THE CONTEXT

According to Tacitus' narrative of A.D. 64, the centrepiece of which will be the Great Fire of Rome (38–41), Nero began the year with a keen desire to go on a concert tour of Greece (33.2). Feeling that he needed some preliminary experience, however, the emperor decided to give a practice performance in Naples, because of its resemblance to a genuinely Greek city. The Neapolitan theatre was packed (33.3), and Suetonius tells us that Nero was captivated by the rhythmic applause of some visitors from Alexandria, whose techniques were subsequently taught to equites and others on the emperor's insistence (Nero 20.3).

When Nero had completed his performance (of which Tacitus pointedly omits all mention), and the crowds had dispersed, the theatre promptly fell to the ground (34.1). Most people interpreted the collapse as a sinister omen (triste), but the emperor himself looked on the bright side and interpreted his escape as providential (prouidum). Then, having duly composed his own Te Deum in thanksgiving, he proceeded on his way to Beneventum for the gladiatorial games of one Vatinius, during which a distinguished ex-consul, Silanus Torquatus, was forced to commit suicide for being a descendant of Augustus like Nero himself (35.1). A charge had been trumped up that he was set on revolution (35.2); and although Nero maintained that the man was indeed guilty, he also said that he as emperor would have shown dementia if Silanus had given him the chance (35.3). On this cynical note Tacitus then passes on to the episode which leads up to the Fire and which is the subject of this discussion (36–7).