^* For the early translations and editions of Tacitus and the Octavia quoted in the notes, see the standard bibliographies.

¹ immanitas a characteristic of parricides: Cic. Cat. 1.14; S.Rosc. 63; Quint. 9.2.53; [Quint.] Decl. Mai. 8.6; 17.7 (murders of a stepson and fathers); Suet. Nero 7 and Tac. Ann. 14.11.3 (Nero's murders of Britannicus and Agrippina).

² Cf. Suet. Galba 10 (Galba calling for revolt from a platform adorned with images of those murdered by Nero); impietas an anti-Neronian slogan:Kragelund, R., ‘Galba's Pietas, Nero's victims and the Mausoleum of Augustus’, Historia 48 (1998), 152ff.Google Scholar

³ Three of the four contemporary pasquinades against Nero quoted by Suetonius, Nero 39.2 condemn him as a parricide; so did the actor Datus, from the stage (Suet. Nero 39.3), the tribune Subrius Flavus, to his face (parricida matris et uxoris), and Seneca, when ordered to die: Tac. Ann. 15.67.2, 62.2.

⁴ Ausschweifung: H. Gutmann (Berlin, 1829); W. Boetticher (Berlin, 1864); J. Borst (München, 1969), and H. Vretska (Reclam, Stuttgart, 1984); ausschweifender Lebenswandel: W. Sontheimer (Stuttgart, 1959).

⁵ ‘beastly debaucheries’: T. Gordon (London, 1737); ‘life of pleasure’:Wellesley, K., Penguin Classics (1964)Google Scholar; Talbert, R. J. A., AJAH 2 (1977), 79Google Scholar and Rubies, J.-P., ‘Nero in Tacitus and Nero in Tacitism’, in Eisner, J. and Masters, J. (edd.), Reflections of Nero (London, 1994), 38.Google Scholar

⁶ sregolatezze: F. Dessi (Milano, 1982). turpitudini: C. Giussani (Milano, 1945); similarly, the early Catalan translator E. Sveyro (Antverp, 1619) has ‘su dissolution’.

⁷ voluptez (sic): R. Le Maistre (Paris, 1627); débauches: N. Perrot d'Ablancourt (Amsterdam, 1670); J. H. Dotteville (Paris, 1785–93) and J. L. Burnouf (Paris, 1878); similarly, H. Goelzer (Paris, 1921),Sancery, J., Galba, ou I'Arméface au pouvoir (Paris, 1983), 150Google Scholar, P. Wuilleumier and H. Le Bonniec (Paris, 1987) and P. Grimal (Paris, 1990).

⁸ No comments on the concept in H. Heubner and G. E. F. Chilver ad loc; according to J. Eisner, ‘Constructing decadence’, in: Reflections (n. 5), 123, ‘Their (i.e. the historians’) combined argument was that the outrageous nature of Nero's actions, epitomised by murder and debauchery in private and by building and theatrical antics in public, caused his fall’ (emphasis added).

⁹ Suet. Nero 51: ‘valetudine prospera (sc. Nero): nam qui luxuriae immoderatissimae esset, ter omnino per quattuordecim annos languit, atque ita ut neque vino neque consuetudine reliqua abstineret.’

¹⁰ ‘profligacy’: A. J. Church and W Jackson Brodribb (London, 1864) and W Hamilton Fyfe (Oxford, 1912); ‘extravagance’: C. H. Moore (Loeb, 1925) and Griffin, M. T., Nero. The Endofa Dynasty (London, 1984), 187CrossRefGoogle Scholar (the revised edition [London, 1996] has not been available to me). To judge from Grimm's Deutsches Worterbuch, Schwelgerey (J. S. Müllern, Hamburg, 1766 and K. L. von Woltmann, Berlin, 1812) covers much the same broad range as Latin luxuria, whereas Verschwendung focuses more precisely on misguided liberalitas.

¹¹ On the concept and on Nero's performance, Kloft, H., Liberalitas principis: Herkunft und Bedeutung. Studien zur Prinzipatsideologie (Köln/Wien, 1970)Google Scholar and Griffin (n. 10), 197–207 are basic.

¹² Augustan example: Suet. Nero 10 with Kloft, H., ‘Freigebigkeit und Finanzen, der soziale und finanzielle Aspekt der augusteischen Liberalitas’, in Binder, G. (ed.), Saeculum Augustum I (Darmstadt, 1987), 361ff.Google Scholar On Otho's and Petronius’ jokes about Nero's being a miser, see Plut. Galba 19.3 and Mor. 60e.

¹³ Largitionesr. Tac. Ann. 15.18.3; cf. 13.18 and 15.44.2. The consul is Veranius, Q.: RE 8A (1955), 952Google Scholar (A. E. Gordon); the relevant passage reads AVGVSTO PRINCIPE CVIVS LIBERALITATIS ERAT MINISTER.Bradley, K. R., GRBS 16 (1975), 308Google Scholar dates the inscription to a.d. 51, but Birley, A. R., The Fasti of Roman Britain (Oxford, 1981), 53Google Scholar and Griffin (n. 10), 246, n. 35 present a strong case for a Neronian rather than Claudian date.

¹⁴ On the congiaria see RIC I² (Nero), no. 100–2 (c. a.d. 63), 151–62 (c. 64), 394; 434–5 (c. 65), and 501–6 (c. 66) with comments by Kloft (n. 11), 91 and Stylow, A. U., Libertas und liberalitas (Dissertation, München, 1972), 62, 210–11.Google Scholar

¹⁵ On the range of Nero's generosity, see Griffin (n. 10), 205ff.; epigraphy yields new testimonies, from Cyprus, Pompeii, and Cosa: AE (1975), 834 (rebuilding a theatre); (1977), 217–18 (golden gifts to Venus); and (1994), 616 (rebuilding an odeum).

