In fine style, Thrasea finishes with a succinct summary of his proposal: Magno adsensu celebrata sententia. The ellipsis of est gives the impression of a pithy parallelism, with two phrases in which an attribute magno , celebrata is followed by a noun adsensu , sententia. The use of the passive both here and in the following sentence keeps Thrasea in the limelight.
The other senators remain an anonymous collective. The subject of the sentence is consultum , modified by senatus in the genitive. Here it did not come to pass since the consuls, who presided over the proceedings, intervened. The ablative absolute abnuentibus consulibus has causal force, with abnuentibus introducing an indirect statement, with the infinitive again in the passive: Afinius object to an actual resolution on formal grounds: This part of his argument was extra causam , and while it received the enthusiastic support of the majority of senators, the consuls were wary to add new items, especially those of far-reaching consequences, to the official agenda ad hoc since they had not yet been able to check whether they had the support of the emperor.
And this particular proposal came from Thrasea, who had already upset the emperor on previous occasions with his independence. More specifically, the passage here harks back to the incident with which Tacitus begins his account of the year Just as the two speeches by Thrasea mirror each other, so does the reaction of the presiding consuls.
Their negative intervention here recalls their reaction at The scenario affords us telling insights into the workings of the imperial system, and the interrelation of power and character. Thrasea speaks his mind, without regard for the consequences. The moral majority retains its protective anonymity but can be fired up. Thrasea does not care what the princeps thinks or how he may react; for almost everyone else the mind and disposition of the emperor is the yardstick for their own thoughts and actions.
The temporal adverb mox presumably refers to a point in time in the same year AD What do you think is going on? And does your Tacitus want us to fathom, to wonder, or to flounder? See Cassius Dio It is not entirely clear whether his measure was effective, ineffectual to begin with, or fell into abeyance after a while. After votes of thanks were made in the council, a delegation was sent to Rome to report it to the senate. The law aimed to end both aspects of this practice i. The sentence has an air of formality and may well be modelled on the language of the decree itself.
This institution, which had Hellenistic and republican precedents, came into its own under Augustus, as an important site of communication between the centre of imperial power in Rome and the provinces: The concilium met, usually, once a year, and after the rites discussed any business that concerned the province.
Any formal expressions of thanks would be voted here, and conveyed by a delegation to the Senate. The normal formulation would have been the inverse, i. Tacitus varies or evades it. This is a regular feature of his narrative and serves a variety of purposes. The Romans themselves traced the beginnings of the practice of writing year-by-year chronicles to the custom of the pontifex maximus recording on a board tabula kept on display outside his place of residence a the names of the high magistrates and b key events of public significance, not least those of a religious nature such as prodigies, on a yearly basis.
The recording started from scratch each year, but the priesthood of the pontiffs also archived the information thus collected. Prodigies are divine signs, and their recording situates the narrative within a supernatural context. What follows are some pointers for how Tacitus integrates the sphere of the divine into his narrative universe.
Griffin, for instance, identifies four supernatural forces to which Tacitus appeals in his narrative to render events intelligible: Here is a look at some representative passages that are particularly pertinent for an appreciation of To begin with, it is important to stress that Tacitus recognizes the gods as a force in history that strikes emperors and senators alike. See, for instance, Annals Isdem diebus nimia luxus cupido infamiam et periculum Neroni tulit, quia fontem aquae Marciae ad urbem deductae nando incesserat; videbaturque potus sacros et caerimoniam loci corpore loto polluisse.
The grave illness that followed confirmed the wrath of the gods.
They cause havoc, and not only for the princeps. In the wake of the conspiracy of Piso, the wrath of the gods somehow encompasses all of Roman society. Tot facinoribus foedum annum etiam di tempestatibus et morbis insignivere. Equitum senatorumque interitus, quamvis promisci, minus flebiles erant, tamquam communi mortalitate saevitiam principis praevenirent. Campania was laid waste by a whirlwind, which wrecked the farms, the fruit trees, and the crops far and wide and carried its violence to the vicinity of the capital, where the force of a deadly disease decimated the human population at all levels of society, even though there was no visible sign of unwholesome weather conditions.
But the houses were filled with lifeless bodies, the streets with funerals. Neither sex nor age gave immunity from danger; slaves and the free-born population alike died like flies, amid the laments of their wives and children, who, while tending to the ill and mourning the deceased , became infected, died, and often were burnt on the same pyre. The deaths of knights and senators, while likewise indiscriminate, gave less rise to lamentation, since it appeared as if they were cheating the savagery of the emperor by undergoing the common lot.
In some cases, divine retribution for an act of transgression is virtually instantaneous: In other cases, the gap in time between portent and the advent of doom is disconcertingly long: Too big a gap generates disbelief in the efficacy of prodigies — and the gods. Tacitus himself draws attention to this problem at Annals Miro tamen certamine procerum decernuntur supplicationes apud omnia pulvinaria, utque quinquatrus, quibus apertae insidiae essent, ludis annuis celebrarentur, aureum Minervae simulacrum in curia et iuxta principis imago statuerentur, dies natalis Agrippinae inter nefastos esset.
Thrasea Paetus silentio vel brevi adsensu priores adulationes transmittere solitus exiit tum senatu, ac sibi causam periculi fecit, ceteris libertatis initium non praebuit. This time, Thrasea Paetus, who was wont to let earlier instances of flattery pass either in silence or with a curt assent, walked out of the senate, creating a source of danger for himself, without opening up a gateway to freedom for the others. Portents, too, appeared, frequent and futile: These events happened so utterly without any concern of the gods that Nero continued his reign and his crimes for many years to come.
