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

Then a sudden transition in narrative registers occurs. With the first word
of the set text (exim), we join the senate meeting, in which this decree came
to pass, and witness the next item on the agenda in ‘real time’ (as it were):
the lawsuit against the Cretan power-broker Claudius Timarchus. From
then on we we get a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings and are even
treated to a direct speech from the Stoic Thrasea Paetus (20.3–21.4). This
meeting of the senate, which suddenly comes to life, is the last event of AD
62 that Tacitus reports in detail. As such it harks back to how his account
of the year began at 14.48: also with a lawsuit and a meeting of the senate
in which the same figure starred as here – Thrasea Paetus. For a proper
appreciation of 15.20–22, and in particular its protagonist, we therefore
need to know of this earlier occasion – which we accordingly discuss at
some length in our Introduction (see section 6).
Chapter 20
20.1 Exim Claudius Timarchus Cretensis reus agitur, ceteris criminibus
ut solent praevalidi provincialium et opibus nimiis ad iniurias minorum
dictitasset in sua potestate situm an pro consulibus qui Cretam
obtinuissent grates agerentur.
The section consists of two sentences:
a. exim ... elati;
b. una ... agerentur.
They feature more or less parallel syntax: in each case, a main clause (exim
... agitur; una ... penetraverat) is followed by a sequence of subordinate
clauses. In thematic terms, however, the design is obliquely asymmetrical.
The first main clause sets up the entire scene, whereas the second main
clause harks back not to the first main clause (its apparent syntactic
counterpart) but to the subordinate constructions that follow it: una vox
correlates antithetically with ceteris criminibus. The design downplays the
generalizing cetera crimina: they are awkwardly tagged on in an ablative
absolute and further elaborated in an elliptical ut-clause, in contrast to the
one specific vox, which is the subject and in first position. Sandwiched as
they are between two main clauses that lead from the introduction of the
defendant to the one offence (the una vox) that brought him to the attention
of the senate, they are syntactically glossed over.