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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
‘Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat; repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per urbem etiam quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluuunt celebranturque. igitur primum correpti qui fatebantur deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt. et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus adfixi aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur. hortos suos ei spectaculo Nero obtulerat et circense ludicrum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel curriculo insistens. unde quamquam adversus sontes et novissima exempla meritos miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utilitate publica sed in saevitiam unius absumerentur.’ Tac.Ann. 15. 44.
Page 81 note 1 So Henderson, B. W. in his Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero, p. 437Google Scholar. He finds the other view involves Tacitus in ‘inexcusable self-contradiction’. But qui fatebantur, as well as sontes, must mean genuine confessions and genuine guilt till one has ‘understood’ a great deal in the Latin.
Page 82 note 1 The two accounts, that is, of the trials. He does distinguish in chap. 38 of this book between two accounts of the origin of the fire—‘forte an dolo principis incertum (nam utrumque auctores prodidere)’—and it will be noted that he does not—here or anywhere—suggest the third possibility of the Christians being guilty of the fire.
Page 83 note 1 Or were they so mutually exclusive after all? It is just possible that some Romans even believed the hated fanatics to have been the agents of the mad emperor, who, not unnaturally, at once disowned and silenced them. There are parallels in history to such a proceeding and such a belief. I do not believe that Tacitus ever, in fact, inclined at all to this improbable version, if it existed, but it is a measure of his obscurity in this passage that his language does not entirely exclude even this possibility. To make Subdiditreos refer to a principal fastening the guilt on his agents and then to make charge, the confessions and guilt consitently of incendiarism would be to do no more in the way of amplification and distortion than most ‘monistic’ explanations of this passage entail.
Page 83 note 2 I take this view of Mommsen's to be now generally acceted. A detailed discussion of this point would out of place here.
Page 83 note 3 The most that can be read into suet. Claud. 25 is that Claudius expelled the Christians from Rome without taking more drastic action— ‘Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.’
Page 84 note 1 Just as it is theoretically possible for Nero to have used the Christians as his tools, or to have been suspected of so doing, so it is possible that Nero's agents begen the fire and that fanatical Solomon Eagles among the early Christians continued the good work begun by the emperor—or by change. This may haved helped to confuse the traditional accounts of the fire, and confused authorities may partly explain Tacitus' obscurity. But it needed mixed feelings, an unwilliness to sort out the facts, as well as confused facts, to produce the passage as we have it.
Page 84 note 2 It may be asked what is gained by obscurity or ambiguity when any sense you supply with qui fatebantur involves contradiction. The answer may be found in the controversies of modern scholar. A wide choice of interpretations is offfered, each said to contain no contradiction. The casual reader gets a vague impression, without noticing the toned-down flaw.