23

Question 1

natam

Answer 1

advanced position reinforces the sense of a new beginning for the imperial household

Question 2

Nero ultra mortale gaudium

Answer 2

highlights Nero’s emotional incontinence, in stark contrast to the under dramatic record of who held the consulship

creates tension between republican frame and Tacitus’ imperial subject matter

Question 3

Poppaea

Answer 3

name recalls adulterous scandal and shameful debarring of Otho to acquire Poppaea’s hand in marriage

Question 4

appellavit Augustam,

Answer 4

absurd devaluation of a precious honour, compounded by break in syntax after ‘Augustam’, matches Nero’s emotional excess - Poppaea is a former mistress, the daughter is merely a new-born

Question 5

dato… cognomento

Answer 5

hyperbaton of ablative absolute conveys Tacitus’ disgust

Question 6

Antium

Answer 6

foregrounds Nero’s location when he hears the news of the first fire in chp39

Question 7

iam

Answer 7

front position: generates the impression of escalation - already during Poppaea’s pregnancy, the senate had decided to turn the wellbeing of her unborn child into a state affair

Question 8

vota… quae multiplicata

Answer 8

the excessive nature of the senate’s vowing matches that of Nero’s ‘gaudium’

Question 9

et additae

Answer 9

stresses that any other senate actions henceforth are extra and unnecessary

Question 10

et additae supplicationes templumque fecunditatis et certamen… decretum

locarentur… ederetur

Answer 10

polysyndeton underscores the impression of excess

persistent use of the passive voice suggests a loss of purposeful agency on the part of the senate, and that their actions are nothing more than inane corporate servility

Question 11

certamen ad exemplar Actiacae religionis

Answer 11

the celebration of a battle which brought to an end a century of civil bloodshed is utterly disproportionate to the birth of a doomed baby daughter

Nicopolis was set up nearby following the victory - thoroughly Greek city, ergo this Greek form of entertainment panders to Nero’s depraved hellenic passions

Question 12

ludicrum circense

Answer 12

implicit attempt to step outside the shadow of Augustus

Question 13

quae fluxa fuere

Answer 13

glaring anticlimax, emphasised by mocking ‘f’ alliteration

Question 14

defuncta infante

Answer 14

tragic news is delayed (in the text) for emphasis

matter-of-fact and unelaborated statement, contrasting the extravagant honours with the simple reality of death

Question 15

rursusque exortae adulationes censentium honorem divae et pulvinar aedemque et sacerdotem

Answer 15

rursusque - Tacitus implies depressing predictability

polysyndeton emphasises the sheer quantity of honours showered on the dead baby, correlating these events with the events at her birth, thus the excessiveness of Nero’s grief mirrors that of his joy