Yet Tacitus goes on to dismiss the prodigia as ineffectual because the warning they supposedly constituted resulted neither in a change of behaviour and ritual amendment to avert the apparently imminent danger nor in supernatural punishment of the real criminal, the emperor. The fact that Nero kept on living a life of crime for years to come suggests to Tacitus that the apparent portents lacked divine purpose.
Moreover, as the passage from Annals 16 that we just cited illustrates, before Nero gets his comeuppance he visits Roman society like a wrathful divinity himself. Ultimately, divine efficacy in Roman history has become inscrutable and unpredictable. The world that Tacitus records eludes easy understanding. Some aspects of it are both re-prehensible and incomprehensible. Communication at all levels is seriously distorted. The name of the consuls is one — but no longer the power-indicator — dating system available in imperial Rome. Tacitus mentions its dedication at the very end of his account of AD 61 Nero] dedicated his new public baths in Rome, a complex that included a gymnasium.
Perhaps something else entirely is going on: Has the desire for a suggestive artistic design here overruled the principle of chronological accuracy? As the name suggests, it was a quintessentially Greek institution — a place for athletic exercise in particular wrestling , communal bathing, and other leisure pursuits such as philosophy. Our sources suggest that Nero himself fancied a career as a wrestler — linked to his sponsorship of gymnasia: He certainly built gymnasia at Rome, Baiae, and Naples; wrestlers competed at his Neronia; he enjoyed watching them in Naples; and he actually employed court wrestlers, luctatores auli.
Contemporary rumor had it that he intended himself to compete in the next Olympic Games among the athletes, for he wrestled constantly and watched gymnastic contests throughout Greece In part, the structure of his narrative provides an eloquent interpretation: Tacitus thus chiastically interrelates the end of 61, the end of 62, and the beginning of Statues of emperors and other members of the imperial family or household were ubiquitous in imperial Rome.
They ensured the visual presence of the princeps in a wide variety of settings, raised the represented figure above the status of ordinary mortals, and more generally constituted an important medium for projecting an image of the reigning princeps to different social groups within the empire: Just as the corporeal being of the emperor, as supreme ruler of the Mediterranean, was endowed with his divine essence or genius, and came to be elevated conceptually above the bodies of his subjects, so too imperial images were conceived differently from those of private individuals.
Unlike most of their subjects, the emperor or empress could exist as effigies in multiple bodies that took the form of portrait statues populating every kind of Roman environment such as fora , basilicae , temples, baths, military camps and houses. New principes , especially if they belonged to a different dynasty, tended systematically to do away with the artistic representations of their predecessors.
Divine displeasure at the Hellenizing shenanigans of the emperor could not have been articulated more clearly. The lightning bolt is the hallmark of Jupiter: This earthquake, which Seneca, in his Natural Histories 6. Hence there is a proleptic point in magna ex parte: Tacitus and his readers would of course have read this passage with the later catastrophe in mind, turning the earthquake mentioned here into an ominous prefiguration of greater evil to come, though not specifically related to the reign of Nero but easily relatable to the imminent fall of the first dynasty of Caesars.
Seismic activity has natural causes but frequently features the same temporal logic as prodigies, insofar as a minor tremor or eruption — at times many years in advance — is then followed by a cataclysmic outbreak. Likewise, prodigies constituted a preliminary indication of divine displeasure that issued a warning of an imminent disaster but also afforded a precious window of opportunity to make amends, appease the gods, and thus avert it.
The Romans understood extreme natural events as divinely motivated signs, but were unaware of — or refused to believe in — the ineluctability of natural disasters such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions; they preferred to invest in the conviction that proper communication with the gods constituted some safeguard against crises and chaos.
But is that so different from contemporary religious creeds?
Tacitus, Annals, 15.20-23, 33-45
The scale of the destruction was already immense and hints at the violence of the quake. The Vestal Virgins six at any one time, who, upon entering the college, took a vow of chastity and stayed in position for thirty years or until they died were priestesses of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth. Devoted in the main to the cultivation of the sacred fire, which was not supposed to go out since it symbolized the eternity of the Roman state, they were associated with the well-being of the Roman commonwealth and its continuity in time.
Any change in personnel owing to a premature death or other event affecting the smooth functioning of the college therefore amounted to an affair of state. Laelia was perhaps the daughter of D. Candidates for the priesthood, girls between 6 and 12 years of age, were offered by their families for the honour. She was found guilty and, despite pleading her innocence, executed by being buried alive. See Suetonius, Domitian 8. Reflect, before reading on, that the sacred institution of the Vestal priesthood with its impeccable republican pedigree and personnel provided for the replenishment of its stock of girls in case of loss: The set text only includes the initial paragraph 23 and then vaults forward to the start of AD 64 at The stretch left out primarily covers — in spectacularly telling contrast — military developments in the Near East.
In the meantime, we have a royal birth! This is the standard annalistic formula for opening a year, especially in the latter portions of the Annals: Memmius Regulus, the son of P. Memmius Regulus, one of the consuls of 31, who died in Tacitus records the death at Eo anno mortem obiit Memmius Regulus, auctoritate constantia fama, in quantum praeumbrante imperatoris fastigio datur, clarus, adeo ut Nero aeger valetudine, et adulantibus circum, qui finem imperio adesse dicebant, si quid fato pateretur, responderit habere subsidium rem publicam. So true was this that Nero, indisposed and surrounded by sycophants predicting the dissolution of the empire, should he go the way of fate, answered that the nation had a resource.
To the further inquiry, where that resource was specially to be found, he added: Verginius Rufus, a name that points far into the future. Twice he declined to be hailed emperor. Pliny records the inscription that Rufus chose for his tombstone 6. He died in 97, during his third consulship, at the ripe old age of The text thus evokes both dynastic succession and annalistic sequence as two complementary grids for imposing patterns on historical time:.