¹⁶ The date of Nero's Greek oration is controversial: in my view,Gallivan, P. A., Hermes 101 (1973), 233Google Scholar and Griffin (n. 10), 280, n. 127, and, most recently,Howgego, C., NC (1989), 206–7Google Scholar argue convincingly for late 67; on the range of competitions,Kennell, N. M., ‘Neron periodonikes’, AJPh 109 (1988), 239ff.Google Scholar

¹⁷ SIG³ 814 = ILS 8794 (the words in brackets were deleted after Nero's fall). Flamininus’ liberalitas towards Greece in 196 b.c. was of a kind which ‘no writer will ever be able to celebrate according to its merits’: Val. Max. 4.8.5.

¹⁸ Seneca on munificenliae <tuae>, innumeram pecuniam, muneribus tuis, and Nero on mea liberalitas and ༐μͳς μ∊γαλοøρσυης: Tac. Ann. 14.53.4–5; 14.56 and SIG³ 814.

¹⁹ On the phraseology, see Curt. 8.9.23: regum luxuria, quam ipsi munificentiam appellant and Quint. 4.2.77: luxuria liberalitatis… nomine lenietur; similarly, 5.13.26, 8.6.36, and Tac. Hist. 1.30 (quoted n. 27) with H. Kloft (n. 11), 141ff. Links between luxuria and avaritia: n. 25.

²⁰ Cf. Plut. Galba 16; Suet. Nero 30–2; Eutropius 7.14 (inusitatae luxuriae sumptuumque); Orosius 7.7.3–7; SHA, Verus 10.8; Heliogabal 18.4 (conjectural) and Alex.Sev. 9.4; on Eutropius and Orosius, see e.g.Jakob-Sonnabend, W., Untersuchungen zum Nero-Bild der Spätantike (Hildesheim, Zürich, New York, 1990), 44ff.Google Scholar, 66ff.

²¹ Germania 45.5 is an ironic reference to Roman luxuria: so highly is amber, a material ‘useless to the natives’, prized in Rome that it bewilders the virtuous Germanic traders, astonished to be paid for it at all.

²² Clodius Quirinalis: Tac. Ann. 13.30. Praetor in a.d. 68: ludos et inania honor is medio rationis atque abundantiae duxit, uti longe a luxuria, ita famae propior, Agr. 6.4.

²³ Nero's avaritiam ac prodigentiam, Tac. Ann. 13.1.3; similarly, 15.37 (eadem prodigentia); largitiones and munificentia: n. 13 and 18; nulla parsimonia: 13.13.4. Tiberius a princeps antiquae parsimoniae, 3.52 with Levick, B., Tiberius the Politician (London, 1976), 89–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ Cf. Tac. Ann. 13.18.1–2 (after the murder of Britannicus); 14.14.3–4 (gifts to aristocrats who degraded themselves on the stage); 15.44.2 (attempts to win goodwill after the fire of Rome).

²⁵ Cf. Cic. S.Rosc 75: ex luxuria… avaritia and De Oratore 2.171: avaritiam si tollere voltis, mater.eius est tollenda, luxuries, and Sen. Ep. 95.33: in avaritiam luxuria praeceps with comments by Kloft (n. 11), 148.

²⁶ Tac. Ann. 16.3 [M. Grant, Penguin]: ‘gliscebat interim luxuria spe inani, consumebanturque veteres opes quasi oblatis, quas multos per annos prodigeret. quin et inde iam largiebatur, et divitiarum expectatio inter causas paupertatis publicae erat.’

²⁷ Tac. Hist. 1.21: luxuria (sc. Othonis) etiam principi onerosa; 1.13.3: gratus (sc. Otho) Neroni aemulatione luxus; 1.30: falluntur quibus luxuria specie liberalitatis imponit: perdere iste (sc. Otho) sciet, donare nesciet. The reference at 1.71 to Otho's temperance during the final campaign (dilatae voluptates, dissimulata luxuria) seems to refer to lifestyle rather than economy.

²⁸ Tac. Hist. 1.50 (the luxuria of Otho and Vitellius).

²⁹ Hist. 2.62: prorsus si luxuriae temperaret, avaritiam non timeres and 3.86.2: inerat (sc. Vitellio)… liberalitas, quae ni adsit modus, in exitium vertuntur; by contrast, Mucianus managed to combine private luxuria with public success: 1.10.2. On the motif, see further Funari, R., ‘Degradazione morale e luxuria nell'esercito di Vitellio (Tacito, Hist. II): modelli e sviluppi narrativi’, Athenaeum 80 (1992), 133ff.Google Scholar

³⁰ In Catholic doctrine, luxuria is a Deadly Sin; among its manifestations Thomas Aquinas listed fornicatio simplex, adulterium, incestus, stuprum, raptus, and peccatum contra naturam (Summ. Theol. 2.2.154). Whether directly or indirectly, such definitions may well have strengthened the tendency to interpret references to Nero's luxuria within a similar framework; an early exponent is Aug. Civ.D. 5.19 according to whom Nero's luxuries, fuit tanta… ut nihil ab eo putaretur virile metuendum.

³¹ As for the causes of the revolt,Brunt, P. A., ‘The revolt of Vindex and the fall of Nero’, Latomus 18 (1959), 531–59Google Scholar (= Roman Imperial Themes [Oxford, 1990], 9–33) and Griffin (n. 10), 185ff. present a strong case for seeing the economy as a major factor.

³² On the evidence for extortion of provincials in Britain, Judaea, and Spain (no trials for misgovernment on record after a.d. 61), see Brunt (n. 31), 553–9.

