11 Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews: 19.64
12 Ibid: 19.65
13 Statius. Silvae: 3.3.64–6
14 Dionysius of Halicarnassus: 4.23.2
15 Ovid. Loves: 1.8.64
16 Tacitus: 13.27
17 Horace. Satires: 1.6.45
18 Horace. Epodes: 4.6
19 Seneca. Letters: 47.10
20 Dionysius of Halicarnassus: 4.23.2
21 Catullus: 14.15
22 Horace. Epodes: 4.5
23 Pliny the Younger. Letters: 3.16.6
24 See Bradley (1994), pp. 166–7
25 Herodotus: 4.184
26 Pliny: 5.1.14
27 Vitruvius: 8.2.24
28 Pliny: 30.13
29 The surrender of the king of Orkney to Claudius comes in a late history, that of Eutropius but seems to derive from a reliable source. Tellingly, the detail that the Orkneys are thirty in number comes from a geographer, Pomponius Mela, who was writing even as Claudius was returning from Britain, and bruiting his achievements. See Stevens (1951 (1)). An alternative theory holds that Eutropius had confused Claudius’s campaign with a later one, that of Tacitus’s father-in-law, Agricola, who in AD 83 sent a fleet which circumnavigated Britain.
30 Suetonius. The Deified Claudius: 17.3
31 Seneca. To Polybius on Consolation: 14.1
32 Tacitus: 12.38
33 Boatwright convincingly argues that Claudius made the entire tradition up, relying on his reputation for antiquarian scholarship to ensure that the claim would be widely accepted.
34 Frontinus: 16
35 Artemidorus: 2.9
36 Pliny: 36.123
37 Seneca. On Benefits: 4.28.2
38 Acts 11.28
39 The estimate of the annual amount of grain imported is Aldrete’s (p. 134).
40 Cassius Dio: 60.11.3
41 See Williams (2010), p. 190, for this analogy.
42 Suetonius. Galba: 22
43 Seneca. Trojan Women: 91
44 Tacitus. 9.2, ‘Mollitiam corporis’ – literally, ‘softness of body’. Mollitia, when applied to a man, did not just mean soft, but soft like a woman: the kind of man, in other words, who allowed himself to be fucked.
45 Cassius Dio: 60.2.4
46 Ovid. Loves: 2.17.1
47 Cicero. Republic: 1.67
48 Suetonius. Vitellius: 2.5
49 Ovid. The Art of Loving: 3.215–16
50 Seneca. On Benefits: 6.32.1
51 Juvenaclass="underline" 6.129
52 Tacitus: 11.30
53 Ibid: 11.31
54 Ibid: 11.35
55 Ibid: 11.36. See Williams (2010), p. 217, for the strong likelihood, if not absolute certainty, that the Suillius Caesonius mentioned by Tacitus as ‘playing the woman’s role’ was the son of Asiaticus’s prosecutor. As Williams says, ‘This is a rare moment in the midst of the innuendoes and accusations that pervade Roman texts, a moment when we come temptingly close to being able to ascertain what actually happened.’
56 Tacitus (12.1–2) describes Narcissus, Callistus and Pallas as each pitching a different woman to their master: a scene so reminiscent of the episode from Greek mythology in which three goddesses staged a beauty pageant before the Trojan prince Paris as to be obviously fictional. Nevertheless, with Pallas a strong partisan of Agrippina’s, and Narcissus just as obviously opposed to her cause, it does provide an entertaining allegory of Claudius’s court.
57 Suetonius. Claudius: 39.2
58 Tacitus: 12.6
59 Octavia: 142. The play was traditionally, if implausibly, ascribed to Seneca. Its true authorship remains unknown.
60 Tacitus: 12.7
61 Ibid
62 Suetonius. Claudius: 41.2
63 Tacitus: 12.42
64 Seneca. To Polybius on Consolation: 12.3
65 Suetonius. Claudius: 43
66 Cassius Dio: 61.35.4
67 Suetonius. Nero: 9
7 What an Artist
1 Octavia: 156
2 Tacitus: 12.37
3 Cassius Dio: 61.7.3
4 Suetonius. Nero: 10.1
5 Seneca. On Mercy: 1.14.2
6 Tacitus: 13.13
7 Ibid: 15.42
8 Suetonius. Otho: 3.1
9 Tacitus: 13.14
10 So, at any rate, says Tacitus. Suetonius claims that Britannicus was cremated the day after his death.
11 Octavia: 169–70
12 Seneca. On Mercy: 1.16.2
13 Pliny: 16.200
14 It is possible that Nero’s successors agreed. Trajan, an emperor in the early second century AD, and who was consistently rated by the Romans as their best, is supposed to have declared that ‘no emperor had been the equal of Nero during the first five years of his reign’. Trajan too built a great harbour at Ostia; and it has been credibly suggested that he was paying tribute to Nero’s own record there (Thornton, 1989).