The very simplicity of associating each year with the name of the consuls in office whether initially elected or suffect generates a sense of order and continuity in time more fundamental than the changing dynasties that rule at Rome. There is, then, an ideology built into the annalistic approach to Roman history: But through strategic arrangement of his material, our author activates the pattern as a meaningful foil for his imperial history: Without this obituary, readers would have had much greater difficulties in associating the son with his father and his consulship in 31 or in thinking ahead to the death of Verginius Rufus during his third consulship and the figure who would take his place and deliver the funeral oration.
And far less melodrama to savour. The advanced position of natam , right after the annalistic formula, reinforces the sense of a new beginning also for the imperial household — which Tacitus crushes a few lines later see below, The undramatic record of who held the consulship stands in stark contrast to the triumphs and tragedies of the imperial household.
The names of the imperial couple Poppaea and Nero in the first sentence about AD 63 instantly counterbalance those of Memmius Regulus and Verginius Rufus and refocus attention from republican office to the doings of the imperial family. She enters the Annals at There was in the capital a certain Poppaea Sabina, daughter of Titus Ollius, though she had taken the name of her maternal grandfather, Poppaeus Sabinus, of distinguished memory, who, with the honours of his consulate and triumphal insignia, outshone her father: She was a woman possessed of all advantages but good character huic mulieri cuncta alia fuere praeter honestum animum.
For her mother, after eclipsing the beauties of her day, had endowed her alike with her fame and her looks: Her conversation was engaging, her wit not without point sermo comis nec absurdum ingenium ; she paraded modesty, and practised wantonness modestiam praeferre et lascivia uti. In public she rarely appeared, and then with her face half-veiled, so as not quite to satiate the beholder, — or, possibly, because that look suited her. She was never sparing of her reputation, and drew no distinctions between husbands and adulterers famae numquam pepercit, maritos et adulteros non distinguens: Thus whilst living in the wedded state with Rufrius Crispinus, a Roman knight by whom she had had a son, she was seduced by Otho [sc.
To get rid of his rival, Nero broke his ties of friendship with Otho, debarred him from court, and ultimately appointed him as governor of Lusitania present-day Portugal ; there he remained for ten years until the outbreak of civil war in After recording the appointment, Tacitus abruptly discontinues his account of what happened between Nero and Poppaea. Much to the delight of Poppaea. Post finem ludicri Poppaea mortem obiit, fortuita mariti iracundia, a quo gravida ictu calcis adflicta est.
That poison played its part I am unable to believe, though the assertion is made by some writers less from conviction than from hatred; for Nero was desirous of children, and love for his wife was a ruling passion. The body was not cremated in the Roman style, but, in conformity with the practice of foreign courts, was embalmed by stuffing with spices, then laid to rest in the mausoleum of the Julian clan.
Still, a public funeral was held; and the emperor at the Rostra eulogized her beauty, the fact that she had been the mother of an infant daughter now divine, and other favours of fortune which did duty for virtues. Within the Annals , the passage is part of a sequence, stretching back to the very beginning of the work: Here the honorands are a newborn baby — and a concubine-turned-wife. Tacitus expresses his disapproval obliquely with a break in syntax after Augustam.
Domitius Ahenobarbus, his uncle Caligula was just succeeding Tiberius as emperor, before soon losing it with everybody. Many Roman nobles had sea-side villas in the region, but it became a particularly significant location for the imperial family. It was where Augustus received a delegation from the Roman people that acclaimed him pater patriae. He was in Antium when news of the fire of Rome reached him Annals This was an excellent way to show loyalty and devotion to the princeps ; on occasion, however, it backfired.
In his biography of Caligula, Suetonius mentions instances in which the emperor demanded that those who had made vows for his health when he was sick kept them after his return to health Votum exegit ab eo, qui pro salute sua gladiatoriam operam promiserat, spectavitque ferro dimicantem nec dimisit nisi victorem et post multas preces. Another who had offered his life for the same reason, but delayed to kill himself, he turned over to his slaves, with orders to drive him decked with sacred boughs and fillets through the streets, calling for the fulfilment of his vow, and finally hurl him from the embankment.
We and Tacitus tend to see the proposed honours as manifestations of corporate servility. It is therefore useful to recall that there is another cultural logic in play. Thus Ittai Gradel argues that this was a technique for the senators to get some purchase on the behaviour of the princeps: The bestowal of honours to someone socially superior, whether man or god, obliged him to return them with benefactions.
Or, we might say, to rule well. It could indeed be honourable to reject excessive honours, and for example, the elder Scipio had excelled in this gloria recusandi. On the other hand, refusing honours also entailed rejecting the moral obligations that went with them, even to the point of recognizing no bonds whatsoever. So it would be socially irresponsible to reject all such proposals. The front position of the adverb iam helps to generate the impression of escalation: The priesthood of the Arval Brothers, which consisted of senators, vowed sacrifices in case of a successful delivery.
After the birth, the manifestations of joy, so Tacitus implies, knew no bounds: The Arval Brothers too fulfilled their vows, as recorded in their Acta under 21 January Polysyndeton the alternating et In turn, a favorable outcome of such prayers led to public days of thanksgiving, on which the citizen body gave thanks for their deliverance. Every five years, it was to hold Greek games in memory of the victory, modelled on the Games at Olympia: A Roman colony may have been set up in the vicinity.
Its local government, coinage, and public inscriptions were Greek. The topic will resurface forcefully later on in the set text. Here it is important to note that the senators clearly knew how to please their princeps. At issue are races in the circus, which already were established at Bovillae in honour of the gens Julia see Map of Italy. Now Antium was to receive games as well, in honour of the gens Claudia and the gens Domitia the dative singular genti is to be supplied with both Claudiae and Domitiae.