³³ avaritiam et luxuriam, Tac. Agr. 15.4 with Webster, G., Boudica (London, 1978), 86ff.Google Scholar

³⁴ On the exactions and confiscations after the great fire, see e.g. Tac. Ann. 15.45, 16.23; Suet. Nero 32.4, 38.3 with Brunt (n. 31), 556.

³⁵ Debasement of coinage in a.d. 64:Walker, D. R., The Metrology of the Roman Silver Coinage III (Oxford, 1978), 111Google Scholar, who further argues from Suet. Nero 44.2 that Nero at the end seems to have demanded ‘payment in good (i.e. old) coin… [while] refusing to accept payment in his new and poorer money’; so, apparently, did Germanic traders: Tac. Germ. 5.5.

³⁶ In Egypt a new debased coinage replaced the old between a.d. 64 to 66:Christiansen, E., The Roman Coins of Alexandria (Århus, 1987), 104ff.Google Scholar The resulting profit has been variously estimated, but recoinage was clearly on a ‘massive’ scale:Howgego, C. J., JRS 80 (1990), 232Google Scholar; cf.Gara, A., Gnomon 62 (1990), 753.Google Scholar

³⁷ Contra Thornton, M. E. K., ‘Nero's new deal’, TAPA 102 (1971), 621 ff.Google Scholar, who regards Nero as a Keynes avant la lettre attempting to counteract widespread unemployment (for which there is no evidence); Vespasian was not of course alone in caring for his plebecula (Suet. Vesp. 18) but to describe such paternalistic concern as a New Deal seems anachronistic.

³⁸ By using different methods of measuring,Butcher, K. and Ponting, M., ‘Rome and the East. Production of Roman provincial silver coinage for Caesarea in Cappadocia under Vespasian, a.d. 69–79’, OJA 14 (1995), 75–6Google Scholar question the figures of Walker—but not the debasement itself.

³⁹ On the possible links between Nero's debasement and the defection of the armies in Spain, Gaul, Germany, and north Italy, see Crawford, M. H., ‘Ancient devaluations’ in Les ‘dévaluations’ a Rome I (Paris, 1978), 152.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ On the complex causes of the Jewish revolt, see e.g.Smallwood, E. M., The Jews under Roman Rule (Leiden, 1976), 256ff.Google Scholar; Applebaum, S., ‘Judaea as a Roman province’, ANRW 2.8 (1977), 385Google Scholar emphasizes the importance of the ‘widespread problem of land-shortage, exacerbated by heavy taxation and tenurial oppression’ in Judaea of the first century b.c. and a.d.

⁴¹ By a.d. 67 60,000 men were fighting in Judaea: Jos. B.J. 3.69; activity of the eastern mints: Walker (n. 35), 115–117. On costs, see further n. 91.

⁴² Helius’ warnings: Suet. Nero 23; salary of the army: ibid 32 with discussion of Campbell, J. B., The Emperor andthe Roman Army (Oxford, 1984), 173.Google Scholar One year's rent: Suet. Nero 44.2.

⁴³ Tac. Hist. 2.84: eos esse belli civilis nervos (thus Mucianus on the power of money).

⁴⁴ For the edict, see the edition of Chalon, G., L'Edit de Tiberius Julius Alexander (Lausanne, 1964)Google Scholar; on its echo of Galban slogans, see n. 124. Whether conditions actually deteriorated or simply remained bad during Nero's principate, is problematic (53ff.). For discussions of new evidence, see Montevecchi, O., Neronia 1977.2 (1982), 41flf.Google Scholar; Wehrli, C., MH 35 (1978), 245ff.Google Scholar; and Oates, J. F., Alter Orient und altes Testament 203 (1979), 325ff.Google Scholar Montevecchi argues for an ‘amministrazione fiscale efficiente, ma pesante e oppressiva, con frequenti abusi’ and a ‘crisi economica interna, che si trascina dai tempi di Claudio’ (p. 51).

⁴⁵ On the date of the Bellum Judaicum, see Bilde, P., Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome (Sheffield, 1988), 79Google Scholar (with bibliography). Galba's ταπ∊ιυοøροσ⋯υη: Jos. B.J. 4.494; Nero's πλοτου παραøρουήσας 2.250.

⁴⁶ Isager, J., Pliny on Art and Society (London, 1991), 52ff.Google Scholar (with bibliography).

⁴⁷ Plinian condemnations of Neronian luxuria: use of tortoiseshell under Nero: N.H. 16.232–3; incense (at Poppaea's funeral) 12.82–3; pearls: 37.17; tableware: 37.18–20 (at the cost of 1 million sestertii); perfume and luxuria: 13.1; Nero and Otho: 13.22.

⁴⁸ Plin. N.H. 35.163–4: ‘Vitellius in principatu suo [x] HS condidit patinam cui faciendae fornax in campis exaedificata erat, quoniam eo pervenit luxuria, ut etiam fictilia pluris constent quam murrina. propter hanc Mucianus altero consulatu suo in conquestione exprobravit patinarum paludes Vitelli memoriae’; for an early parallel to Mucianus’ exprobratio, note the oration de cenarum atque luxuriae exprobratione from c. 100 b.c. quoted by Gell. 15.8.

⁴⁹ For scholars favouring Seneca as the author, see notes 55, 70, and 72; on a.d. 68 as the terminus post: Helm, R., Sitz. d. Preus. Akad. (Berlin, 1934), 300ff.Google Scholar and Zwierlein, O., Kritischer Kommentar zu den Tragodien Senecas (Mainz, 1986), 445–6Google Scholar (with bibliography); to judge from similar dream narratives, the dream of Poppaea (712ff.) foretells the death, murder, and suicide of Poppaea, her ex-husband Crispinus, and Nero, respectively:Kragelund, P., Prophecy, Populism and Propaganda in the ‘Octavia’ (Kabenhavn, 1982), 35ff.Google Scholar; they died (in that order) in a.d. 65, 66, and 68—all of them after Seneca.

