Footnotes

1Henderson (1998).

2Woodman (2004) xxi.

3We are not trying to compete with general introductions to Tacitus and his works, of which there are plenty. We particularly recommend Ash (2006) and the two recent companions to Tacitus edited by Woodman (2009a) and Pagán (2012). See also, more generally, the companions to (Greek and) Roman historiography edited by Marincola (2007) and Feldherr (2009).

4This paragraph is based on Birley (2000) and Martin and Woodman (2012).

5Birley (2000) 231 n. 4 with reference to Oliver (1977).

6Birley (2000) 233–34.

7Birley (2000) 234. Tacitus himself records his involvement at Annals 11.11.1: Isdem consulibus ludi saeculares octingentesimo post Romam conditam, quarto et sexagesimo quam Augustus ediderat, spectati sunt. utriusque principis rationes praetermitto, satis narratas libris quibus res imperatoris Domitiani composui. nam is quoque edidit ludos saecularis iisque intentius adfui sacerdotio quindecimvirali praeditus ac tunc praetor; quod non iactantia refero sed quia collegio quindecimvirum antiquitus ea cura et magistratus potissimum exequebantur officia caerimoniarum. [Under the same consulate (= 47 AD), eight hundred years from the foundation of Rome, sixty-four from their presentation by Augustus, came a performance of the Secular Games. The calculations employed by the two princes I omit, as they have been sufficiently explained in the books which I have devoted to the reign of Domitian (= the closing books, now lost, of the Histories). For he too exhibited Secular Games, and, as the holder of a quindecimviral priesthood and as praetor at the time, I followed them with more than usual care: a fact which I recall not in vanity, but because from of old this responsibility has rested with the Fifteen, and because it was to magistrates in especial that the task fell of discharging the duties connected with the religious ceremonies.]

8Woodman (2004) xi.

9Noreña (2011) 7. His conception of imperial Rome owes much to Paul Veyne (1976) and, in particular, Egon Flaig (1992) (2010).

10The distinction between ‘real’ and ‘symbolic’ Noreña draws here is perhaps unhelpful – since symbolic interactions were very real as well. Presumably, though, he means to distinguish between interactions that happened face-to-face or had a material dimension and those that happened via symbolic gestures or other media of communication (coins, religious worship etc.). Some forms of interaction, such as the donative to the soldiers on special occasions, had both a material and a symbolic value.

11The Roman principate was not a hereditary monarchy: the potential for usurpation defined the political system, even though succession frequently followed dynastic principles. See further Bert Lott (2012).

12We owe appreciation of this point to discussions with Ulrich Gotter.

13Annals 16.4–5.

14Roller (2001) 6.

15Roller (2001) 11.

16See e.g. Lintott (2001–2003) (including discussion of the republican background) and Rutledge (2001).

17Oakley (2012a) 188.

18Flaig (1992) 123 n. 98.

19Wallace-Hadrill (1982) 47.

20http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Nh-zSMzqo. For an equivalent in adult entertainment check out History Channel’s Caligula: 1400 Days of Terror.

21For rehabilitation of Caligula see Winterling (2003/2011); for ‘Nero the Hero’ Champlin (2003). See also Caligula with Mary Beard on BBC2 (available on-line).

22Syme (1970) 1–2.

23See Agricola 2, where Tacitus envisions all the pursuits (such as the writing of history) that were traditionally located in aristocratic otium exiled from Rome during the reign of Domitian.

24See further Ash (2006) 20 and, for a close reading of the preface, Woodman (2012).

25There was a sinister side to the treatise’s history of reception as it inspired many a German nationalist after it was rediscovered in the Renaissance: see Krebs (2012).

26We cite the text and translation by C. H. Moore in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1925).

27Martin (1981) 104.

28Much like Livy 43.13.2: meos annales.

29See Gotter and Luraghi (2003).

30Woodman (1992).

31Ginsberg (1981) 100: ‘Tacitus has rejected traditional annalistic history, but he has not rejected its form. There is a good reason. The annalistic form was traditionally associated with the republican past, and Tacitus wanted to evoke that past, if only to deny its application to the present. … In rejecting traditional annalistic history, Tacitus rejects also an interpretation of history.’

32Griffin (2009) 182: ‘The structure of the Annals as a whole combines an annalistic principle, which applies to the smaller organisation within each book, and a regnal principle, which groups the books according to the reigns of emperors and which ensures that the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius (and doubtless of Caligula) each close with the end of a book.’ As Griffin goes on to show, the relative dominance of the two principles throughout the narrative varies from emperor to emperor – one of the formal means by which Tacitus generates meaning.