Nero shared ancestors with all three gentes. But the extraordinary honour he now accorded to Antium — in implicit rivalry with Bovillae — suggests a deliberate attempt to step outside the shadow of Augustus. Fully-built stone circuses will be seen to be very rare outside Rome at such an early date. Undoubtedly it was the special connection of the Julian gens with Bovillae that prompted the construction of this circus, for the reputed origin of Julus was at nearby Alba Longa whence the ancient cults had been transferred to Bovillae prior to the Augustan period.
Under Tiberius at the end of AD 16 a shrine to the Julian gens and a statue of the divine Augustus were dedicated at Bovillae. Augustus may have established a college of youths collegia iuvenum at Bovillae, while in AD 14 Tiberius established the sodales Augustales which administered the cult of the gens Iulia. Both organizations may have been involved with the games at Bovillae.
Circus games are specifically alluded to in AD Thus the circus was probably used chiefly for games held under the close auspices of the emperor or the cult of the emperor, and it may have been located in close proximity to the shrine sacrarium of the Julian gens.
The Annals (Tacitus)/Book 4
It is hard to resist the conclusion that the monumental entertainment buildings of Bovillae, like some of its other public buildings, were a special project of Augustus and Tiberius. Nero could clearly not hold his own in terms of military achievement, so he decided to excel in a field of social practice on which no princeps had hitherto left a conspicuous mark: Rursusque exortae adulationes censentium honorem divae et pulvinar aedemque et sacerdotem. All the efforts were as written on water.
Tacitus announces this anticlimax with laconic brevity and a mocking f -alliteration. The language is very matter-of-fact and unelaborated, again contrasting the simple reality of the death with the extravagant honours previously listed. In terms of syntax and placement in the sentence the phrase mirrors dato et Poppaeae eodem cognomento at The verb exorior hints at novelty, and the proposed honours were indeed unprecedented: All four items are accusative objects of censentium the genitive plural present active participle of censeo , dependent on adulationes: Tacitus again employs polysyndeton to stress the profusion of honours showered on the dead baby by the supine senators and as with the ablative absolute to set up a correlation this time on the level of style between the events at her birth and upon her death.
The senators proposed to deify the baby-girl. But we are supposed to recall what other emperors had dreamed up in this respect. Drusilla was married to Marcus Lepidus, at once the favorite and lover of the emperor, but Gaius [sc. Caligula] also treated her as a concubine. When her death occurred at this time, her husband delivered the eulogy and her brother accorded her a public funeral.
All the honours that had been bestowed upon Livia were voted to her, and it was further decreed that she should be deified, that a golden effigy of her should be set up in the senate-house, and that in the temple of Venus in the Forum a statue of her should be built for her, 3 that she should have twenty priests, women as well as men; women, whenever they offered testimony, should swear by her name, and on her birthday a festival equal of the Ludi Megalenses should be celebrated, and the senate and the knights should be given a banquet. She accordingly now received the name Panthea, and was declared worthy of divine honours in all the cities.
For this declaration he received a million sesterces. The singular surprises in its conspicuous modesty: Another very short and therefore emphatic sentence, in which Tacitus makes explicit how highly strung Nero was. The advanced position and parallelism of ut laetitiae, ita maeroris both genitives are dependent on immodicus highlight that Nero is prone to excess at either end of the emotional spectrum. Valerie French provides some numbers: Tacitus here connects the last major event he recounted in his coverage of 62 the speech of Thrasea on provincial government with the first major event in his account of 63, i.
More precisely, the phrasing here stands in intratextual dialogue with the very end of the surviving portion of the Annals: The last image where the text breaks off is of Thrasea dying slowly in excruciating pain after opening his veins by order of the princeps Thraseam prohibitum immoto animo praenuntiam imminentis caedis contumeliam excepisse: Embedded within coverage of Thrasea occurs an ablative absolute in which Tacitus dispatches the rest of the senate.
Immediately after the birth. The sentence introduces a surprising turn: Within the relative clause iactaverit introduces an indirect statement with se as subject accusative and reconciliatum esse as verb. There is an interesting shift in grammatical position from the relative clause to the second part of the indirect statement dependent on ferunt: It is another instance in which Tacitus uses evaluative syntax: What we get here is a throw-back to the times when Seneca c.
Tacitus often reports a story in this manner, neither mentioning his sources nor vouching for the story himself. Here, he tells the little tale to illustrate aspects of the intertwined characters of three major figures. The position of gloria at the beginning suggests that the outcome of the event was as it should be, then the delayed and threatening pericula reminds us that the world of Neronian Rome was not so fair and just, and that something more sinister was awaiting them. Ultimately, both had to commit suicide.
This powerful metaphor gives the ominous sense of their futures: And with her went — the whole shooting-match. Poppaea and Nero, Seneca and Thrasea. The dynasty of Augustus, the Annals of Tacitus. Licinio consulibus acriore in dies cupidine adigebatur Nero promiscas scaenas frequentandi. As we have seen, this is the annalistic formula that indicates the beginning of the consular year our AD Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi, however, was indicted for treason by the delator M. Aquilius Regulus and executed by Nero.
The sentence is beautifully balanced: At the same time, further syntactical aspects and relations generate the impression that Nero is carried away by disgraceful desire:. He needed now to have indiscriminate access to the stage, no-holds-barred cf. Tacitus frequently supplies background information in a main clause in the pluperfect, set up by an adverb such as adhuc or iam , and followed by a subordinate clause situated in the narrative present. In terms of syntax, the sentence here recalls The reference is to the Juvenile Games that Nero celebrated in AD 59, at the occasion of his first shave as a year-old.