⁵⁰ Tac. Ann. 1.1.2: recentibus odiis; for texts written or edited within months of the death of a tyrant, in a.d. 37, 54, 68, 96, and 193, see Kragelund, P., ‘Vatinius, Nero and Curiatius Maternus’, CQ 37 (1987), 197–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar and id., ‘The prefect's dilemma and the date of the Octavia’, CQ 38 (1988), 506–7; the playwright's anti-Neronian attitude has commonly been regarded as a possible indication of an early date: cf. e.g.Grassl, H., Untersuchungen zum Vierkaiserjahr 6819 n. Chr. (Dissertation, Wien, 1973)Google Scholar, passim and Ramage, E. S., ‘Denigration of predecessor under Claudius, Galba, and Vespasian’, Historia 32 (1983), 210Google Scholar, n. 32.

⁵¹ How soon, remains debatable:Barnes, T. D., MH 39 (1982), 217Google Scholar; Kragelund (n. 49), 49–50 and id., ‘Prefect's dilemma’ (n. 50), 508; and Sullivan, J. R., Literature and Politics in the Age of Nero (Ithaca, NY/London, 1985), 72Google Scholar belong to those who favour an early, probably Galban date, while Zwierlein (n. 49), 445–6 (with bibliography) argues for the first years of the Flavians. The latter would, admittedly, give the dramatist more time (if such was needed: in periods of transition literary activity seems to have been hectic), but in my view the chief difficulty is the puzzling absence of references to the civil wars and Flavian victory (a prophetic allusion like Sil. Pun. 3.571ff. could easily have been included).

⁵² In view of this attitude the suggestion of Ciaffi, V., RIFC 65 (1937), 264Google Scholar and Cizek, E., L'Époque de Néron et ses controverses idéologiques (Leiden, 1972), 7–8Google Scholar that the Octavia is datable to the reign of Otho is a priori unlikely to be correct: Otho posed as Nero's successor and re-erected the statues of Octavia's foe, Poppaea (see note 111 below).

⁵³ On the ‘populism’ of the dramatist and of the coinage of the revolt, see Kragelund (n. 49), 38ff.; similarly, Zwierlein (n. 49), 445–6;Grimal, P., ‘Le tableau de la vie politique à Rome en 62, d'après I'Octavie’, Studi… G. Monaco III (Palermo, 1991), 1149–1158Google Scholar brings out the remarkable differences between Seneca's and the playwright's attitudes to the populus Romanus.

⁵⁴ Quint. 10.1.125:turn autem solus hie (sc. Seneca) fere in manibus adulescentium fuit.

⁵⁵ On the similarities and differences between the style and metre of Seneca and the dramatist, see e.g. Helm (n. 49), 300ff. and Ballaira, G., Ottavia, con note (Torino, 1974)Google Scholar, passim; Abbolito, G. Simonetti, ‘Su alcuni passi dell’ Octavia’, Studi Traglia II (Roma, 1979), 731ff.Google Scholar, 752 and Giancotti, F., Orpheus NS 4 (1983), 215ff.Google Scholar regard such similarities as proof of Seneca's authorship, but the argument is weak: they may just as well be the result of deliberate imitatio.

⁵⁶ The scene inspired dramatists, from Mussato down to Busenello and Monteverdi:Tschiedel, H. J., ‘Die italienische Literatur’, in Lefèvre, E. (ed.), Der Einfluss Senecas auf das europäische Drama (Darmstadt, 1978), 81ff.Google Scholar; a late—and apparently unnoticed—echo is King Philip's ‘Erbarmung hiesse Wahnsinn’ in Schiller's Don Carlos 2.2; surely, the inspiration is Nero's pun, dementia (496) in reply to Seneca's pleas for dementia.

⁵⁷ On the monologue, see Bruckner, F., Interpretationen zur Pseudo-Seneca-Tragödie ‘Octavia’ (Dissertation, Nürnberg, 1976), 14ff.Google Scholar; Schwabl, H., s.v. ‘Weltalter’, RE Suppl. 15 (1978), 895ff.Google Scholar and G. Williams, ‘Nero, Seneca and Stoicism in the Octavia’, in Eisner and Masters (n. 5), 180ff.

⁵⁸ Prop. 3.13.4fF. contrasts luxuria with the conditions of an ideal, bucolic past; and at Ep. 90 and 95.19 (luxuria, terrarum marisque vastatrix) Seneca discusses Stoic attitudes (cf. Bruckner [n. 57], 30–1), but the item does not figure in such classic descriptions of the Golden Age as Cic. N.D. 2.159; Ov. Met. 1.89ff.; and Germanicus Caesar, Aratea 96ff.

⁵⁹ Nero's principate a Golden Age: Sen. Apoc. 4; Calp. Sic. 1.42, cf. 4.137ff.; similarly, Tac. Ann. 16.2.2, quoting panegyrics from 66 a.d.

⁶⁰ Schmidt, P. L., ‘Die Poetisierung und Mythisierung der Geschichte in der Tragödie Octavia’, ANRW 2.32.2 (1985), 1437Google Scholar seems mistaken when claiming that libido has little part in the dramatist's characterization of Nero; for the dramatist on ‘Nero in love’, see F. Bruckner (n. 57), 97ff. and Williams (n. 57), 185ff.

