2. Tacitus, Annals, 4.57, 12.25, 12.42, 12.64, 13.5, 13.15, 13.18, 14.1-14.13 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 4.57. Meanwhile, after long meditating and often deferring his plan, the Caesar at length departed for Campania, ostensibly to consecrate one temple to Jupiter at Capua and one to Augustus at Nola, but in the settled resolve to fix his abode far from Rome. As to the motive for his withdrawal, though I have followed the majority of historians in referring it to the intrigues of Sejanus, yet in view of the fact that his isolation remained equally complete for six consecutive years after Sejanus' execution, I am often tempted to doubt whether it could not with greater truth be ascribed to an impulse of his own, to find an inconspicuous home for the cruelty and lust which his acts proclaimed to the world. There were those who believed that in his old age he had become sensitive also to his outward appearances. For he possessed a tall, round-shouldered, and abnormally slender figure, a head without a trace of hair, and an ulcerous face generally variegated with plasters; while, in the seclusion of Rhodes, he had acquired the habit of avoiding company and taking his pleasures by stealth. The statement is also made that he was driven into exile by the imperious temper of his mother, whose partnership in his power he could not tolerate, while it was impossible to cut adrift one from whom he held that power in fee. For Augustus had hesitated whether to place Germanicus, his sister's grandson and the theme of all men's praise, at the head of the Roman realm, but, overborne by the entreaties of his wife, had introduced Germanicus into the family of Tiberius, and Tiberius into his own: a benefit which the old empress kept recalling and reclaiming. 12.25. In the consulate of Gaius Antistius and Marcus Suillius, the adoption of Domitius was hurried forward by the influence of Pallas, who, pledged to Agrippina as the agent in her marriage, then bound to her by lawless love, kept goading Claudius to consult the welfare of the country and to supply the boyish years of Britannicus with a stable protection:â "So, in the family of the divine Augustus, though he had grandsons to rely upon, yet his step-children rose to power; Tiberius had issue of his own, but he adopted Germanicus; let Claudius also gird to himself a young partner, who would undertake a share of his responsibilities!" The emperor yielded to the pressure, and gave Domitius, with his three years' seniority, precedence over his son, reproducing in his speech to the senate the arguments furnished by his freedman. It was noted by the expert that, prior to this, there was no trace of an adoption in the patrician branch of the Claudian house, which had lasted without interruption from Attus Clausus downward. 12.42. As yet, however, Agrippina lacked courage to make her supreme attempt, unless she could discharge from the command of the praetorian cohorts both Lusius Geta and Rufrius Crispinus, whom she believed faithful to the memory of Messalina and pledged to the cause of her children. Accordingly, through her assertions to her husband that the cohorts were being divided by the intriguing rivalry of the pair, and that discipline would be stricter if they were placed under a single head, the command was transferred to Afranius Burrus; who bore the highest character as a soldier but was well aware to whose pleasure he owed his appointment. The exaltation of her own dignity also occupied Agrippina: she began to enter the Capitol in a carriage; and that honour, reserved by antiquity for priests and holy objects, enhanced the veneration felt for a woman who to this day stands unparalleled as the daughter of an Imperator and the sister, the wife, and the mother of an emperor. Meanwhile, her principal champion, Vitellius, at the height of his influence and in the extremity of his age â so precarious are the fortunes of the mighty â was brought to trial upon an indictment laid by the senator Junius Lupus. The charges he preferred were treason and designs upon the empire and to these the Caesar would certainly have inclined his ear, had not the prayers, or rather the threats of Agrippina converted him to the course of formally outlawing the prosecutor: Vitellius had desired no more. 12.64. In the consulate of Marcus Asinius and Manius Acilius, it was made apparent by a sequence of prodigies that a change of conditions for the worse was foreshadowed. Fire from heaven played round the standards and tents of the soldiers; a swarm of bees settled on the pediment of the Capitol; it was stated that hermaphrodites had been born, and that a pig had been produced with the talons of a hawk. It was counted among the portents that each of the magistracies found its numbers diminished, since a quaestor, an aedile, and a tribune, together with a praetor and a consul, had died within a few months. But especial terror was felt by Agrippina. Disquieted by a remark let fall by Claudius in his cups, that it was his destiny first to suffer and finally to punish the infamy of his wives, she determined to act â and speedily. First, however, she destroyed Domitia Lepida on a feminine quarrel. For, as the daughter of the younger Antonia, the grand-niece of Augustus, the first cousin once removed of Agrippina, and also the sister of her former husband Gnaeus Domitius, Lepida regarded her family distinctions as equal to those of the princess. In looks, age, and fortune there was little between the pair; and since each was as unchaste, as disreputable, and as violent as the other, their competition in the vices was not less keen than in such advantages as they had received from the kindness of fortune. But the fiercest struggle was on the question whether the domit influence with Nero was to be his aunt or his mother: for Lepida was endeavouring to captivate his youthful mind by a smooth tongue and an open hand, while on the other side Agrippina stood grim and menacing, capable of presenting her son with an empire but not of tolerating him as emperor. 