Special festivities at this rite of passage were unremarkable. He also kept his chin smooth afterwards, like the rest; for he was already beginning to be enamoured of Livia also, and for this reason divorced Scribonia the very day she bore him a daughter. The antecedent of quos is hortos , i.
Inter ceteras disciplinas pueritiae tempore imbutus et musica, statim ut imperium adeptus est, Terpnum citharoedum vigentem tunc praeter alios arcessiit diebusque continuis post cenam canenti in multam noctem assidens paulatim et ipse meditari exercerique coepit neque eorum quicquam omittere, quae generis eius artifices vel conservandae vocis causa vel augendae factitarent; sed et plumbeam chartam supinus pectore sustinere et clystere vomituque purgari et abstinere pomis cibisque officientibus; donec blandiente profectu, quamquam exiguae vocis et fuscae, prodire in scaenam concupiit, subinde inter familiares Graecum proverbium iactans occultae musicae nullum esse respectum.
For he used to lie upon his back and hold a leaden plate on his chest, purge himself by the syringe and by vomiting, and deny himself fruits and all foods injurious to the voice. He does not dare to inaugurate his career as a public performer in Rome but chooses a Greek city famous for its Greek entertainment culture instead. The quasi here thus has causal force. Although it had long been part of Roman Italy, Neapolis seems to have retained much of its Greek character.
Aristocratic norms were more flexible there, making it a more suitable place for Nero to inaugurate his career as a public performer. The antithesis between Greek and Roman is significant. Traditional Roman thinkers saw themselves as the guardians of great civilised Roman values mores maiorum.
They may have enjoyed and respected Greek art and literature, but Greek behaviour, morals and practices came with a stigma: Greekness was often tied up in Roman thought with luxury and immorality. The alliteration stresses that Nero envisages this performance as just a debut: The - que after insignes links transgressus and adeptus.
The two participles transgressus ; adeptus and the phrases they govern in Achaiam ; insignesque et antiquitus sacras coronas are arranged chiastically. The Roman province of Achaea essentially covered mainland Greece. The participle transgressus carries an aggressive note, in a double sense: Nero is transgressing against Roman cultural norms; and he is invading Greece, reversing the cultural conquest of Italy famously noted by Horace at Epistle 2.
Winners in prestigious Greek competitions received wreaths coronae as prizes. Nero does not doubt for one moment that he will be victorious — and why would he as emperor of the known world! The word fama fame is an ambiguous word in Latin: Nero imagines that his feats on stage will hit the spot, coax enthusiasm from the citizens.
They all go with the main verb at the end: Tacitus revels in the idea of so many men from so many different groups flooding into the theatre of Neapolis. The oppidani are the townsfolk of Neapolis, in contrast to the Roman citizens cives mentioned in the previous sentence. Although originally distinct forms of settlement a colonia being a settlement of Roman citizens, a municipium an independent Italian town , by this period the distinction had lost some of its significance.
Here we meet that wonderfully ambiguous word fama again. Once again Tacitus uses it to imply without explicitly saying that these men were attracted by the infamy of what Nero was up to: In the midst of this unseemly rabble the words Caesarem and honorem seem incongruous. They help to give a sense of noble, devoted servants of the emperor caught up in this group. The impression is undone by the vague and promiscuous aut varios usus that follows it. Tacitus may have had in mind the so-called Augustiani — a special group of young men formed by Nero some years previously, to follow him, flatter him and applaud his performances: By the time Nero first appeared in public in Naples, in 64, these Roman knights were backed by some 5, hardy plebeian youths.
The preposition per has a causal sense here. Nero has enlisted soldiers most likely members of the Praetorian guard to join his fan-club in the theatre and to cheer him on. The maniple was a company in the Roman army, numbering two centuries i.
Here it is plural manipuli , indicating that Nero took a very sizeable number of soldiers with him. Their presence, stressed by the alliteration, the etiam and their final position in the list, seems highly incongruous: The object and verb come along at last after a long list of subjects, piling into the theatre.
In other words, we have:. A majority of right-thinking observers saw this event as triste , in contrast to the one man, Nero himself, who thought otherwise. In addition the pleonastic providum The alliteration providum potius helps to stress the contrast. An ablative absolute with the verb — the non-existent present participle of esse — missing , awkwardly linked to providum with et. Tacitus now explains why Nero viewed the event as favourable — because the theatre was not destroyed while in use. Nevertheless, a theatre collapsing is not generally viewed as providential, and one can appreciate the challenge Nero faced in endowing it with positive meaning.
Or, as John Henderson puts it: An ablative absolute that contains a relative clause within. The antecedent of qui is populo. As in providum potius et secundis numinibus , Tacitus uses et very creatively here: After much delay Tacitus finally tells us what all the fuss is about. Calpurnio consulibus ingentium bellorum cladem aequavit malum improvisum: It began and ended in a moment. A certain Atilius, of the freedman class, who had begun an amphitheatre at Fidena, in order to give a gladiatorial show, failed both to lay the foundation in solid ground and to secure the fastenings of the wooden structure above; the reason being that he had embarked on the enterprise, not from a superabundance of wealth nor to court the favours of is townsmen, but with an eye to sordid gain.
Greedy for such amusements, since they had been debarred from their pleasures under the reign of Tiberius, people poured to the place, men and women, old and young, the stream swollen because the town lay near. This increased the gravity of the catastrophe, as the unwieldy fabric was packed when it collapsed, breaking inward or sagging outward, and precipitating and burying a vast crowd of human beings, intent on the spectacle or standing around. Those, indeed, whom the first moment of havoc had dashed to death, escaped torture, so far as was possible in such a fate: The news brought the absent to the scene — one lamenting a brother, one a kinsman, another his parents.