⁶¹ Venus is throughout this play an evil, amoral force. She had presided at Messalina's illicit nuptials with Silius, the cause and font of all the subsequent misery (257ff.).

⁶² With the exception of Bruckner (n. 57), 32 (‘So eng wie bei scelera, impietas, libido ist bei luxuria der Bezug zur Fabel der Oc(tavia) nicht, aber dem Octaviadichter war Nero's Verschwendungssucht doch ein so bezeichnender Wesenszug, dass er auch in der Praetexta darauf anspielte’), previous discussions of the monologue (see note 57) do not comment on the historical implications of Seneca's verdict.

⁶³ On Seneca's attitude to wealth, see Griffin, M. T., Seneca (Oxford, 1976), 286ff.Google Scholar (with bibliography); his stance was condemned as hypocritical by Publius Suillius in 58 a.d. (cf. Tac. Ann. 13.42.4) and later, with great vehemence, by Dio 61.10.3 (Bois.). Tacitus shows more sympathy, when describing the courtier's dilemma: Ann. 14.53 (Seneca vainly begging to be allowed to return Nero's gifts) and 15.45.3 (opposing Nero's confiscation of sacred objects as a sacrilegium). Note also Plut. Mor. 461F-462 (Seneca warning Nero against excessive extravagance).

⁶⁴ On luxuria andperdere, see TLL 10.1, 1264–5; note Plaut. Trin. 13 (the speaker is Luxuria herself) and Tac. Hist. 1.30 (quoted in n. 27); Sen. N.Q. 1, praef. 6 has non est tibi… luxuria pecuniam turpiter perdens quam turpius reparet and Suet. Nero 30 quotes a pronouncement of Nero's: sordidos ac deparcos esse quibus impensarum ratio constaret, praelautos vereque magnificos qui abuterentur ac perderent.

⁶⁵ In one year, Caligula squandered all the funds accumulated under Tiberius: Suet. Cal. 37.3 (immensas opes… absumpsit); similarly, Nero was led to a new ‘frenzy of spending’ (impend-iorumfurorem) by the vain hope of finding Dido's immensarum… opum: Nero 31.4. By contrast, Aemilius Paullus appropriated none of the immensas opes (Liv. per. 46) from Spain and Macedonia for his own coffers—it all went to the public treasury: Cic. Off. 2.76; Val. Max. 4.3.8.

⁶⁶ Neither Ballaira (n. 55) nor Whitman, L. Y., The ‘Octavia’. Introduction, Text and Commentary (Bern/Stuttgart, 1978)Google Scholar, ad loc. comments on the plural cohortes (626). Normally, the palace was guarded by a single cohors commanded by a tribune: Tac. Ann. 12.69; Hist. 1.29 and Suet. Nero 9 with Duny, M., Les cohortes prétoriennes (Paris, 1938), 275.Google Scholar Nero had sometimes been careless with his safety (omissis excubiis, Tac. Ann. 15.52), but after the detection of the Pisonian conspiracy, the guard was doubled (multiplicatis excubiis): Ann. 15.57.4; if not a poetical licence, cohortes (626) may therefore well refer to such late emergency measures.

⁶⁷ Suet. Nero 47.

⁶⁸ Tac. Ann, 15.29 and Dio 62.23.4 (Bois.); challenging communis opinio,Heil, M., Die orientalische Aussenpolitik des Kaisers Nero (München, 1997), 220–1Google Scholar prefers dating Rhandia to early 64—but the issue is in this context immaterial.

⁶⁹ Suet. Nero 13 and Dio 63.3.4 (Bois.).

⁷⁰ Thomas, S. Pantzerhielm, ‘De Octavia praetexta’, SO 24 (1945), 68ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ballaira (n. 55) and Whitman (n. 66) are among those who argue that since the prophecy of Agrippina is so strongly characterized by conventional imagery, it is unlikely to have been written by someone who knew precisely what happened; in the opposite case, the prophecy would (so is it claimed) have been more accurate. As in discussions of Poppaea's dream, the argument fails to take the demands of genre into account: this was what curses and prophecies were expected to look like, even when written ex eventu: Kragelund (n. 49), 9ff.

⁷¹ For arguments favouring a.d. 66, see e.g.Münscher, K., ‘Bericht über die Seneca-Literatur aus den Jahren 1915–1921’, Bursians Jahresbericht 192 (1922), 205–8Google Scholar; Helm (n. 49), 298–9; and Carbone, M. E., Phoenix 31 (1977), 50–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar (with bibliography).

⁷² Pace e.g. Ballaira (n. 55), ad [Sen.] Oct. 627; Pantzerhielm Thomas (n. 70), 81 ff.; and Giancotti, F., L'Octavia attribuita a Seneca (Torino, 1954), 57Google Scholar (who all date the episode to a.d. 63).

⁷³ As a parallel to supplices dextram petant, Ballaira (n. 55) follows Hosius (Bonn, 1922) in quoting Sen. Med. 247–8: cum genua attigi, fidemque supplex praesidis dextrae peli. But far from supporting, it seems to me that the parallel demolishes Ballaira's argument in favour of a.d. 63. In Seneca—as indeed elsewhere—the expression denotes a personal encounter like the one in a.d. 66: cf. e.g. Val. Max. 6.9.7, ext.; Sil. Pun. 8.59–60:supplice visal (rex) intremuit… dextramaue tetendit; Liv. 30.12.12: si… vocem supplicem mittere licet si genua, si victricem attingere dextram: and Tac. Ann. 12.19: at Eunones… adlevat supplicem laudataue… quod suam dextram petendae veniae delegerit. In 66, Nero observed a similar etiquette: prior to the coronation proper, he extended his dextra to the suppliant Tiridates: Suet. Nero 13.2.

