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DIDO's TREASURE at TACITUS ANNALS 16.1-3 P. Murgatroyd the Story of Dido's Treasure at Annals 16.1Ff. Has Not Received Much Scho

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DIDO's TREASURE at TACITUS ANNALS 16.1-3 P. Murgatroyd the Story of Dido's Treasure at Annals 16.1Ff. Has Not Received Much Scho DIDO'S TREASURE AT TACITUS ANNALS 16.1-3 P. Murgatroyd The story of Dido's treasure at Annals 16.1ff. has not received much scholarly comment, with the notable exception of D. Braund's 'Treasure­ trove and Nero'.l To his interesting speculations there on what might have made Nero find the tale attractive, may be added its literary aspects; but the connection with the Aeneid has further significance than that. There are numerous thematic links (several of them strik­ ing) and some verbal similarities to the epic's lines on the queen,2 and whether these Virgilian parallels were just taken over from his source(s) and exploited by Tacitus or developed to a greater or lesser extent by him,3 they have real point and come together to form cut­ ting condemnation of Nero and his world. At Annals 16.1 ff. Tacitus tells how Caesellius Bassus (Carthaginian by origin and mentally deranged) had a dream about buried trea­ sure, took it as a promise of a certainty, went to Nero at Rome and told him that he had found on his estate a deep cave containing a large quantity of ancient gold bullion, speculating that Dido after fleeing from T yre and founding Carthage had concealed this wealth, to prevent her people being corrupted, or hostile Numidian kings going to war with her for the treasure. Nero accepted the report without checking and sent ships to collect the gold quickly. Meanwhile he was praised by orators as a favourite of the gods (who suppos­ edly produced the riches for him), his extravagance grew on the strength of this vain hope, and he squandered vast resources. Bassus, however, could not find the cave on his estate or nearby. Astonished that he had been deceived when none of his earlier dreams had I In Greece and Rome 30.1 (1983), 65-9. 2 For the presence of Virgil in Tacitus see e.g. B. Walker The Annals if Tacitus: A Study in the Writing if History (Manchester, 1952), 71-4; R. Syme Tacitus (Oxford, 1958), I 357f.; R.M. Ogilvie and I. Richmond Comelii T aciti De Vita Agricolae (Oxford, 1967), 28; R.T. Baxter 'Virgil's Influence on Tacitus in Book 3 of the Histories', Classical Philology 66 (1971), 93-107;]. Bews 'Virgil, Tacitus, Tiberius and Germanicus', PVS 12 (1972-3), 35-48 and Enciclopedia Virgiliana V (Rome, 1990), s.v. Tacito. 3 There is a much shorter version of the story with far fewer epic reverberations at Suetonius Nero 31. 132 P. MURGATROYD proved false, he escaped his shame and danger by committing sui­ cide (or some say that he was arrested and later released after his property had been confiscated in lieu of the treasure). A quick summary of salient features in Virgil's lines on Dido will help elucidate the similarities in Tacitus. After Aeneas had been dri­ ven by the storm to the coast near Carthage, Venus (in disguise) met him and (at 1.338ff.) told him how in her home city of Tyre the ghost of Dido's husband (murdered by the king) had appeared to her in a dream, urging her to flee and showing her buried trea­ sure (a mass of ancient silver and gold), and how she then (obvi­ ously believing the dream) had unearthed it, fled to north Africa with the wealth and founded Carthage amid warlike Libyans. Aeneas subsequently met and began an affair with Dido, after she had been driven mad with love4 by Cupid, but had to leave her, briefly deceiv­ ing her by concealing his preparations for departure, and finally row­ ing off in haste:1 The queen then committed suicide, demented by anguish. Mention of Dido would automatically have made Tacitus' read­ ers think of the famous lines on her in the Aeneid, and by way of clear reinforcement Dido's Virgilian epithet Phoenissa6 occurs in Annals 16.1 (Dido Phoenissam). Then there are all the parallels. Like Dido, Bassus was Carthaginian, had a dream about buried treasure, con­ sisting of a mass of ancient gold (antiquo pondere and opes, 16.1; cf. "veteris ... lthesauros, ignotum argenti pondus et auri" and opes, Aeneid 1.358f., 364) and believed it; he was also mad, spoke to and got involved with a Roman leader (cf. the proto-Roman Aeneas) in an initially amicable but ultimately disastrous relationship and (in the account foregrounded by Tacitus) committed suicide largely because of that leader. Bassus also made a long journey (to Rome) and was deceived (by his dream). There seems to be an Aeneas at Annals 16.1ff. too-his descendant Nero. 7 As well as meeting with the Carthaginian, at first being friendly but finally being responsible for the Carthaginian's suicide (in the preferred version), the Roman + Aen. 4.69, 78, 101 etc. 5 Aen. 4.288ff., 573ff. 6 In surviving Latin literature apart from Annals 16.1 the aqjective is applied to Dido only at Aen. 1.670, 6.450 and (quoting Virgil) Servius on Aen. 1.664. 7 Nero was also likened to his ancestor Aeneas in the lampoon mentioned by Suetonius (Nero 39): "quis negat Aeneae magna de stirpe Neronem? Isustulit hic matrem, sustulit ille patrem". .
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