Even those whose friends or relatives had left home for a different reason still felt the alarm, and, as it was not yet known whom the catastrophe had destroyed, the uncertainty gave wider range for fear.
One can either supply agens with grates dis or take both grates and ipsam fortunam as accusative objects of celebrans in what would be a zeugma. See above on The - que links celebrans and petiturus. Note the variatio here, this time in terms of word order: The juxtaposition of a present participle and future participle is striking: Caligula loses his mind after recovering from a severe illness and declares himself a god.
His behavior becomes more and more irrational as he bankrupts the country and kills thousands. The madness having reached a tempest is finally quelled by Cassius Chaerea who kills Caligula, along with his wife and daughter. Claudius horrified, hides behind a curtain and is discovered by a disgruntled Praetorian Guard.
The Guards, needing an Emperor to be employed, bemusedly declare Claudius Emperor. Claudius pleads that he does not want to be an Emperor and wants the Republic restored but the Guards ignore him. Claudius sadly accepts for the sake of his wife and unborn child and on a whim thinks that as Emperor he will finally have people read his books.
The story begins with an apology by Claudius for having ended his first history on a dramatic point and continues with a brief history of his friend Herod Agrippa. Herod Agrippa was a schoolmate of Claudius and was liked by Claudius' mother Antonia. Herod always finds himself in debts and danger in the East and in Rome.
He eventually gains the favour of Caligula and is made King of Bashan. Herod is in Rome when the assassination of Caligula happens and quickly is able to convince Claudius to accept being Emperor to avoid civil war. Claudius reluctantly executes Cassius Chaerea and several of the assassins and begins tirelessly working for the sake of Rome. He applies himself to the law courts and demonstrates his intelligence in being able to locate one of Augustus' lost Eagles.
Claudius also begins work on building a harbour in Ostia to help preserve the Roman food supply. Claudius is also able to quell two mutinies and conquers Britain. Herod Agrippa conspires to take over the East as he regards himself as the Messiah. When he announces this he breaks the first commandment by declaring himself as a god. Herod quickly dies a painful death, just as his grandfather had died, imploring Claudius to forgive him and not to trust anyone.
Throughout Claudius' reign he is being unwittingly manipulated by his adulterous wife Messalina who kills many of her enemies as well as being involved in bribery. She eventually conspires to usurp the monarchy with her lover Gaius Silius. Claudius is distraught and crushed by such news and is given an "Olympian Mixture" in order to manage through the ordeal. Claudius arrests Silius and the leaders of the coup. Messalina is executed without Claudius's consent and Claudius has no reaction during his "Olympian" state, and even bemusedly jokes about being worshipped as a god in Britain.
On being relieved of the "Olympian Mixture" Claudius is crushed and decides that the only way the Republic can be restored is by having a true mad monarch rather than the reign of a benevolent one. Comparing himself to the fable of the frogs who desired a King, Claudius privately refers to himself as "Old King Log" and plays a weak and easily manipulated fool. He then incestuously marries his niece Agrippinilla whom he openly despises. In feeble old age Claudius excessively enjoys gladiatorial games is often intoxicated and makes himself oblivious to Agrippinilla's schemes to gain power and make her son Nero Emperor.
Claudius, foreseeing that Nero will be a terrible ruler, plans on having his son Britannicus removed to live with the Northern Britons and later to return as Rome's saviour. Britannicus refuses and admits that while he loves the Republic, the Republic is dead and he wants to challenge Nero for the right to rule Rome as an Emperor. Dismayed, Claudius agrees, knowing that he is sending his son to his death. Claudius resignedly accepts that his death will be soon with numerous signs suggesting such. The I, Claudius novels, as they are called collectively, became massively popular when first published in and gained literary recognition with the award of the James Tait Black Prize for fiction.
Graves later claimed that they were written only from financial need on a strict deadline. Nonetheless, they are today regarded as pioneering masterpieces of historical fiction. When the time came to translate the novels into German, Graves, who spoke the language, decided instead to rework them into a one volume edition. He collaborated with translator Hans Rothe and they jointly produced a shortened edition which left out the many digressions which were incorporated into the English original, with the aim of presenting Claudius' story in a clearer and more effective way.
The contents of the books were thus roughly cut down to a half. In , abortive attempts were made to adapt the first book into a film by the film director Josef von Sternberg. Filming was abandoned after Oberon was injured in a serious motor car accident. In , it was reported that Relativity Media had obtained the rights to produce a new film adaptation of I, Claudius. Jim Sheridan was named as director. It won the Audie Award in the "Audio Dramatization" category. The novel has also been adapted for theatre.
At Augustus' death, the equites , or knights, chose Claudius to head their delegation. When his house burned down, the Senate demanded it be rebuilt at public expense. They also requested that Claudius be allowed to debate in the Senate. Tiberius turned down both motions, but the sentiment remained. During the period immediately after the death of Tiberius' son, Drusus , Claudius was pushed by some quarters as a potential heir. This again suggests the political nature of his exclusion from public life.
However, as this was also the period during which the power and terror of the commander of the Praetorian Guard , Sejanus , was at its peak, Claudius chose to downplay this possibility. After the death of Tiberius, the new emperor Caligula the son of Claudius' brother Germanicus recognized Claudius to be of some use.