⁷⁴ On his travel and visit in Rome, Tiridates was accompanied by his wife, by the sons of his brother, the king of Parthia, as well as by other Parthian princes: Dio 63.1.2 (Bois.); they all partook in the ceremony in the Forum: ibid. 63.4.3.

⁷⁵ ‘Much-heralded’: thus Whitman (n. 66), ad [Sen.] Oct. 624–8 while invoking Dio (cf. n. 76).

⁷⁶ A triumph and imperatorial salutations after Rhandia: Dio 62.23.4 (Bois.); in fact, there was no triumph at that date; and Nero's ninth acclamation was between July 61 and late 62 (too early for Rhandia), and the tenth between mid or late 65 and mid 66 (too late for Rhandia): Griffin (n.

¹⁰ ), 232 and Heil (n. 68), 126.

⁷⁷ On the evidence for the celebrations in a.d. 66, see Heil (n. 68), 133 (the praenomen imperatoris and laurels brought to the Capitol); Suet. Nero 13.2: imperator consalutatus.

⁷⁸ Suet. Nero 13.2 relates the closure of the Janus to Tiridates’ visit, but the closure was already celebrated on coins minted between December a.d. 64 and December a.d. 65: RIC I no. 50 (with comments on p. 140); since Tacitus says nothing about this ceremony, the mint had perhaps anticipated events: Griffin (n. 10), 122.

⁷⁹ Nine months: Dio 63.2.2 (Bois.); the ceremony in Rome is datable to mid 66, prior to Nero's departure for Greece in September: Heil (n. 68), 130–1.

⁸⁰ The dream of Poppaea not only foreshadows three deaths in the correct order (cf. n. 49), but also the suicidal consequences of Nero's murderous policy: this latter, double-edged message is repeated no less than five times (732–3, 739, 742–4,752): Kragelund (n. 49), 19ff. (with survey of interpretations, from the fourteenth century onwards).

⁸¹ ‘Kingdoms bring wealth’: thus, or similarly, (I quote at random) Lodovico Dolce (Venice, 1560), Ettore Nini (Venice, 1622), F. Gustafsson (Helsinki, 1915), F. J. Miller (Loeb, 1917), and T. Thomann (Zürich/Stuttgart, 1961).

⁸² Thus (again, at random) Thomas Nuce (London, 1581), M. de Marolles (Paris, 1660), J.-B. Levée (Paris, 1822), W A. Swoboda (Prague, 1825), L. Herrmann (Paris, 1926), and E. F. Watling (Penguin Classics, 1966); they are followed by Ballaira (n. 55) and Whitman (n. 66), ad loc. Giancotti (n. 72), 58 considers both readings possible—and so did I. B. Ascensius (Paris, 1514), ad loc.

⁸³ Among those who print regna, divitias (with a comma), I have noted Heinsius (Leiden, 1611), Farnabius (Amsterdam, 1645), J. F. Gronovius (Amsterdam, 1662), T. Baden (Leipzig, 1821), L. Herrmann (Paris, 1926), and H. Moricca (Torino, 1947).

⁸⁴ Among those who print regna divitias (without a comma) are Delrius (Antverp, 1593), Peiper and Richter (Leipzig, 1867), F. Leo (Berlin, 1878–9), G. C. Giardina (Bologna, 1966), and O. Zwierlein (Oxford, 1986).

⁸⁵ In support of his reading (‘Der Parther Königreiche bringen ihre Reichtümer nach Rom’), Münscher (n. 71), 207 claims that Tiridates payed 800,000 sestertii per day to the Fiscus on his nine-month journey to Rome, but this is without foundation; indeed, Suet. Nero 30.2 says quite the reverse (in Tiridatem… octingena nummum milia diurna erogavit [sc. Nero]); that it was Nero, not Tiridates, who was the benefactor is corroborated by Plin. N.H. 30.16 who describesTiridates’ journey from Armenia to Rome asprovinciis gravis, and by Dio 63.2.2 (Bois.) who explicitly states that the Fiscus covered its staggering cost.

⁸⁶ Pedroli, L., Fabularum praetextarum quae extant (Genova, 1954)Google Scholar, ad loc. regards regna as an allusion to the reges socii in general. King of the Iceni: Tac. Ann. 14.31; the kings Agrippa and Antiochus provided auxiliaries for the Parthian war in 54 a.d.: 13.7; Antiochus brought help to Corbulo in 57–60: 13.37.3.

⁸⁷ Four kings in a.d. 66: Jos. B.J. 2.500 and 3.68 with Millar, F., The Roman Near East 31 b.c.-a.d. 337 (Cambridge, MA/London, 1993), 72.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Cf. Tac. Ann. 12.63.3 (the city of Byzantium is recompensed for its financial support of the war in Thracia).

⁸⁹ King Agrippa in 67 a.d: JOS. B.J. 3.443; the wealth of Antiochus vetustis opibus ingens et servientium regum ditissimus: Tac. Hist. 2.81; Jos. B.J. 5.461; to Vespasian, Berenice was magnificentia munerum grata: Tac. Hist. 2.81.2.

⁹⁰ Tac. Hist. 4.39.

⁹¹ On the Eastern mints from a.d. 67 onwards: Walker (n. 35), 1.69 (mint at Antioch reopens shortly before Nero's death); III.l 17 (increased output of other mints).

⁹² Contrast the sometimes over-schematic verdicts of Suetonius and Josephus: Kloft (n. 11), 156–7.

⁹³ Vindex: Dio 63.22.3 (Bois.) with Brunt (n. 31), 553–4.