33Henderson (1998) 257–58.

34Spot the odd one out (Annals 13.58): Eodem anno Ruminalem arborem in comitio, quae octingentos et triginta ante annos Remi Romulique infantiam texerat, mortuis ramalibus et arescente trunco deminutam prodigii loco habitum est, donec in novos fetus reviresceret (‘In the same year, the Ruminal tree in the Comitium, which 830 years earlier had sheltered Remus and Romulus in their infancy, through the death of its boughs and the withering of its stem reached a stage of decrepitude which was regarded as a portent – until it revived with fresh shoots’). A portent such as the withering of a sacred tree may well have been entered in the annalistic record – but also if it then consumes itself? Is Tacitus pulling our leg here, with an unexpected, yet deconstructive, gesture to a formal device of annalistic writing?

35This return to a coincidence of beginning of the year and beginning of the book also receives instant and ironic qualification: right after the dating, Tacitus drops the acid remark that the length of his reign (vetustate imperii – a dark-humoured hyperbole that mockingly asserts the dominance of the imperial principle) had finally rendered Nero sufficiently audacious to go through with the long-plotted matricide.

36Our discussion in this section draws above all on Martin (1981), Henderson (1998), O’Gorman (2000), and Oakley (2009b).

37Woodman (2009b) 14.

38Goodyear (2012) 369.

39Syme (1958) 347.

40Martin (1981) 214–15.

41Martin (1981) 220.

42O’Gorman (2000) 3.

43Martin (1981) 221.

44O’Gorman (2000) 11.

45O’Gorman (2000) 11; we give the translation of J. M. May and J. Wisse, Cicero On the Ideal Orator (De Oratore), New York and Oxford 2001.

46O’Gorman (2000) 11.

47See O’Gorman (2000) 2: ‘The formal structures of Tacitus’ prose embody a political judgement of the principate. Tacitean style can be seen as the manifestation in narrative of a particular historical understanding, one which is integrally linked to a senatorial view of the principate.’

48John Henderson, per litteras.

49Henderson (1998) 260–61.

50See 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’).

51Ann. 13.15–17.

52Ann. 14.1–9.

53Ann. 14.60–64; 16.6.

54Ann. 15.45; 15.60–64.

55Ann. 16.14–35.

56Ann. 15.67.

57Champlin (2003) 76.

58Suetonius, Nero 49.

59See Syme (1958) 515–16, in a chapter on ‘Tacitus and the Greeks’.

60Champlin (2003) 68, with page 286 n. 38 where he defines civilitas, civility, as ‘the ability of the emperor to act as an ordinary citizen, or at least as an ordinary Roman nobleman.’ See also page 291 n. 85: ‘From the beginning of the reign he had allowed the people to watch him exercise in the Campus Martius; he often declaimed in public; and he had read his own poems not only at home but in the theatre “to such universal joy” that a supplication to the gods was decreed and the poems themselves were inscribed in letters of gold and dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus: Suetonius II. 2. These were the actions of an affable emperor, the civilis princeps.’

61Martin (1969) 139. See also Syme (1958) II 557.

62The phrase multo cum honore Caesaris (49) is studiously ambiguous: Caesar could be Nero – or Julius Caesar.

63Sailor (2008) 20: ‘One telling feature of Tacitus’ treatment of Thrasea and Helvidius, then, is an understated but perceptible emphasis on their strong interest in glory.’

64See Sailor (2008) 17: ‘what gave these men their glamour was their apparent solidarity with the cause of senatorial dignity and significance: to show adherence to a set of values shared by their peers, they had held their own lives cheap.’

65Sailor (2008) 29–30.

66This cut-and-paste approach, while understandable, results in a distortion of Tacitus’ overall picture of the Neronian principate. In particular the geopolitical dimension of his text, the way in which he interweaves centre and periphery, Rome and the world, disappears from view. It is important to bear in mind here that Nero’s reign ended when provincial governors decided to march on Rome.

67The law was introduced by the bachelors (!) Marcus Papius Mutilus and Quintus Poppaeus Secundus, two of the consuls of AD 9 (hence lex Papia Poppaea). This piece of legislation was an adjustment of the more famous (and, among members of the ruling élite, highly unpopular) lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus (‘Julian law on marrying categories’) that Augustus passed in 18 BC. For further details (including our sources in translation) see Cooley (2003) 353–72.

68For Cassius Dio, we cite the translation by Earnest Cary in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. and London 1914–1927).

69Woodman (2004) 315.

70We owe this observation to John Henderson: ‘Claudius’ recalls Nero’s predecessor the emperor Claudius (the hero of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius), whereas ‘Timarchus’ combines the two Greek words timê (‘honour’, ‘distinction’) and archê (‘power’, ‘rule’).

