Pyrrha's Roman
Pages
title page![[the real Medusa!]](mabig1.gif)
The historian Tacitus gives a very dramatic and biased account of how the Emperor Tiberius' nephew Germanicus died while in Syria. The implication throughout is that Piso had poisoned him and had also used black magic to make sure he died!
This passage has been recorded by the girl who was awarded First Prize at the 2003 Gloucestershire Classical Association Latin and Greek Reading Competition.
You may like to print out the passage below so that you can follow it when the recording begins ...
![[]](pgerm1.jpg)
Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome (as adapted in the Cambridge Latin Anthology).
saevam vim morbi augebat persuasio veneni a Pisone accepti; et reperiebantur solo ac parietibus erutae humanorum corporum reliquiae, carmina et devotiones et nomen Germanici plumbeis tabulis insculptum, cineres semusti ac tabo obliti aliaque malefica quibus creditur animas numinibus infernis sacrari.
simul missi a Pisone incusabantur quod valetudinis adversae signa exspectarent. haec Germanico haud minus ira quam per metum accepta sunt. componit epistulam qua amicitiam ei renuntiabat.
Germanicus paulisper se credidit convalescere; deinde fessum fiebat corpus. ubi finis aderat, adstantes amicos ita adloquitur :
"erit vobis occasio querendi apud senatum atque invocandi leges. decet amicos non prosequi defunctum ignavo questu, sed quae voluerit meminisse, quae mandaverit exsequi. vindicabitis vos, si me potius quam fortunam meam diligebatis."
amici, dextram morientis amplectantes, iuraverunt se vitam ante quam ultionem amissuros esse.