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

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Chapter 44
44.1 Et haec quidem humanis consiliis providebantur. mox petita dis
piacula aditique Sibyllae libri, ex quibus supplicatum Vulcano et Cereri
Proserpinaeque ac propitiata Iuno per matronas, primum in Capitolio,
deinde apud proximum mare, unde hausta aqua templum et simulacrum
quibus mariti erant.
haec refers back to the measures covered in the previous chapters. In
addition to efforts that relied on human skill and ingenuity, Nero and
his advisers looked into the perceived supernatural dimension of the
fire. The Romans had the option of ascribing catastrophic events at
least in part to the will of the gods, as an expression of their wrath
with human failings in religious observance. In the aftermath of natural
or military disasters, they therefore tried to figure out what had gone
wrong and what they needed to do to make amends, to re-establish
good relations with the divine sphere. The chapter is therefore replete
with technical words from Roman ritual and cult: piacula, Sibyllae libri,
supplicatum, propitiata, templum et simulacrum deae, sellisternia, pervigilia.
The persistent use of perfect passives (petita, aditi, supplicatum, propitiata,
perspersum, with sunt/est systematically elided except in the last item)
conveys a sense of the formality characteristic of ritual proceedings –
as does the pronounced p-consonance petita ... piacula ... supplicatum
... Proserpinae ... propitiata ... primum ... apud proximum ... templum ...
perspersum ... pervigilia.
mox petita [sc. sunt] A piaculum is an expiatory offering to an
offended divinity, though it can also refer to an act or event (such as a natural
disaster) that requires expiation. dis [= deis] is in the dative. The Romans
looked into making atonements to the gods they held responsible for the fire.
Tacitus uses noun + genitive (lit. ‘the books of the
Sibyl’) rather than the more usual Sibyllini libri (‘Sibylline books’). These were
a collection of prophecies consulted by the Romans in times of dire national
crisis (hence Tacitus’ stress on them). The greatest sibyl (a female priestess