71We cite the translation by H. L. Jones in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1932), slightly adjusted.

72In his account of the arrangement put in place by Augustus, Cassius Dio reports and shreds the ideological veneer (53.12.1–3): ‘In this way he [sc. Augustus] had his supremacy ratified by the senate and by the people as well. But as he wished even so to be thought a man of the people, while he accepted all the care and oversight of the public business, on the ground that it required some attention on his part, yet he declared he would not personally govern all the provinces, and that in the case of such provinces as he should govern he would not do so indefinitely; and he did, in fact, restore to the senate the weaker provinces, on the ground that they were peaceful and free from war, while he retained the more powerful, alleging that they were insecure and precarious and either had enemies on their borders or were able on their own account to begin a serious revolt. His professed motive in this was that the senate might fearlessly enjoy the finest portion of the empire, while he himself had the hardships and the dangers; but his real purpose was that by this arrangement the senators should be unarmed and unprepared for battle, while he alone had arms and maintained soldiers.’

73See further Brunt (1961), with discussion of our passage at 215–17.

74Miller (1973) 69.

75Martin and Woodman (1989) 140.

76Miller (1973) 70 and 64.

77Henderson (2004) 77. Another good example is Cicero’s punning on Verres, which is also the Latin term for ‘boar’ – hence ‘Mr. Porker’.

78Translations of Sallust here and elsewhere are taken from the Loeb Classical Library edition by J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1921).

79Martin (1969) 139.

80The translation from Livy is taken from the Loeb Classical Library edition by E. T. Sage (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1953).

81Hölkeskamp (2004)

82See e.g. pro Quinto Roscio 7, pro Cluentio 197, de Domo Sua 39, pro Balbo 13 with Schofield (2009) 201–4.

83Woodman (2004) 315.

84Kolb (2000) 36–7.

85Rudich (1993) 77.

86Miller (1973) 52.

87Syme (1958) 354.

88Rudich (1993) 77.

89We owe this jingle to George Lord.

90Miller (1973) 71. The last monographic treatment of the concilia is Deininger (1965).

91Koestermann (1968) 203.

92Syme (1958) I 343–44.

93Gotter and Luraghi (2003) 35.

94Griffin (2009) 168–69.

95For instance: in a Stoic universe, in which everything unfolds according to a predetermined chain of natural causes, gods lose their independent agency and ‘chance’ has no place. (It is therefore important to note that the passage where he seems to allude to Stoic fate is very obscure: see Martin (2001) 148–49, cited by Griffin (2009) 168 n. 2, who also points out that Tacitus does not always use fatum in the technical Stoic sense of the term.)

96Griffin (1984) 44 with page 247 n. 44.

97See Cassius Dio 61.21.2 and Suetonius, Nero 12.3: Instituit et quinquennale certamen primus omnium Romae more Graeco triplex, musicum gymnicum equestre, quod appellavit Neronia; dedicatisque thermis atque gymnasio senatui quoque et equiti oleum praebuit (‘He was likewise the first to establish at Rome a quinquennial contest in three parts, after the Greek fashion, that is in music, athletics, and riding, which he called the Neronia; at the same time he dedicated his baths and gymnasium, supplying every member of the senatorial and equestrian orders with oil’).

98Griffin (1984) 247 n. 44.

99Champion (2003) 80.

100Varner (2005) 67. On imperial statuary see further Vout (2007) and Gladhill (2012).

101Laelia is Nr. 2161 in Jörg Rüpke’s compendium of all religious officials from ancient Rome of whom we have any record. See Rüpke (2008).

102See Wildfang (2006), Ch. 3: ‘Vestal initiation – the rite of captio’.

103Koestermann (1968) 62.

104Bartera (2011) 161. Whether this standardization ‘reflects the political irrelevance of the consuls, who become, so to speak, “sclerotic” dating devices’ (ibid.), is another matter.

105See Diogenes Laertius, Life of Periander: ‘However, after some time, in a fit of anger, he killed his wife by throwing a footstool at her, or by a kick, when she was pregnant, having been egged on by the slanderous tales of concubines, whom he afterwards burnt alive.’ We cite the translation by R. D. Hicks in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1925) – with thanks to John Henderson for the reference.

106Suetonius, Augustus 58.

107Oakley (2009a) 188, with reference to 14.64.3. As he points out, the examples are innumerable – and need to be appreciated as such: ‘The instances of servile behaviour that Tacitus chronicles are legion, and all readers will have their favourites; any selection that is not copious is false to the tone of his writing.’