He appointed Claudius his co-consul in 37 in order to emphasize the memory of Caligula's deceased father Germanicus. Despite this, Caligula relentlessly tormented his uncle: According to Cassius Dio Claudius became very sickly and thin by the end of Caligula's reign, most likely due to stress. On 24 January 41, Caligula was assassinated in a broad-based conspiracy involving the Praetorian commander Cassius Chaerea and several senators. There is no evidence that Claudius had a direct hand in the assassination , although it has been argued that he knew about the plot—particularly since he left the scene of the crime shortly before his nephew was murdered.
In the chaos following the murder, Claudius witnessed the German guard cut down several uninvolved noblemen, including many of his friends. He fled to the palace to hide. According to tradition, a Praetorian named Gratus found him hiding behind a curtain and suddenly declared him princeps.
They reassured him that they were not one of the battalions looking for revenge. He was spirited away to the Praetorian camp and put under their protection. The Senate quickly met and began debating a change of government, but this eventually devolved into an argument over which of them would be the new princeps. When they heard of the Praetorians' claim, they demanded that Claudius be delivered to them for approval, but he refused, sensing the danger that would come with complying. Some historians, particularly Josephus , [11] claim that Claudius was directed in his actions by the Judaean King Herod Agrippa.
However, an earlier version of events by the same ancient author downplays Agrippa's role [12] so it remains uncertain. Eventually the Senate was forced to give in and, in return, Claudius pardoned nearly all the assassins. Claudius took several steps to legitimize his rule against potential usurpers, most of them emphasizing his place within the Julio-Claudian family. He adopted the name "Caesar" as a cognomen , as the name still carried great weight with the populace.
In order to do so, he dropped the cognomen "Nero" which he had adopted as paterfamilias of the Claudii Nerones when his brother Germanicus was adopted out. While Claudius had never been formally adopted either by Augustus or his successors, he was nevertheless the grandson of Augustus' sister Octavia, and so he felt that he had the right of family.
He also adopted the name "Augustus" as the two previous emperors had done at their accessions. He kept the honorific "Germanicus" to display the connection with his heroic brother. He deified his paternal grandmother Livia to highlight her position as wife of the divine Augustus. Claudius frequently used the term "filius Drusi" son of Drusus in his titles, in order to remind the people of his legendary father and lay claim to his reputation.
Since Claudius was the first Emperor proclaimed on the initiative of the Praetorian Guard instead of the Senate, his repute suffered at the hands of commentators such as Seneca. Moreover, he was the first Emperor who resorted to bribery as a means to secure army loyalty and rewarded the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard that had elevated him with 15, sesterces.
Claudius remained grateful to the guard, however, issuing coins with tributes to the Praetorians in the early part of his reign. Claudius restored the status of the peaceful Imperial Roman provinces of Macedonia and Achaea as senatorial provinces. Under Claudius, the Empire underwent its first major expansion since the reign of Augustus. The provinces of Thrace , Noricum , Pamphylia , Lycia , and Judea were annexed or put under direct rule under various circumstances during his term.
The annexation of Mauretania , begun under Caligula, was completed after the defeat of rebel forces, and the official division of the former client kingdom into two Imperial provinces. It was also a haven for Gallic rebels and the like, and so could not be left alone much longer. Claudius himself traveled to the island after the completion of initial offensives, bringing with him reinforcements and elephants.
The latter must have made an impression on the Britons when they were displayed in the large tribal centre of Camulodunum , modern day Colchester. The Roman colonia of Colonia Claudia Victricensis was established as the provincial capital of the newly established province of Britannia at Camulodunum, [21] where a large Temple was dedicated in his honour. He left after 16 days, but remained in the provinces for some time. The Senate granted him a triumph for his efforts. Only members of the Imperial family were allowed such honours, but Claudius subsequently lifted this restriction for some of his conquering generals.
He was granted the honorific "Britannicus" but only accepted it on behalf of his son, never using the title himself. Caractacus lived out his days on land provided by the Roman state, an unusual end for an enemy commander. Claudius conducted a census in 48 that found 5,, Roman citizens [22] adult males with Roman citizenship ; women, children, slaves, and free adult males without Roman citizenship were not counted , an increase of around a million since the census conducted at Augustus' death.
He had helped increase this number through the foundation of Roman colonies that were granted blanket citizenship. These colonies were often made out of existing communities, especially those with elites who could rally the populace to the Roman cause. Several colonies were placed in new provinces or on the border of the Empire to secure Roman holdings as quickly as possible. Claudius personally judged many of the legal cases tried during his reign. Ancient historians have many complaints about this, stating that his judgments were variable and sometimes did not follow the law.
Nevertheless, Claudius paid detailed attention to the operation of the judicial system. He extended the summer court session, as well as the winter term, by shortening the traditional breaks.
Tacitus, Annals, , - 4. Commentary - Open Book Publishers
Claudius also made a law requiring plaintiffs to remain in the city while their cases were pending, as defendants had previously been required to do. These measures had the effect of clearing out the docket. The minimum age for jurors was also raised to 25 in order to ensure a more experienced jury pool. Claudius also settled disputes in the provinces.
He freed the island of Rhodes from Roman rule for their good faith and exempted Ilium Troy from taxes. Early in his reign, the Greeks and Jews of Alexandria sent him two embassies at once after riots broke out between the two communities. This resulted in the famous "Letter to the Alexandrians", which reaffirmed Jewish rights in the city but also forbade them to move in more families en masse.
According to Josephus , he then reaffirmed the rights and freedoms of all the Jews in the Empire. One of Claudius's investigators discovered that many old Roman citizens based in the city of Tridentum the modern Trento were not in fact citizens. However, in individual cases, Claudius punished false assumption of citizenship harshly, making it a capital offense. Similarly, any freedmen found to be laying false claim to membership of the Roman equestrian order were sold back into slavery.
