Homosexuality By Publius Cornelius Tacitus Sparknotes
Chan, Willien | Tiu, Carlo Hidde van der Wall
HI18 - Section G
The Nobles’ Views on Homosexuality and Slaves during Nero’s Reign
The text we have chosen is a chapter of historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus’s work called “The Annals.” The chapter is titled Tacitus: On Homosexuality and focuses primarily on slight themes of homosexuality during Emperor Nero’s reign. The type of document is an annal (akin to its name), which is a concise form of historical representation that is chronologically written by year. Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman senator who lived from 56 AD to 117AD, and chronicled the major events during the reigns of the various emperors he was witness to. He started his political career under the reign of Vespasian. …show more content…
This details the following big issue after the murder. According to ancient custom laws, all the slaves under his roof also has to die, but since the slave population is very numerous, reaching to about four hundred, there was a tremendous clamour for the slaves to be allowed to live free. The majority of the text focuses on the speech given by Caius Cassius to his fellow senators on how to deal with the executions. He talks about how many of these slaves are, in fact, guilty because the murderer couldn’t have found the courage or ability to kill Pedanius if there were opposers amongst the slaves. The murderer couldn’t just walk freely into the senator’s bedroom and kill him and also run away freely. Thus, he concluded that the rest were guilty of not protecting their master and also with cooperation (either by not stopping the murderer or by allowing his easy entering into the senator’s room). His fellow senators agreed to the speech given by Cassius, but many remained afraid because of the number of those who clamoured for the number of the innocent slaves to be executed. In the end, Nero ordered the executions to be done. There was a small uprising from the common folk, but this was quelled by the sending of the Roman army so the executions would not be
HI18 - Section G
The Nobles’ Views on Homosexuality and Slaves during Nero’s Reign
The text we have chosen is a chapter of historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus’s work called “The Annals.” The chapter is titled Tacitus: On Homosexuality and focuses primarily on slight themes of homosexuality during Emperor Nero’s reign. The type of document is an annal (akin to its name), which is a concise form of historical representation that is chronologically written by year. Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman senator who lived from 56 AD to 117AD, and chronicled the major events during the reigns of the various emperors he was witness to. He started his political career under the reign of Vespasian. …show more content…
This details the following big issue after the murder. According to ancient custom laws, all the slaves under his roof also has to die, but since the slave population is very numerous, reaching to about four hundred, there was a tremendous clamour for the slaves to be allowed to live free. The majority of the text focuses on the speech given by Caius Cassius to his fellow senators on how to deal with the executions. He talks about how many of these slaves are, in fact, guilty because the murderer couldn’t have found the courage or ability to kill Pedanius if there were opposers amongst the slaves. The murderer couldn’t just walk freely into the senator’s bedroom and kill him and also run away freely. Thus, he concluded that the rest were guilty of not protecting their master and also with cooperation (either by not stopping the murderer or by allowing his easy entering into the senator’s room). His fellow senators agreed to the speech given by Cassius, but many remained afraid because of the number of those who clamoured for the number of the innocent slaves to be executed. In the end, Nero ordered the executions to be done. There was a small uprising from the common folk, but this was quelled by the sending of the Roman army so the executions would not be