108See Annals 2.69.2 and elsewhere.

109Gradel (2002) 59.

110See Smallwood (1967) 24; Scheid (1998) 76.

111Hickson Hahn (2007) 238. She goes on to note the problem in terminology that ensues: ‘The term “supplication” (supplicatio) illustrates this problem [i.e. how to determine whether a visual representation of prayer constituted a petition, oath, or thanksgiving] well. The Romans used the same word to identify public days of prayer and offering for propitiation, expiation, and thanksgiving.’

112Gurval (1995) 69.

113Humphrey (1986) 565–66.

114As a further point of comparison one could cite Cassius Dio’s account of the honours Augustus awarded to his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus after his death in 23 BC. It is indicative of an early stage of imperial honours, where the crossing of the divide between human and divine was still a taboo: ‘Augustus gave him a public burial after the customary eulogies, placing him in the tomb he was building, and as a memorial to him finished the theatre whose foundations had already been laid by the former Caesar and which was now called the theatre of Marcellus. And he ordered also that a golden image of the deceased, a golden crown, and a curule chair should be carried into the theatre at the Ludi Romani and should be placed in the midst of the officials having charge of the games’ (53.30).

115French (1986) 69.

116Furneaux (1907) 347.

117Oakley (2009b) 200, with further examples in n. 23.

118Oakley (2009b) 196.

119See Tacitus, Histories 4.42. Also: Pliny, Letters 1.5.3. For the practice of delation – a new development under the principate – see Introduction Section 2 and 6. Further literature includes Lintott (2001–2003) (including discussion of the republican background) and Rutledge (2001).

120On fama see now the magisterial treatment by Hardie (2012), with a discussion of rumour in Tacitus’ historiographical works at 288–313. Flaig (2010a) offers an analysis of rumour in Roman politics from a sociological perspective, with specific reference to the reign of Nero.

121For the varying status of the cities in the Roman Empire see Edmundson (2006) 256–58.

122Champlin (2003) 59–60. See Suetonius, Nero 20.3 and Annals 14.15.

123See Maltby (1991) 78.

124Miller (1975) 83.

125Syme (1958) I 356.

126For the (uncertain) text, translation, and discussion see Bartsch (1994) 103–4.

127See Swain et al. (2007).

128So Henderson; see further Henderson (2004) 77.

129On the ‘informer’ see Introduction Section 2 and 6.

130Miller (1975) 84.

131Miller (1975) 84.

132Miller (1975) 85.

133Caligula, too, was reported to have harboured plans to move to Alexandria after perpetrating mass slaughter among the Roman élite – a plot that Suetonius presents as the final straw that led to his assassination. See Caligula 49.2: …periit, ingentia facinora ausus et aliquanto maiora moliens, siquidem proposuerat Antium, deinde Alexandream commigrare interempto prius utriusque ordinis electissimo quoque (‘… he perished, having dared great crimes and meditating still greater ones. For he had made up his mind to move to Antium, and later to Alexandria, after first slaying the noblest members of the two orders’).

134We cite the text and translation of S. Morton Braund in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2004).

135See in general Garnsey (1988).

136Woodman (1998).

137Woodman (1998) 172.

138See more generally Woodman (2004) xxii: ‘given a choice of synonyms, Tacitus often varies the linguistic norm by choosing the less common: luxus (“luxuriousness”) for luxuria (“luxury”), maestitia (“sorrowfulness”) for maeror (“sorrow”), seruitium (“servitude”) for seruitus (“slavery”).’

139Woodman (1998) 171–72.

140Woodman (1998) 172.

141Woodman (1998) 175.

142For Latin terms for ‘prostitute’ see Adams (1983).

143Woodman (1998) 175–76.

144Cf. Annals 11.27 where Tacitus dismissively speaks of imperial Rome as a society in which there are no secrets and no topic is off-limits (in civitate omnium gnara et nihil reticente). His historiography is not least an attempt to establish a dignified voice within this sea of incessant, shameless chatter.

145We cite the translation of Guy Lee, Horace: Odes & Carmen Saeculare, with an English version in the original metres, introduction and notes, Leeds 1998.

146Woodman (1998) 181.

147Woodman (1998) 184 further draws attention that Cleopatra’s last Roman lover, Mark Antony – a distant ancestor of Nero no less! – was accused by Cicero of a homosexual marriage ‘in very similar terms to those used by Tacitus about Nero’: see Philippic 2.44.

148The most recent study of the Roman wedding is Hersch (2010).

149Santoro L’Hoir (2006) 248.

