Matheson Collection > Cornelli Taciti annalium

BOOK XV. CH. 44, § 5 — CH. 47, §§ 1-3
Secundo Carrinate : probably son of the rhetorician of that
name who was exiled by Gaius (Juv. vii 207).
§ 4. ore tenus (cf. ch. 6, 6 ' nomine tenus '), ' an adept in the
verbal profession of Greek philosophy.'
§ 5. oravisse : this passage implies that his former request for
retirement from the court had not been granted (xiv 52-56) and
that he was still one of Nero's ' concilium.'
aeger nervis, ' having a muscular complaint ' (rheumatism or
goutj. fegresaus : the use of the accus. governed transitively by
this verb originates with Caesar and Livy.j
§ 6. dum . . . tolerat: see Intr II 37.
persimplici : ott. dp. Intr. II 51, c.
agrestibus pomis, ' fruit growing wild,' as distinct from highly
cultivated garden produce : so Germ. 23, I ' cibi simplices, agrestia
poma.'
profluente, ' from a running stream.'
Ch. 46, § I. gladiatores : evidently kept at Praeneste in a
training-school. Praeneste = Palaestrina, about twenty-three
miles east of Rome.
adesset : so Med., but the subjunctive is inexplicable without
supplying some such participle as ' ibi locato ' or 'existente' to
' praesidio,' 'a military force being stationed there to be a guard on
the spot.' Such an ellipse would be exceedingly harsh. An
inferior MS. reads 'aderat,' and * adest ' has been suggested for
'adesset.'
Spartacum : the war of Spartacus, B C. 73-71, began with the
outbreak of only seventy-four gladiators from the school of Capua.
§ 2. immota pax: the war in the East was virtually over.
classem : the 'classis praetoria' which had Misenum as its station.
non exceptis, ' without making any allowance for.'
§ 3. Formiis : on the coast of Latium.
movere : intransitive, see Intr. II 29,
Africo : ' creber procellis Africus,' Verg. Aen. i 86.
Cumanis : Cumae lay some six miles north of Cape Misenum.
passina : cf. xiv 15, i.
Ch. 47, § I. vis: so in ch. 5, 4, &c.
semper expiatum : a rhetorical exaggeration (like ' saepe ' in
xiii 6, i), only one other comet having been mentioned by Tacitus
before this, viz. that of xiv 22, i. sanguine inlustri applies in
this case to the executions following the detection of the conspiracy
of Piso, and in the case of the previous comet to the exile and
death of Rubellius Plautus and Cornelius Sulla.
§ 2. abiecti in publicum, ' were publicly exposed.'
gravidas hostias : such sacrifices were called ' hordicidia '
('horda ' = 'praegnans vacca'), and are mentioned in Ovid as paid
to Tellus and to Faunus.
§ 3. Placentino : of Placentia, on the Padus, a colony founded
220 B. C. after the conquest of the Insubres.
esaet: the subjunctive is variously explained (l) as practically
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