The Witch's Inventory
Numerous edicts were issued throughout Claudius' reign. These were on a number of topics, everything from medical advice to moral judgments. A famous medical example is one promoting yew juice as a cure for snakebite. Masters had been abandoning ailing slaves at the temple of Aesculapius on Tiber Island to die instead of providing them with medical assistance and care, and then reclaiming them if they lived.
Claudius ruled that slaves who were thus abandoned and recovered after such treatment would be free. Furthermore, masters who chose to kill slaves rather than take care of them were liable to be charged with murder. Claudius embarked on many public works throughout his reign, both in the capital and in the provinces. These entered the city in 52 AD and met at the Porta Maggiore. He also restored a third, the Aqua Virgo. He paid special attention to transportation. Throughout Italy and the provinces he built roads and canals. Closer to Rome, he built a navigable canal on the Tiber , leading to Portus , his new port just north of Ostia.
This port was constructed in a semicircle with two moles and a lighthouse at its mouth. The construction also had the effect of reducing flooding in Rome. The port at Ostia was part of Claudius' solution to the constant grain shortages that occurred in winter, after the Roman shipping season. The other part of his solution was to insure the ships of grain merchants who were willing to risk travelling to Egypt in the off-season. He also granted their sailors special privileges, including citizenship and exemption from the Lex Papia-Poppaea , a law that regulated marriage.
In addition, he repealed the taxes that Caligula had instituted on food, and further reduced taxes on communities suffering drought or famine. The last part of Claudius' plan was to increase the amount of arable land in Italy. This was to be achieved by draining the Fucine lake , which would have the added benefit of making the nearby river navigable year-round. The tunnel was crooked and not large enough to carry the water, which caused it to back up when opened.
The resultant flood washed out a large gladiatorial exhibition held to commemorate the opening, causing Claudius to run for his life along with the other spectators. The draining of the lake continued to present a problem well into the Middle Ages. Because of the circumstances of his accession, Claudius took great pains to please the Senate.
During regular sessions, the Emperor sat among the Senate body, speaking in turn. When introducing a law, he sat on a bench between the consuls in his position as holder of the power of Tribune the Emperor could not officially serve as a Tribune of the Plebes as he was a Patrician , but it was a power taken by previous rulers. He refused to accept all his predecessors' titles including Imperator at the beginning of his reign, preferring to earn them in due course.
He allowed the Senate to issue its own bronze coinage for the first time since Augustus. He also put the Imperial provinces of Macedonia and Achaea back under Senate control. Claudius set about remodeling the Senate into a more efficient, representative body. He chided the senators about their reluctance to debate bills introduced by himself, as noted in the fragments of a surviving speech:. If you accept these proposals, Conscript Fathers, say so at once and simply, in accordance with your convictions.
If you do not accept them, find alternatives, but do so here and now; or if you wish to take time for consideration, take it, provided you do not forget that you must be ready to pronounce your opinion whenever you may be summoned to meet. It ill befits the dignity of the Senate that the consul designate should repeat the phrases of the consuls word for word as his opinion, and that every one else should merely say 'I approve', and that then, after leaving, the assembly should announce 'We debated'.
In 47 he assumed the office of censor with Lucius Vitellius , which had been allowed to lapse for some time. He struck the names of many senators and equites who no longer met qualifications, but showed respect by allowing them to resign in advance. At the same time, he sought to admit eligible men from the provinces. The Lyon Tablet preserves his speech on the admittance of Gallic senators, in which he addresses the Senate with reverence but also with criticism for their disdain of these men.
He even jokes about how the Senate had admitted members from beyond Gallia Narbonensis Lyons, France , i. He also increased the number of Patricians by adding new families to the dwindling number of noble lines. Nevertheless, many in the Senate remained hostile to Claudius, and many plots were made on his life. This hostility carried over into the historical accounts. As a result, Claudius reduced the Senate's power for the sake of efficiency.
The administration of Ostia was turned over to an Imperial Procurator after construction of the port. Administration of many of the empire's financial concerns was turned over to Imperial appointees and freedmen. This led to further resentment and suggestions that these same freedmen were ruling the Emperor. Several coup attempts were made during Claudius' reign, resulting in the deaths of many senators. Appius Silanus was executed early in Claudius' reign under questionable circumstances.
It ultimately failed because of the reluctance of Scribonianus' troops, which led to the suicide of the main conspirators. Many other senators tried different conspiracies and were condemned. Claudius' son-in-law Pompeius Magnus was executed for his part in a conspiracy with his father Crassus Frugi. Valerius Asiaticus was executed without public trial for unknown reasons. The ancient sources say the charge was adultery , and that Claudius was tricked into issuing the punishment.
However, Claudius singles out Asiaticus for special damnation in his speech on the Gauls, which dates over a year later, suggesting that the charge must have been much more serious. Asiaticus had been a claimant to the throne in the chaos following Caligula's death and a co-consul with the Titus Statilius Taurus Corvinus mentioned above.
Most of these conspiracies took place before Claudius' term as Censor , and may have induced him to review the Senatorial rolls. The conspiracy of Gaius Silius in the year after his Censorship, 48, is detailed in the section discussing Claudius' third wife, Messalina. Suetonius states that a total of 35 senators and knights were executed for offenses during Claudius' reign. Claudius was hardly the first emperor to use freedmen to help with the day-to-day running of the Empire. He was, however, forced to increase their role as the powers of the princeps became more centralized and the burden larger.
This was partly due to the ongoing hostility of the Senate, as mentioned above, but also due to his respect for the senators. Claudius did not want free-born magistrates to have to serve under him, as if they were not peers. The secretariat was divided into bureaus, with each being placed under the leadership of one freedman. Narcissus was the secretary of correspondence. Pallas became the secretary of the treasury.