XX.
Proxima pecuniae cura; et cuncta scrutantibus iustissimum visum est (cuncta scrutantibus iustissimumm visum est: ‘it seemed perfectly just to those investigating everything to …’) inde repeti ubi (inde repeti ubi …: ‘that money be claimed from the place where …’; the word pecuniam is usually ellipted with repetere.) inopiae causa erat. bis et viciens miliens sesteritum (bis et viciens miliens sesteritum: the distributive bis et viciens and milliens mean ‘twenty-two times’ and ‘a thousand times’ respectively; milliens also indicates that the amount is in multiples of a million, which in Latin is reckoned in hundred thousands or centena milia and is usually omitted; thus: 1000 (20 + 2) x 100,000 = 2,200,000,000 or twenty-two hundred millions or 2.2 billion sesterces. It is next to impossible to express the amount in today’s values, but an idea may be formed if one considers that the annual salary of a soldier was 900 sesterces. With the money he squandered Nero could have paid almost 2.5 million soldiers for one year.) donationibus Nero effuderat: appellari singulos iussit, (appellari singulos iussit: whenever possible, the infinitive clause following iubeo must be given a subject, even if it means turning the infinitive verb to passive.) decima parte liberalitatis apud quemque eorum relicta. at illis vix decimae super portiones erant, isdem erga aliena sumptibus quibus sua prodegerant, cum rapacissimo cuique ac perditissimo non agri aut faenus sed sola instrumenta vitiorum manerent. (cum rapacissimo cuique ac perditissimo … sola instrumenta vitiorum manerent: cum here is causal and as such requires subjunctive’; rapacissimuo cuique ac perditissimo: dative as indirect object of manerent; ‘all the most greedy and depraved among them’: idiomatic use of quisque with superlative; cf. A.G. 313, b.) exactioni triginta equites Romani praepositi, novum officii genus et ambitu ac numero onerosum: ubique hasta et sector, et inquieta urbs actionibus. ac tamen grande gaudium quod tam pauperes forent quibus donasset Nero quam quibus abstulisset. (quod tam pauperes forent [eos] quibus donasset quam [eos] quibus abstulisset: the quod clause has subjunctive in that it is in indirect speech introduced by a verb of saying implicit in grande gaudium; the two verbs of the comparative sentence, donasset and abstulisset, are subjunctive by modal attraction, being governed by the subjunctive quod clause; the rule is that if a clause is governed by an infinitive or subjunctive clause, it must itself take the subjunctive; cf. G. 662, 663.) exauctorati per eos dies tribuni, e praetorio Antonius Taurus et Antonius Naso, ex urbanis cohortibus Aemilius Pacensis, e vigilibus Iulius Fronto. nec remedium in ceteros fuit, sed metus initium, tamquam per artem et formidine singuli pellerentur, (tamquam …pellerentur: for use of tamquam cf. tamquam alias partes fovissent, ch. 8) omnibus suspectis.