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

of true religion (superstitio). See Pliny the Younger, Epistles 10.96.8: nihil
aliud inveni quam superstitionem pravam, immodicam (‘But I discovered
nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.‘), and Suetonius, who
in his biography of Nero notes the emperor’s persecution of Christians
though without reference to the fire (16.2):
Multa sub eo et animadversa severe et coercita nec minus instituta: adhibitus
sumptibus modus; publicae cenae ad sportulas redactae; interdictum
ne quid in popinis cocti praeter legumina aut holera veniret, cum antea
nullum non obsonii genus proponeretur; afflicti suppliciis Christiani,
genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae; vetiti quadrigariorum lusus,
quibus inveterata licentia passim vagantibus fallere ac furari per iocum ius
erat; pantomimorum factiones cum ipsis simul relegatae.
[During his reign many abuses were severely punished and put down,
and no fewer new laws were made: a limit was set to expenditures; the
public banquets were confined to a distribution of food; the sale of any
kind of cooked viands in the taverns was forbidden, with the exception
of pulse and vegetables, whereas before every sort of dainty was exposed
for sale. Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a
new and mischievous superstition. He put an end to the diversions of the
chariot drivers, who from immunity of long standing claimed the right of
ranging at large and amusing themselves by cheating and robbing people.
The pantomimic actors and their partisans were banished from the city.]
With supreme economy, Tacitus uses the forceful attribute exitiabilis
(‘deadly’, ‘bringing death or destruction’) to hint at the nature of the
charges commonly brought against the Christians, such as the killing of
infants (see above). But it suits neither his style nor his purpose to delve
into lurid details. Instead, he goes on to generalize on Rome as a cesspool
of the world, a place where everything immoral or atrocious (whether to
do with religion or otherwise) quasi-naturally converges: see below on quo
... celebranturque.
rursum erumpebat, non modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per
The vivid verb erumpebat (‘burst out’) conveys the Roman fear
of this allegedly dangerous sect, an effect further enhanced by the potent
phrase originem eius mali. The province of Judaea was the region around
Jerusalem in modern Israel/Palestine. urbem, as usual, refers to Rome.
quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda c c
A savage comment on multiculturalism in Rome, with the hard