The Works of Tacitus, Volume 1

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Page 423 - Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt and punished with the most exquisite tortures the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius...
Page 423 - Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are encouraged.
Page 417 - ... who were ranged according to their age, and accomplishments in the science of debauchery. He had procured fowl and venison from remote regions, with sea-fish even from the ocean; upon the margin of the lake were erected brothels, filled with ladies of distinction; over against...
Page 141 - But when tyrants shed the blood of their subjects, and the greatness of reputation formed a motive for destruction, those who escaped grew wiser: besides, men of no family frequently chosen senators from the municipal towns, from the colonies, and even from the provinces, brought with them the frugality they observed at home; and though, by good fortune or industry, many of them grew wealthy as they grew old, yet their former habits continued.
Page 423 - And in their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport, for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when day declined, burned to serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot.
Page 45 - A mingled shout arose from the workmen and the combatants; all things equally combined to distress the Romans — the place deep with ooze, sinking under those who stood, slippery to such as advanced ; their bodies were encumbered with their coats of mail, nor could they hurl their javelins in the midst of water.
Page 420 - This conflagration, too, was the subject of more censorious remark/as it arose in the ^Emilian possessions of Tigellinus: and Nero seemed to aim at the glory of building a new city, and calling it by his own name: for, of the fourteen sections into which Rome is divided, four were still standing entire, three were levelled with the ground, and in the seven others there remained only here and there a few remnants of houses, shattered and half consumed.
Page 423 - Accordingly, first those were seized who confessed they were Christians. Next, on their information a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport, for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when day declined burned to serve for nocturnal lights.
Page 230 - Arabia, nor observed any of the instincts which ancient tradition constantly attributes to the genuine : for the latter having completed his course of years, on the approach of death builds a nest in his native land, and upon it sheds a generative power, from whence arises a young one, whose first care, when he is grown...
Page 394 - ... Pandataria. Tacitus says: "Never was there any exile who touched the hearts of the beholders with deeper compassion. Some there were who still remembered to have seen Agrippina the Elder banished by Tiberius; the more recent sufferings of Julia were likewise recalled to mind — that Julia who had been confined there by Claudius. But they had experienced some happiness, and the recollection of their former splendor proved some alleviation of their present horrors.

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