⁹⁴ Ballads: Plut. Galba 4; for similar incidents, see Jos. B.J. 2.295 (Jews mocking the greed of Florus in a.d. 66). Tax-collectors: Suet. Galba 12; 9.2; their identity is a riddle: H. Grassl, Historia 25 (1976), 496ff.

⁹⁵ Tac. Hist. 1.37.4 (Church and Jackson Brodribb): nam quae alii scelera, hie (sc. Galba) remedia vocal, dum falsis nominibus severitatem pro saevitia, parsimoniam pro avaritia… appellat; on Galba's being parcus and his avaritia and parsimonia, see Hist. 1.5.2, 18.3, 49.3; Suet. Galba 12, 14.2; similarly, Plut. Galba 3.2, 16.3.

⁹⁶ Galba exacted money from the Treviri, the Lingones, and Lugdunum: Suet. Galba 12; Tac. Hist. 1.53.3, 1.65; even at Tarraco where the local élite came out strongly in his favour (Syme, R., ‘Partisans of Galba’, Historia 31 [1982], 469ff.Google Scholar= Roman Papers 4 [Oxford, 1988], 124ff.) there was an embarrassing episode: having melted down the golden crown that the citizens of the town had presented to him, Galba proceeded to exact from them the three ounces he claimed were missing from it.

⁹⁷ Tax-reductions and promotions: Plut. Galba 18 and Tac. Hist. 1.8, 51.4, and 65 (with comments of Chilver ad loc). Quadragesima: Suet. Vesp. 16; for the relevant coin legends, see De Laet, S. J., Portorium (Brugge, 1949), 171ff.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Images and temple treasure: Suet. Nero 32.4; Tac. Agr. 6.5;tesserae may suggest plans for a congiarium: Sancery (n. 7), 116.

⁹⁹ ‘He desired’: Plut. Galba 16 (trans. A. H. Clough, 1864); for the subsequent compromise, ibid. 11.2.

¹⁰⁰ Suet. Cal. 37.

¹⁰¹ Dio 62.14.1–2 (Bois.). Vespasian invoked financial necessity when doing likewise: Suet. Vesp. 16.3.

¹⁰² Suet. Galba 15; Plut. Galba 16.2; Tac. Hist. 1.20 (with Chilver's discussion of the chrono-logical problem).

¹⁰³ In the estimate of Chilver ad Tac. Hist. 1.5, Nymphidius had promised a donativum of 1280 million HS. Harmful methods: Plut. Galba 2.2.

¹⁰⁴ No compromise: Tac. Hist. 1.18.3: constat potuisse conciliari animos (sc. militum) quantulacumque parci senis liberalitate; 1.5.2: non emi; similarly, Suet. Galba 16 with Kloft (n. 11), 109–10.

¹⁰⁵ Groans and miserly gifts: Suet. Galba 12.3; Plut. Galba 16; emperors were expected to pay in denarii, not sestertii (Kloft [n. 11], 149, n. 316), but to pay five was worse than nothing.

¹⁰⁶ Treasury: Plut. Galba 16; similarly, of Vespasian: Dio 65.10.3a; such professions were commonplace, but their economic implications are unclear:Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (London, 1977), 189ff.Google Scholar (with prev. lit.).

¹⁰⁷ At first, Galba proclaimed himself legatum… senatus ac populi Romani (Suet. Galba 10); a partisan later described the revolt as BELLO QV<OD> IMP G<A>LBA PRO <RE P(VBLICA)> GESSIT, IRT 537; temple-treasure was revised, ne cuius alterius sacrilegium res publica quam Neronis sensisset, Tac. Agr. 6.5; the adoption of Piso was for the benefit of populus Romanus and res publica (Hist. 1.16, 13.2; cf. Plut. Galba 21) and Galba died willingly, si ita <e> re publica videretur, Hist. 1.41.2; cf. Plut. Galba 27; Galba's coinage is characterized by a similar emphasis on SPQR and the POPVLVS ROMANVS: Kragelund (n. 49), 41 ff. (with bibliography).

¹⁰⁸ On the numerous references to libertas in Galba's coinage, see Kraay, C. M., ‘The coinage of Vindex and Galba’, NC (1949), 140Google Scholar and Martin, P. -H., Die anonymen Münzen des Jahres 68 nach Christus (Mainz, 1974), 63Google Scholar; there is a significant drop in the use of such slogans during the two following principates, and only a short-lived resurgence in the first years of the Flavians: Kragelund (n. 49), 46.

¹⁰⁹ Tac. Hist. 2.77.3: tua…parsimonia (Mucianus of Vespasian); his occasional displays of liberalitas (Tac. Dial. 9.5) did not suffice to amend the general image: cf. Tac. Hist. 2.5 and Suet. Vesp. 16–19 on Vespasian's avaritia; bankrupt state: 16.3; similarly, Tac. Hist. 4.9 quotes a report of thepraetores aerarii from December 69 on the publicam paupertatem.

¹¹⁰ Tac. Ann. 15.52 (trans. Church and Jackson Brodribb): ilia invisa et spoliis civium extructa domo (thus the conspirators against Nero); cf. Mart. 1.2.8: abstulerat miseris tecta superbus ager (of the domus). Otho, Vitellius, and the Domus Aurea: Suet. Otho 1 and Dio 65.4. Galba on the Palatine: Tac. Hist. 1.29. Catulus: Plin. N.H. 17.2; Suet. Gram. 17.2.