13.5. Nor was the pledge dishonoured, and many regulations were framed by the free decision of the senate. No advocate was to sell his services as a pleader for either fee or bounty; quaestors designate were to be under no obligation to produce a gladiatorial spectacle. The latter point, though opposed by Agrippina as a subversion of the acts of Claudius, was carried by the Fathers, whose meetings were specially convened in the Palatium, so that she could station herself at a newly-added door in their rear, shut off by a curtain thick enough to conceal her from view but not to debar her from hearing. In fact, when an Armenian deputation was pleading the national cause before Nero, she was preparing to ascend the emperor's tribunal and to share his presidency, had not Seneca, while others stood aghast, admonished the sovereign to step down and meet his mother: an assumption of filial piety which averted a scandal. 13.15. Perturbed by her attitude, and faced with the approach of the day on which Britannicus completed his fourteenth year, Nero began to revolve, now his mother's proclivity to violence, now the character of his rival, â lately revealed by a test which, trivial as it was, had gained him wide sympathy. During the festivities of the Saturnalia, while his peers in age were varying their diversions by throwing dice for a king, the lot had fallen upon Nero. On the others he imposed various orders, not likely to put them to the blush: but, when he commanded Britannicus to rise, advance into the centre, and strike up a song â this, in the hope of turning into derision a boy who knew little of sober, much less of drunken, society â his victim firmly began a poem hinting at his expulsion from his father's house and throne. His bearing awoke a pity the more obvious that night and revelry had banished dissimulation. Nero, once aware of the feeling aroused, redoubled his hatred; and with Agrippina's threats becoming instant, as he had no grounds for a criminal charge against his brother and dared not openly order his execution, he tried secrecy and gave orders for poison to be prepared, his agent being Julius Pollio, tribune of a praetorian cohort, and responsible for the detention of the condemned poisoner Locusta, whose fame as a criminal stood high. For that no one about the person of Britannicus should regard either right or loyalty was a point long since provided for. The first dose the boy received from his own tutors, but his bowels were opened, and he passed the drug, which either lacked potency or contained a dilution to prevent immediate action. Nero, however, impatient of so much leisure in crime, threatened the tribune and ordered the execution of the poisoner, on the ground that, with their apprehensions of scandal and their preparations for defence, they were delaying his release from anxiety. They now promised that death should be as abrupt as if it were the summary work of steel; and a potion â its rapidity guaranteed by a private test of the ingredients â was concocted hard by the Caesar's bedroom. 13.18. He now conferred bounties on his chief friends. Nor were accusers wanting for the men of professed austerity, who at such a moment had partitioned town and country houses like so much loot. Others believed that compulsion had been applied by the emperor, conscience-struck by his crime but hopeful of pardon, if he could lay the powerful under obligation by a display of liberality. But his mother's anger no munificence could assuage. She took Octavia to her heart; she held frequent and private interviews with her friends; while with even more than her native cupidity she appropriated money from all sources, apparently to create a fund for emergencies. Tribunes and centurions she received with suavity; and for the names and virtues of the nobility â there was a nobility still â she showed a respect which indicated that she was in quest of a leader and a faction. Nero knew it, and gave orders to withdraw the military watch, which she had received as the wife, and retained as the mother, of the sovereign, along with the Germans lately assigned to her as a bodyguard for the same complimentary motive. That her levées should not be frequented by a crowd of visitants, he made his own establishment separate, installed his mother in the house once belonging to Antonia, and, at his visits to her new quarters, came surrounded by a throng of centurions and left after a perfunctory kiss. 14.1. In the consular year of Gaius Vipstanius and Gaius Fonteius, Nero postponed no further the long-contemplated crime: for a protracted