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

judiciously aporetic stance on whether the emperor was responsible
for setting Rome afire. But his Nero, too, is a murderous pervert with
disgusting inclinations (such as a penchant for Greek culture...) and a
prolific contributor to imperial Grand Guignol (as the French call theatre
that specializes in naturalistic horror shows) – to begin with, unwittingly
so. Here is the first sentence of the Nero-narrative (Annals 13.1.1–2):
Prima novo principatu mors Iunii Silani proconsulis Asiae ignaro Nerone
per dolum Agrippinae paratur, non quia ingenii violentia exitium
inritaverat, segnis et dominationibus aliis fastiditus, adeo ut C. Caesar
pecudem auream eum appellare solitus sit: verum Agrippina fratri eius L.
Silano necem molita ultorem metuebat, crebra vulgi fama anteponendum
esse vixdum pueritiam egresso Neroni et imperium per scelus adepto
virum aetate composita insontem, nobilem et, quod tunc spectaretur, e
Caesarum posteris: quippe et Silanus divi Augusti abnepos erat. haec
causa necis.
[The first death under the new principate, that of Junius Silanus, proconsul
of Asia, was brought to pass, without Nero’s knowledge, by treachery
on the part of Agrippina. It was not that he had provoked his doom by
violence of temper, lethargic as he was, and so completely disdained by
former despotisms that Gaius Caesar [sc. Caligula] usually styled him
‘the golden sheep’; but Agrippina, who had procured the death of his
brother Lucius Silanus, feared him as a possible avenger, since it was a
generally expressed opinion of the multitude that Nero, barely emerged
from boyhood and holding the empire in consequence of a crime, should
take second place to a man of settled years, innocent character, and noble
family, who – a point to be regarded in those days – was counted among
the descendents of the Caesars: for Silanus, like Nero, was the son of a
great-grandchild of Augustus. This was the cause of death...]
The imperial principle is evidently in play here: the book doesn’t start
with the new year and the new consuls, but with a new series of imperial
murders. As such it looks back to the beginning of the Tiberius narrative
– and forward to the set text: 50 later on in his reign, the grown-up Nero
takes care of business himself and kills off another Junius Silanus without
the help of his mother (by then herself a murder victim) because he was a
potential pretender to the throne, having similar dynastic credentials. The
incident is part of the set text: see 15.37. More generally, Tacitus makes it
abundantly clear that all of Nero’s reign lives up to its ominous beginnings,
50 See Annals 1.6.1 (on the beginning of Tiberius’ reign as princeps): primum facinus novi
principatus fuit Postumi Agrippae caedes (‘The opening crime of the new principate was the
murder of Agrippa Postumus’).