General Summary

AFTER Livy, the greatest of Roman historians is Cornelius Tacitus (about 55–117 A. D.). One of his earlier works was a charming biography of his father-in-law, Agricola, the conqueror of Britain. It contains an interesting sketch of the history of the island under Roman rule. Tacitus also published a brief treatise on Germany, its geography, and its peoples. But the crowning work of his life was a history of Rome from Tiberius to Domitian. Of this narrative, issued under the two titles of Histories and Annals, only about one half is extant. The loss of so much of it is one of the great calamities of literature. In reading Tacitus we must always remember that he belonged to the aristocratic circle of nobles who regarded the empire with the bitterest hatred and who found little but evil in the emperors themselves. Tacitus is a powerful writer, but he is as much a satirist as a historian. Even his account of Nero, that half-crazed wretch who for fourteen years sullied the imperial purple by his crimes, has probably been colored by the author’s deep-seated prejudices. Few pages of Roman history, however, present greater interest and fascination.

Historical Summary

The compulsory suicide of another victim of the emperor’s hatred is thus described.

The history of Nero’s reign by Tacitus, as it has come down to us, breaks off abruptly with the last two years unchronicled. From other historians we learn that at length the unbridled license and tyranny of Nero’s career stirred up rebellion. The legions proclaimed a new emperor (Galba), and the Roman Senate, so long subservient to Nero, declared him an outlaw. He fled from Rome and took refuge in a house outside the city, belonging to his freedman, Phaon. Nero’s flight was known and soldiers were sent in search for him. "All who surrounded him pressed him to save himself from the indignities which were ready to befall him. Nero then ordered a pit to be sunk before his eyes, of the size of his body, and the bottom to be covered with pieces of marble put together, if any could be found about the house; and water and wood to be got ready for immediate use about his corpse. He kept weeping and frequently saying, ’What an artist is now about to perish!’ Meanwhile, when letters were brought in by a servant belonging to Phaon, he snatched them out of his hand, and there read, ’That he had been declared an enemy by the Senate, and that search was making for him, that he might be punished according to the ancient custom of the Romans.’ He then inquired what kind of punishment that was; and learned that the practice was to strip the criminal naked, and scourge him to death, while his neck was fastened within a forked stake. At this Nero was so terrified that he took up two daggers which he had brought with him, and after feeling the points of both, put them up again, saying, ’The fatal hour is not yet come.’ At one time he begged Sporus to begin to wail and lament; at another time he asked that one of them would set him an example by killing himself; and then again, he condemned his own want of resolution in these words, ’I yet live to my shame and disgrace: this is not becoming for Nero: it is not becoming. Thou oughtest in such circumstances to have a good heart. Come, then: courage, man!’ The horsemen who had received orders to bring him away alive, were now approaching the house. As soon as he heard them coming, he uttered with a trembling voice the following verse,

’The noise of swift-heeled steeds assails my ears’

and then drove a dagger into his throat, being assisted in the act by Epaphroditus, his secretary. A centurion burst in just as he was half-dead, and applied his cloak to the wound, pretending that he had come to his assistance. Nero made no other reply but this, ’It is too late’: and ’Is this your loyalty?’ Immediately after pronouncing these words, he expired. . . . He had requested of his attendants as the most essential favor, that they would let no one have his head, but that by all means his body might be burnt entire. And this, Icelus, Galba’s freedman, granted." . . .