Week Seven

BOOKS XIV-XVI: Nero's perverse theatricality, delusions, and persecutions. A New Hope? Christianity and Stoicism. Suicide as the Transcendence of Death and Rome.

March 25, 2025, 7 PM -8:30 pm

Nero's perverse theatricality, delusions, and persecutions. A New Hope? Christianity and Stoicism. Suicide as the Transcendence of Death and Rome.

As free political life declines under the empire, and as the empire becomes more criminal and depraved, theater and festivals become increasingly bizarre and perverse (xv.37). The erotic and criminal perversity of the emperors, openly revealed at the end of Tiberius' reign, reaches a new peak with Nero; but Nero also adores the stage and has artistic pretensions. (Consider the weight he places on the judgment of Petronius as an arbiter of taste, xvi.18-19.) What do we learn about tyranny from Nero's attraction to public humiliation of respectable Romans (xiii.25)? from his desire to transgress ordinary decency and shock Romans by, for example, publicly acting the role of a bride on her wedding night with a prostitute (xv.37)? In what ways does this erotic liberation (or savagery) of tyrants unleash the political power of the mistresses, wives, and mothers of the emperors and their most favored backers — who are themselves often the instigator of the greatest crimes, or even themselves want to rule (e.g. Nero's mother Agrippina)?

What does Nero's reaction to Rome's destruction by fire—to seek the glory of founding upon its ashes a new city named for himself (xv.40)—reveal about his understanding of himself, his limits, and his relation to the world? In what way is the brutal persecution of the Christians (which Nero doesn't see excites pity for them) also theatrical (xv.44)? How one would compare Nero's brutality and madness at the end with Tiberius' (vi.23-24), —including the vengeance against those who conspired or allegedly conspired against them? Why does absolute power and freedom from law tend to shape many human souls in such a way?

In the aftermath of the failure of Piso's conspiracy to overthrow Nero, a failure perhaps due to the lack of weakness of public spirit under the empire, what role is left for the human longing for freedom and virtue? What is the significance of the rise of Stoicism and of Nero's special desire to, as Tacitus says, "excise virtue itself" by murdering the Stoics Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus (xvi.21 — although his public pretext for the execution is different, xvi.27-28)? What purpose or purposes does a noble suicide serve (e.g. xvi.26.3)? Why does Paetus have the effect of inspiring a "vehement youth" like Arulenus Rusticus to risk his life, and why does Paetus dissuade him (xvi.26)? Why does Nero fear him (xvi.24; see xiv.48-49 for Paetus' temporary ability to force shame on Nero and curb the slavery of others)?

Rusticus and others want to take a public stand against Nero's injustice, and show their virtue. Does virtue weaken in privacy and without honor? Why is the role of honor and reputation in the love of virtue? Socrates' example is used as an argument to recommend that Thrasea not appear in public (xvi.26). Why does it matter that Tacitus brings Thrasea's suicide into public view (iii.65.1)?

What do you think is Thrasea's view of the gods (xvi.35)? What might be Tacitus', at least based on his understanding of the weakness of justice under despotism and the apparent inaction of the gods (e.g. xiv.12.2)? How might the Roman empire under Tiberius and Nero have actually paved for the way for the replacement of classical paganism by Christianity?

Reading: xiv.13-16, 20-21, 47-65, ; xv.60-71

(The translation of the Annals that we are using is by Cynthia Damon (Penguin Books, 2012).)