 and 179: A purpose clause: quo = ut eo.
Page 180 and 181: The general Agrippa was one of Augu
Page 182 and 183: Roman morality, and for noble women
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Page 186 and 187: moral pollution of these men. The m
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Page 190 and 191: Tacitus here records a telling dyna
Page 192 and 193: consumed by fire’, he rejoined
Page 194 and 195: The author of the Octavia (a so-cal
Page 196 and 197: The parallels between Quintilian’
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Page 200 and 201: His (and Nero’s) assimilation of
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Page 204 and 205: An ablative of manner, which amount
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Page 208 and 209: ... audebat), he again continues wi
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Page 212 and 213: The sack of the mighty city of Troy
Page 214 and 215: conflagration; and given the number
Page 216 and 217: But one could turn this around if o
Page 218 and 219: Romani opes ornarent potius quam au
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Page 230 and 231: inritae spei. The idea of the canal
Page 232 and 233: Chapter 43 nulla distinctione nec
Page 234 and 235: In Tacitus, the emphatic nulla and
Page 236 and 237: uinis erat; vacuas areas occupare e
Page 238 and 239: were meant to patrol the aqueducts
Page 240 and 241: ( Chapter 44 44.1 Et haec quidem h
Page 242 and 243: quam mulierum disciplinam contineri
Page 244 and 245: offering up scapegoats to cover his
Page 246 and 247: the Romans’ point of view - a con
Page 248 and 249: c-alliteration conveying Tacitus’
Page 250 and 251: After dilaceration, Tacitus lists t
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Page 254 and 255: etiam. As often, Tacitus does not l
Page 256 and 257: onis artibus) he received. Tacitus
Page 258: The failure of the plan is stressed
Page 262 and 263: Fisher, C. D. (ed.) (1906), Corneli
Page 264 and 265: —. (2010), Monument und Inschrift
Page 266 and 267: Kraus, C. S. and Woodman, A. J. (19
Page 268: Sumi, G. S. (2005), Ceremony and Po
Page 273: Rome’ by Richardprints @ Wikimedi
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This book does not end here... At O
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Tacitus, Annals, 15.20­-23, 33­-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a

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