[326]. We learn from the same passage that a great many accounts of Nero existed, and many of them were favorable. The implication further is that these accounts were written after his death. We have only the picture drawn by Tacitus and Suetonius. If we had one written from the other side, like Velleius Paterculus’ panegyric of Tiberius (Vell. Pat. ii. 129 seq.), we should be better able to judge him.
[327]. Gittin 56a.
[328]. Reinach, Textes, pp. 176-178.
[329]. Neither the arch nor the inscription exists any longer. A copy of the inscription was made, before the ninth century, by a monk of the monastery of Einsiedeln, to whose observation and antiquarian interest we owe more than one valuable record.
[330]. The phrase Iudaica superstitione imbuti, already quoted, shows what the term would be likely to suggest to Roman minds. In Diocletian’s time, when the Persians were the arch-enemies of Rome, and Persian doctrine in the form of Manicheism was widely spread over the empire, the emperors did not hesitate to call themselves Persicus. But Persicus never meant an adherent of a religious sect.
[331]. Idumaea is used for Iudaea in Statius Silvae, iii. 138; v. 2, 138; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. 12.
Chapter XIX
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN JEWISH COMMUNITY
[332]. Philo, Leg. ad Gaium, 24.
[333]. We may compare such expressions as magica arte infecti, Tac. Ann. ii. 2; Cic. Fin. III. ii. 9.
[334]. Long before the attempts made in the nineteenth century to rehabilitate all the generally acknowledged historical monsters, historians had looked askance at the portrait of Tiberius drawn by Tacitus. For a recent discussion, cf. Jerome, The Tacitean Tiberius, Class. Phil. vii. pp. 265 seq.