150A fictional comparandum occurs in the first chapter of J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: ‘The Other Minister’, where the British (Muggle) Prime Minister is held responsible by his political opponents for a series of catastrophes (some nasty murders, the collapse of a bridge, a hurriance, the dismal weather): they gloatingly explain ‘why each and every one of them was the government’s fault’.

151See the treatments by Paul (1982), who traces the literary topos and its thematic range back to Homer’s Iliad and explores its subsequent career in ‘tragic’ historiography, and Ziolkowski (1993), who looks into the specifically Roman spin on it.

152We cite the text and translation by H. Caplan in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1954).

153We cite the text and translation by D. A. Russell in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 2001).

154Fans of J. K. Rowling’s Harry-Potter saga may wish to compare Tacitus’ passage with the ‘Fiendfyre’ that rages through the Room of Requirement in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 31: ‘The Battle of Hogwarts’: ‘It was not normal fire..: as they turned a corner the flames chased them as though they were alive, sentient, intent upon killing them. Now the fire was mutating, forming a gigantic pack of fiery beasts….’

155Paul (1982) 147–48.

156Heinze (1915/1993) 17. References to Troy engulfed in flames occur at Aeneid 2.311, 327, 329, 337, 353, 374, 431, 505, 566, 600, 632, 664, 705, 758, 764).

157Austin (1964) 135. See now also the discussion by Rossi (2004), Chapter 1: ‘The Fall of Troy: Between Tradition and Genre’, esp. 24–30: ‘Flames’.

158See Suetonius, Caesar 6, citing from Caesar’s funeral speech for his aunt Julia, delivered in 68 BC (i.e. two year after Virgil’s birth): ‘The family of my aunt Julia is descended by her mother from the kings, and on her father’s side is akin to the immortal Gods; for the Marcii Reges (her mother’s family name) go back to Ancus Marcius, and the Julii, the family of which ours is a branch, to Venus.’

159The following is based on O’Gorman (2000) 162–75 (‘The Game of Troy’).

160Virgil, Aeneid 12.791-842.

161See O’Gorman (2000) 168–71 for possible affinities between Scipio and Nero (via Livy).

162Miller (1975) 90.

163Miller (1975) 88.

164See further Kraus (1994). Cicero, at de Lege Agraria 2.96, also mentions that Rome’s roads ‘are none of the best’ and its side-streets ‘of the narrowest’.

165On famine and food supply in ancient Rome see further Garnsey (1988).

166See Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI.1, 826.

167Miller (1973) 91.

168Koestermann (1968) 242.

169Furneaux (1907) 367.

170Koestermann (1968) 242.

171Furneaux (1907) 367, with reference to Annals 16.4.2.

172Furneaux (1907) 368.

173Miller (1973) 92 regards vetustissima religione as ‘a loosely attached abl. of attendant circumstances or quality.’ Cf. fessa aetate (38.4).

174Koestermann (1968) 243.

175Miller (1973) 93.

176Klauck (2003).

177Text and translation by D. R. Shackleton Bailey in the Loeb Classical Library edition (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1993).

178See Plutarch, Julius Caesar 58.

179Koestermann (1968) 248.

180Miller (1973) 95.

181Eck (2009) 238–39.

182Koestermann (1968) 251.

183Miller (1973) 95.

184See Linderski (1996) 1382.

185Text and translation are taken from D. R. Shackleton Bailey’s Loeb edition (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2000). With reference to the last sentence he comments in a footnote: ‘A rare touch of humour’.

186Rives (2007) 198–99.

187Miller (1973) xxviii.

188Miller (1973) xxviii.

189For a discussion of the paleographical evidence see e.g. http://www.textexcavation.com/documents/zaratacituschrestianos.pdf

190Lichtenberg (1996) 2170.

191Miller (1973) 96. Her reference is to the Acts of the Apostles, the fifth book of the New Testament. In the Vulgate version of the Bible, the chapter (referring to events in AD 40) reads as follows: et annum totum conversati sunt in ecclesia et docuerunt turbam multam ita ut cognominarentur primum Antiochiae discipuli Christiani (‘And they conversed there in the church a whole year: and they taught a great multitude, so that at Antioch the disciples were first named Christians’). Text and translation from http://www.latinvulgate.com/.

192Syme (1958) II 469.

193Brunt (1966) 463.

194Koestermann (1968) 256.

195Miller (1973) 97.

196For representations of the Actaeon story at the amphitheatre of Capua, see Bomgardner (2000) 100.

197Lichtenberger (1996) 2171.

198Miller (1973) 97.

199Cicero, ad Familiares 7.1.

200Miller (1973) 87.

201Koestermann (1968) 262.

202Miller (1973) 99.