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
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he aimed at. <strong>Tacitus</strong> could almost certainly have had little evidence for this<br />
generalisation of the mindset of the Roman spectators at the time. But there<br />
are other instances in which the cruelty on display triggered unexpected<br />
feelings of pity. Compare, for instance, the sympathy the Roman audience<br />
felt towards the elephants that were slaughtered as part of the games staged<br />
by Pompey the Great to celebrate his victories in the Eastern Mediterranean. 199<br />
quamquam modifies the prepositional<br />
phrase (‘albeit towards guilty persons’). Focalization is an issue here: who<br />
considers the Christians guilty? And of what? <strong>Tacitus</strong>? He previously cast<br />
the Christians as scapegoats, so not responsible for the fire, but could<br />
have regarded them as criminals in a more general sense. Or the Roman<br />
populace? (If they pitied the Christians despite believing them to be<br />
guilty of causing the fire, it would make the miseratio even more striking.)<br />
The<br />
contrast is once again between public duty <strong>and</strong> private desire, articulated by<br />
the antithesis of publica <strong>and</strong> unius. Bestial monarchic power overshadows<br />
public need; the contrast between the positive utilitate <strong>and</strong> the highly negative<br />
saevitiam, is sharp to begin <strong>with</strong> <strong>and</strong> further reinforced by the variatio: <strong>Tacitus</strong><br />
moves from an ablative phrase (utilitate publica; an ablative of cause) to in +<br />
acc. + gen. (in saevitiam unius), <strong>with</strong> the change of construction emphasising<br />
the second half. Nero did not manage to shed his image as arsonist. <strong>Tacitus</strong><br />
famously returns to this failure in his account of the conspiracy of Piso when<br />
narrating the sentencing of Subrius Flavus (15.67, cited above).<br />
(<br />
Chapter 45<br />
<br />
sociique populi et quae civitatium liberae vocantur. inque eam praedam<br />
etiam dii cessere, spoliatis in urbe templis egestoque auro quod triumphis,<br />
quod votis omnis populi Romani aetas prospere aut in metu sacraverat.<br />
<strong>Tacitus</strong> now focuses attention on the economic consequences of Nero’s<br />
efforts to rebuild the burnt-out city <strong>and</strong> his ravaged reputation. The<br />
199 Cicero, ad Familiares 7.1.
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