Heralding a “Proem in the Middle”? The Pisonian Conspiracy of Tacitus and the End of Nero

Abstract

Abstract This paper considers one crucial narrative sequence addressing central questions about imperial succession and the transition between dynasties, namely, Tacitus's extensive account of the Pisonian conspiracy in 65 C.E. (Annals 15). Although this failed plot did not remove Nero from the principate, it still dovetails in important causal ways with his suicide in 68 C.E., and it has crucial connections with the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The first part of this article will explore ways in which Tacitus's account of the Pisonian conspiracy functions (and was likely to function) within the narrative arc leading up to Nero's suicide in 68 C.E. and why Tacitus's account of a failed plot deserves to be taken seriously. In part two, the article then considers Tacitus's historiographical strategy in positioning his account of the Pisonian conspiracy at Annals 15.48–74. Although the end of the Annals is no longer extant, by examining the likely trajectory of the final (probably hexadic) part of the narrative across Annals 13–18 and by importing analytical techniques associated with the device of the “proem in the middle” in Latin poetry, this paper will show how the Pisonian conspiracy has a crucial interpretative role to play within the expressive annalistic architecture created by Tacitus across the final books of the Annals.