¹¹¹ Juv. 4.137: luxuriant:. On Otho and Vitellius as Nero's successors, see n. 110 and Cluvius Rufus, fr. 3P; Suet. Otho 10.2 and Tac. Hist. 1.78.2 (Otho's adoption of Nero's name, plan to marry his widow, and restitution of Nero's and Poppaea's statues) and Hist. 2.71, 2.95 and Suet. Vit. 11.2 (Vitellius’ admiration and inferiae for Nero, his dominicus) with Ferrill, A., CJ 60 (1964–5), 267ff.Google Scholar; Garzetti, A., Melanges Piganiol (Paris, 1966), II.781–2Google Scholar and Kragelund (n. 50), 504; by contrast, the Flavians soon adopted the Galban attitude to Nero:Gagampeacute, J.;, ‘Vespasien et la memoire de Galba’, REA 54 (1952), 295Google Scholar, Ramage (n. 50), 209ff, and Zimmermann, M., ‘Die restitutio honorum Galbas’, Historia 44 (1995), 56ff.Google Scholar

¹¹² Statues: Plin. N.H. 34.84. The Colosseum as deliciae populi, quae fuerant domini: Mart. 1.2.12; [EX] MANVBIS: CIL 6.40454.

¹¹³ Cic. Mur. 76: odit populus Romanus privatam luxuriam, publicam magnificentiam diligit. Architecture as a symptom of luxuria: Veil. 2.33.4 (Lucullus’ profusae… in aedificiis… luxuriae) and Ov. Fasti 6.644 (Augustus’ destruction of Vedius Pollio's mansion quia luxuria visa nocuere sua); in its place Livia dedicated a complex which combined piety with utility, the Porticus Liviae: Flory, M. Boudreau, ‘Sic exempla parantur: Livia's shrine to Concordia and the Porticus Liviae’, Historia 33 (1984), 309ff.Google Scholar; Zanker, R, Augustus unddie Macht der Bilder (Munchen, 1987), 141ff.Google Scholar; and Edwards, C., The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1993), 164ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹⁴ On Augustan attitudes, see n. 113 (demolition of Vedius Pollio's mansion); Plin. N.H. 17.5–6, 36.6, and Ascon. In Scaur. 45 with Zanker (n. 113), 142 (Augustus using the columns from Scaurus’ luxurious atrium for the theatre of Marcellus); and Plin. N.H. 9.119ff. (Cleopatra dissolving a pearl worth 10,000,000 sestertii in vinegar; after the fall of Egypt, the statue of the goddess Venus in Agrippa's Pantheon received the companion pearl as a trophy of war).

¹¹⁵ According to Suet. Nero 30, Nero admired Gaius for having squandered all the funds accumulated by Tiberius; for similar comparisons between the two spendthrift tyrants see Plin. N.H. 36.111 (their palaces) and n. 65 (their finances).

¹¹⁶ ‘Good timing’: thus Eisner (n. 5), 119, according to whom the Domus aurea is merely an instance of Nero's going ‘one step further than his predecessors’ (p. 122); ‘many gigantic steps’ would be more accurate, since none of Nero's predecessors had built a palace of such extent and cost within such a brief timespan.

¹¹⁷ Tacitus praises Vespasian for his strict economy when dealing with the army, Hist. 2.82.2: egregie firmus (sc. Vespasianus) adversus militarem largitionem; his example strengthened the tendency to abandon old style magnificentia and return to domesticam parsimoniam after the fall of Nero (Ann. 3.55.4:praecipuus adstricti moris auctor Vespasianus fuit).

¹¹⁸ Carthage: Veil. 2.1; Asia: Liv. 39.6.7–9 and Plin. N.H. 34.14, 37.12. Marble columns in atria: Plin. 36.6–7 (cf. n. 114). Temple all in marble: Veil. 1.11.6; its builder, Metellus Macedonicus, vel magnijicentiae vet luxuriae princeps fuit. Livy 1, praef. 11 concluded that Rome had been faithful to parsimonia and resisted luxuria more strongly than all other great nations.

¹¹⁹ As a well-known manual concludes, two things lead directly to crime, luxuries et avahtia: [Cic] Her. 2.34; cf. Sen. Com. 2.6ff. Cicero could talk for more than a day about the evils of luxuries: Cael. 12.29.

¹²⁰ Condemnations of luxuria figure in historians from Claudius Quadrigarius fr. IP down to Sallust (Cat. 5.8, 12.1–3); Liv. 34.3.9 offers (and probably quotes) a speech of Cato's on luxuria (in his speech De suis virtutibus, ORF fr. 128, the censor would himself stress his parsimonia); for similar verdicts, see Gell. 6.11.9 (Publius Africanus condemning luxum vitae prodigum effusutnque); Gell. 15.8 and 15.12.1 (speeches of one Favorinus condemning luxuria and of Gaius Gracchus stressing his own parsimonia); and Sail. Cat. 52.7 (speech of Cato the younger).

¹²¹ On debates concerning luxuria, see e.g.Sauerwein, I., Die leges sumptuariae (Hamburg, 1970)Google Scholar and Lapenna, A., ‘La legittimazione del lusso privato da Ennio a Vitruvio’, Maia 41 (1983), 3ff.Google Scholar

¹²² Thus Rubiés (n. 5), 38.

¹²³ On Celsus, see Syme, R., Tacitus (Oxford, 1958), 297, 683.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ The claim that Galba was elected by the consensus generis humani (Tac. Hist. 1.31) is clearly a contemporary echo: cf. the edict from Alexandria of 6 July a.d. 68 = Chalon (n. 44), 50 and Suet. Galba 9.2 on Vindex's proclaiming Galba the saviour of the genus humanum; the slogan recurs in Galba's coinage: Kraay (n. 108), 138.

¹²⁵ Galba refers twice to political libertas (Tac. Hist. 1.16 and 1.16.4), twice to the res publica (1.15.2 and 1.16) and once to the populus Romanus (1.16); for contemporary parallels, see n. 107 (populus and res publica) and n. 108 (libertas).