15 Calpurnius Siculus: 7.45–6
16 Cassius Dio: 61.12.2
17 Ibid: 61.5.4
18 Octavia: 125
19 Pliny: 37.50
20 Cassius Dio: 61.11.4
21 Ibid: 61.2.2
22 Ibid: 61.13.2
23 Horace. Epistles: 1.1.83
24 So reports Tacitus, at any rate. According to Cassius Dio, Agrippina made it to the shore unaided. Dio also reports that the ship sank straight away.
25 Tacitus: 14.8
26 Cassius Dio: 61.14.2
27 For the theatricality of Agrippina’s murder, see Baldwin and especially the brilliant book on Nero by Champlin (2003), pp. 84–111.
28 Tacitus: 14.10
29 The games were called by Nero Ludi Maximi, ‘The Greatest Ever Games’.
30 Seneca. Natural Questions: 12.3
31 Tacitus: 14.15
32 This was Aelia Catella, cited by Cassius Dio (61.19.2). ‘Aelia Catella is assumed a daughter of Sex. Aelius Catus, hence sister of Aelia Patina’ (Syme 1986, n. 79). Aelia Patina had been Claudius’s second wife. He had married her in 28 and divorced her in 31.
33 Cassius Dio: 19.20.5
34 Seneca. Letters: 14.6
35 Tacitus, although our best source for the events of Boudicca’s revolt, mistakenly dates it to AD 61.
36 Seneca. Medea: 371–2
37 Seneca. Medea: 376–9. The play is ostensibly referring to the Greek hero Jason and his voyages with the Argonauts, but it is clear that Seneca has Roman expansion into Britain on his mind as well.
38 Seneca. On Benefits: 7.3.2
39 Seneca. On Benefits: 7.27.1
40 Tacitus: 14.37
41 Tacitus. Agricola: 19
42 Pliny: 3.39
43 Tacitus: 11.23
44 Ibid: 11.24
45 Ibid: 15.44
46 Quoted by Augustine in The City of God, 6.10
47 Valerius Maximus: 1.3.3
48 Quoted by Augustine in The City of God, 6.11
49 Tacitus: 14.44
50 Ibid: 14.45
51 Seneca. On the Happy Life: 7.3
52 Cassius Dio: 62.13.2
53 Ibid: 62.13.4
54 Calpurnius Siculus: 1.49–51
55 Seneca. Natural Questions: 3.29.9
56 Cassius Dio: 62.28.1
57 Tacitus: 15.37
58 Ibid
59 According to Chinese records, the comet was visible for seventy-five days, between 3 May and 16 July. See Rogers, p. 1953.
60 Cassius Dio (62.18.2) says that two-thirds of Rome was destroyed, while Tacitus (15.40.2) says of the fourteen districts into which the city was divided, only four were left untouched by the fire. Archaeological evidence suggests that they were both exaggerating. See Newbold, p. 858.
61 Tacitus: 15.44
62 Pliny: 10.2.5
63 Pliny the Younger. Panegyric in Praise of Trajan: 46.4
64 Martial. On Spectacles: 2.8
65 Ibid: 2.4
66 The estimate is Albertson’s, who suggests, based on the various figures given for the height of the statue, that was 31.5 metres tall.
67 Pliny: 34.45
68 For an elucidation of this extraordinary episode, reported by both Suetonius and Cassius Dio, see Champlin (2003), pp. 169–71.
69 Suetonius. Nero: 55
70 Tacitus: 15.67
71 Ibid: 15.60
72 Seneca. On Providence: 3.3
73 Seneca. Letters: 71.21
74 Ibid: 101.10
75 Tacitus: 15.73
76 Ibid: 15.62
77 Ibid: 15.68
78 Ibid: 16.4
79 Cassius Dio: 63.26.3
80 Ibid: 62.18.3. Seneca delivered the warning in the wake of Agrippina’s murder.
81 Ibid: 63.4.2
82 Ibid: 63.6.1