term of empire had consolidated his boldness, and day by day he burned more hotly with love for Poppaea; who, hopeless of wedlock for herself and divorce for Octavia so long as Agrippina lived, plied the sovereign with frequent reproaches and occasional raillery, styling him "the ward, dependent on alien orders, who was neither the empire's master nor his own. For why was her wedding deferred? Her face, presumably, and her grandsires with their triumphs, did not give satisfaction â or was the trouble her fecundity and truth of heart? No, it was feared that, as a wife at all events, she might disclose the wrongs of the Fathers, the anger of the nation against the pride and greed of his mother! But, if Agrippina could tolerate no daughter-inâlaw but one inimical to her son, then let her be restored to her married life with Otho: she would go to any corner of earth where she could hear the emperor's ignominy rather than view it and be entangled in his perils." To these and similar attacks, pressed home by tears and adulterous art, no opposition was offered: all men yearned for the breaking of the mother's power; none credited that the hatred of the son would go the full way to murder. 14.2. It is stated by Cluvius that Agrippina's ardour to keep her influence was carried so far that at midday, an hour at which Nero was beginning to experience the warmth of wine and good cheer, she presented herself on several occasions to her half-tipsy son, coquettishly dressed and prepared for incest. Already lascivious kisses, and endearments that were the harbingers of guilt, had been observed by their intimates, when Seneca sought in a woman the antidote to female blandishments, and brought in the freedwoman Acte, who, alarmed as she was both at her own danger and at Nero's infamy, was to report that the incest was common knowledge, since his mother boasted of it, and that the troops would not submit to the supremacy of a sacrilegious emperor. According to Fabius Rusticus, not Agrippina, but Nero, desired the union, the scheme being wrecked by the astuteness of the same freedwoman. The other authorities, however, give the same version as Cluvius, and to their side tradition leans; whether the enormity was actually conceived in the brain of Agrippina, or whether the contemplation of such a refinement in lust was merely taken as comparatively credible in a woman who, for the prospect of power, had in her girlish years yielded to the embraces of Marcus Lepidus; who, for a similar ambition had prostituted herself to the desires of Pallas; and who had been inured to every turpitude by her marriage with her uncle. 14.3. Nero, therefore, began to avoid private meetings with her; when she left for her gardens or the estates at Tusculum and Antium, he commended her intention of resting; finally, convinced that, wherever she might be kept, she was still an incubus, he decided to kill her, debating only whether by poison, the dagger, or some other form of violence. The first choice fell on poison. But, if it was to be given at the imperial table, then the death could not be referred to chance, since Britannicus had already met a similar fate. At the same time, it seemed an arduous task to tamper with the domestics of a woman whose experience of crime had made her vigilant for foul play; and, besides, she had herself fortified her system by taking antidotes in advance. Cold steel and bloodshed no one could devise a method of concealing: moreover, there was the risk that the agent chosen for such an atrocity might spurn his orders. Mother wit came to the rescue in the person of Anicetus the freedman, preceptor of Nero's boyish years, and detested by Agrippina with a vigour which was reciprocated. Accordingly, he pointed out that it was possible to construct a ship, part of which could be artificially detached, well out at sea, and throw the unsuspecting passenger overboard:â "Nowhere had accident such scope as on salt water; and, if the lady should be cut off by shipwreck, who so captious as to read murder into the delinquency of wind and wave? The sovereign, naturally, would assign the deceased a temple and the other displays of filial piety. 14.4. This ingenuity commended itself: the date, too, was in its favour, as Nero was in the habit of celebrating the festival of Minerva at Baiae. Thither he proceeded to lure his mother, observing from time to time that outbreaks of parental anger had to be tolerated, and that he must show a forgiving spirit; his aim being to create a rumour of reconciliation, which Agrippina, with the easy faith of her sex in the agreeable, would probably accept. â In due course, she came. He went down to the beach to meet her (she was arriving from Antium), took her hand, embraced her, and escorted her to Bauli, the name of a villa washed by the waters of a cove between the promontory of Misenum and the lake of Baiae. Here, among others, stood a more handsomely appointed vessel; apparently one attention the more to his mother, as she had been accustomed to use a trireme with a crew of marines. Also, she had been invited to dinner for the occasion, so that night should be available for the concealment of the crime. It is well established that someone had played the informer, and that Agrippina, warned of the plot, hesitated whether to believe or not, but made the journey to Baiae in a litter. There her fears were relieved by the blandishments of a cordial welcome and a seat above the prince himself. At last, conversing freely, â one moment boyishly familiar, the next grave-browed as though making some serious communication, â Nero, after the banquet had been long protracted, escorted her on her way, clinging more closely than usual to her breast and kissing her eyes; possibly as a final touch of hypocrisy, or possibly the last look upon his doomed mother gave pause even to that brutal spirit. 