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

etiam. As often, Tacitus does not leave Nero’s crime as simple rapacity, but
introduces connotations of sacrilege and brutality as well.
An ablative absolute. spoliatis implies military
booty seized from a defeated foe, but here is used to convey the savage
execution of Nero’s fund-raising campaign. The targets of his greed and
desperation are the temples of the gods within the city of Rome: in urbe
makes clear that Nero’s abuse of the city did not stop at the building
of the Domus Aurea. Pliny the Elder, after listing the greatest works of
Greek art in Rome in his Natural History, finishes by saying (34.84): ‘And
among the list of works I have referred to all the most celebrated have
now been dedicated by the emperor Vespasian in the Temple of Peace
and his other public buildings; they had been looted by Nero, who
conveyed them all to Rome and arranged them in the sitting-rooms of
his Golden House.’
egestoque auro quod triumphis, quod votis omnis populi Romani
egesto auro is another ablative
absolute that leads into a quod-clause, in which Tacitus details what
kind of gold is at issue: the material investment made by successive
generations of Roman magistrates in their communication with the
divine sphere, either in situations of triumph (quod triumphis ~ prospere)
or of crisis (quod votis ~ in metu; Roman generals vowed gifts to the gods
in return for their support on the battlefield; it was often a measure of
last resort to avert defeat). The anaphora quod ... quod... lays emphasis
on the many grand occasions on which these golden statues had been
dedicated to the temples. The totalising omnis ... aetas makes explicit
Nero’s abuse of the shared and ancient Roman heritage, emphasised
by the formal term populi Romani. The polarities prospere aut in metu, set
off by variatio (adverb; in + abl.), cover the whole range, suggesting that
all precious objects were fair game to Nero. Finally, the verb sacraverat
reminds us of the holy origin of these items and Nero’s irreligiosity.
The triumph was the highest honour which could be
awarded to a victorious Roman general. Nero perverts this sacred ritual.
Far from celebrating public service and dedicating great riches to the
Roman people, he steals from the accumulated public treasure for his
own uses.