Matheson Collection > Cornelli Taciti annalium

LIFE OF NERO
loyal to Nero : but the latter showed himself helpless and cowardly
in the crisis, while Tigellinus, incapacitated by debauchery and
disease, had lost his power over the troops, so that his colleague
Nymphidius was enabled to win them over to Galba's support by
promise of a large donative.
§ 8. It is a curious fact that after Nero's death there still remained
people who viewed his memory with affection and long continued
to deck his grave with flowers ; while the secrecy of his end made
it possible for many to believe that he still lived and would one
day return to resume his power, and pretenders to his name ap-
peared not only soon after his death but even some twenty years later.
§ 9. Tacitus' description of Nero conveys to us the impression of
a character without interest in the practical side of life, but caring
only for art and amusements, sinking through unrestrained and
unnatural indulgence to the condition of a monster in whom all
sense of right and wrong was lost. And though misrepresentation
is a common characteristic of the historians of the period of the
early empire, making caution necessary in our final estimate of
Tiberius and Claudius, in the case of Nero accounts are in the
main consistent and credible, and it seems unlikely that further
knowledge would give a more favourable picture than Tacitus has
left us. For one who was responsible for the death of every near
relation he had in the world and of so many of the highest and
best of his contemporaries, there is small possibility of e.xtenuation.
AFFAIRS IN THE EAST
§ I. The disturbances in Armenia, leading to the hostilities
with that country and Parthia, had originated in Claudius' reign.
Mithridates, an Iberian prince, who became king of Armenia with
Tiberius' support in 35 A. D., was assassinated by his son-in-law
Rhadamistus, at the instigation of the Iberian king Pharasmanes.
in 52 A.D., and the Roman troops who were in Armenia at the
time, ostensibly for Mithridates' support, allowed the murder to
pass, and apparently withdrew leaving Rhadamistus in possession
of the kingdom,
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