14.5. A starlit night and the calm of an unruffled sea appeared to have been sent by Heaven to afford proof of guilt. The ship had made no great way, and two of Agrippina's household were in attendance, Crepereius Gallus standing not far from the tiller, while Acerronia, bending over the feet of the recumbent princess, recalled exultantly the penitence of the son and the re-entry of the mother into favour. Suddenly the signal was given: the canopy above them, which had been heavily weighted with lead, dropped, and Crepereius was crushed and killed on the spot. Agrippina and Acerronia were saved by the height of the couch-sides, which, as it happened, were too solid to give way under the impact. Nor did the break-up of the vessel follow: for confusion was universal, and even the men accessory to the plot were impeded by the large numbers of the ignorant. The crew then decided to throw their weight on one side and so capsize the ship; but, even on their own part, agreement came too slowly for a sudden emergency, and a counter-effort by others allowed the victims a gentler fall into the waves. Acerronia, however, incautious enough to raise the cry that she was Agrippina, and to demand aid for the emperor's mother, was despatched with poles, oars, and every nautical weapon that came to hand. Agrippina, silent and so not generally recognised, though she received one wound in the shoulder, swam until she was met by a few fishing-smacks, and so reached the Lucrine lake, whence she was carried into her own villa. 14.6. There she reflected on the evident purpose of the treacherous letter of invitation and the exceptional honour with which she had been treated, and on the fact that, hard by the shore, a vessel, driven by no gale and striking no reef, had collapsed at the top like an artificial structure on land. She reviewed as well the killing of Acerronia, glanced simultaneously at her own wound, and realized that the one defence against treachery was to leave it undetected. Accordingly she sent the freedman Agermus to carry word to her son that, thanks to divine kindness and to his fortunate star, she had survived a grave accident; but that, however great his alarm at his mother's danger, she begged him to defer the attention of a visit: for the moment, what she needed was rest. Meanwhile, with affected unconcern, she applied remedies to her wound and fomentations to her body: Acerronia's will, she gave instructions was to be sought, and her effects sealed up, â the sole measure not referable to dissimulation. 14.7. Meanwhile, as Nero was waiting for the messengers who should announce the doing of the deed, there came the news that she had escaped with a wound from a light blow, after running just sufficient risk to leave no doubt as to its author. Half-dead with terror, he protested that any moment she would be here, hot for vengeance. And whether she armed her slaves or inflamed the troops, or made her way to the senate and the people, and charged him with the wreck, her wound, and the slaying of her friends, what counter-resource was at his own disposal? Unless there was hope in Seneca and Burrus! He had summoned them immediately: whether to test their feeling, or as cognizant already of the secret, is questionable. â There followed, then, a long silence on the part of both: either they were reluctant to dissuade in vain, or they believed matters to have reached a point at which Agrippina must be forestalled or Nero perish. After a time, Seneca so far took the lead as to glance at Burrus and inquire if the fatal order should be given to the military. His answer was that the guards, pledged as they were to the Caesarian house as a whole, and attached to the memory of Germanicus, would flinch from drastic measures against his issue: Anicetus must redeem his promise. He, without any hesitation, asked to be given full charge of the crime. The words brought from Nero a declaration that that day presented him with an empire, and that he had a freedman to thank for so great a boon: Anicetus must go with speed and take an escort of men distinguished for implicit obedience to orders. He himself, on hearing that Agermus had come with a message from Agrippina, anticipated it by setting the stage for a charge of treason, threw a sword at his feet while he was doing his errand, then ordered his arrest as an assassin caught in the act; his intention being to concoct a tale that his mother had practised against the imperial life and taken refuge in suicide from the shame of detection. 14.8. In the interval, Agrippina's jeopardy, which was attributed to accident, had become generally known; and there was a rush to the beach, as man after man learned the news. Some swarmed up the sea-wall, some into the nearest fishing-boats: others were wading middle-deep into the surf, a few standing with outstretched arms. The whole shore rang with lamentations and vows and the din of conflicting questions and vague replies. A huge multitude streamed up with lights, and, when the knowledge of her safety spread, set out to offer congratulations; until, at the sight of an armed and threatening column, they were forced to scatter. Anicetus drew a cordon around the villa, and, breaking down the entrance, dragged off the slaves as they appeared, until he reached the bedroom-door. A few servants were standing by: the rest had fled in terror at the inrush of men. In the chamber was a dim light and a single waiting-maid; and Agrippina's anxiety deepened every instant. Why no one from her son â nor even Agermus? Had matters prospered, they would have worn another aspect. Now, nothing but solitude, hoarse alarms, and the symptoms of irremediable ill! Then the maid rose to go. "Dost thou too forsake me?" she began, and saw Anicetus behind her, accompanied by Herculeius, the trierarch, and Obaritus, a centurion of marines. "If he had come to visit the sick, he might take back word that she felt refreshed. If to do murder, she would believe nothing of her son: matricide was no article of their instructions." The executioners surrounded the couch, and the trierarch began by striking her on the head with a club. The centurion was drawing his sword to make an end, when she proffered her womb to the blow. "Strike here," she exclaimed, and was despatched with repeated wounds. 14.9. So far the accounts concur. Whether Nero inspected the corpse of his mother and expressed approval of her figure is a statement which some affirm and some deny. She was cremated the same night, on a dinner-couch, and with the humblest rites; nor, so long as Nero reigned, was the earth piled over the grave or enclosed. Later, by the care of her servants, she received a modest tomb, hard by the road to Misenum and that villa of the dictator Caesar which looks from its dizzy height to the bay outspread beneath. As the pyre was kindled, one of her freedmen, by the name of Mnester, ran a sword through his body, whether from love of his mistress or from fear of his own destruction remains unknown. This was that ending to which, years before, Agrippina had given her credence, and her contempt. For to her inquiries as to the destiny of Nero the astrologers answered that he should reign, and slay his mother; and "Let him slay," she had said, "so that he reign. 14.10. But only with the completion of the crime was its magnitude realized by the Caesar. For the rest of the night, sometimes dumb and motionless, but not rarely starting in terror to his feet with a sort of delirium, he waited for the daylight which he believed would bring his end. Indeed, his first encouragement to hope came from the adulation of the centurions and tribunes, as, at the suggestion of Burrus, they grasped his hand and wished him joy of escaping his unexpected danger and the criminal enterprise of his mother. His friends in turn visited the temples; and, once the example had been given, the Campanian towns in the neighbourhood attested their joy by victims and deputations. By a contrast in hypocrisy, he himself was mournful, repining apparently at his own preservation and full of tears for the death of a parent. But because the features of a landscape change less obligingly than the looks of men, and because there was always obtruded upon his gaze the grim prospect of that sea and those shores, â and there were some who believed that he could hear a trumpet, calling in the hills that rose around, and lamentations at his mother's grave, â he withdrew to Naples and forwarded to the senate a letter, the sum of which was that an assassin with his weapon upon him had been discovered in Agermus, one of the confidential freedmen of Agrippina, and that his mistress, conscious of her guilt, had paid the penalty of meditated murder. 14.11. He appended a list of charges drawn from the remoter past:â "She had hoped for a partnership in the empire; for the praetorian cohorts to swear allegiance to a woman; for the senate and people to submit to a like ignominy. Then, her ambition foiled, she had turned against the soldiers, the Fathers and the commons; had opposed the donative and the largess, and had worked for the ruin of eminent citizens. At what cost of labour had he succeeded in preventing her from forcing the door of the senate and delivering her answers to foreign nations!" He made an indirect attack on the Claudian period also, transferring every scandal of the reign to the account of his mother, whose removal he ascribed to the fortunate star of the nation. For even the wreck was narrated: though where was the folly which could believe it accidental, or that a ship-wrecked woman had despatched a solitary man with a weapon to cut his way through the guards and navies of the emperor? The object, therefore, of popular censure was no longer Nero â whose barbarity transcended all protest â but Seneca, who in composing such a plea had penned a confession. 14.12. However, with a notable spirit of emulation among the magnates, decrees were drawn up: thanksgivings were to be held at all appropriate shrines; the festival of Minerva, on which the conspiracy had been brought to light, was to be celebrated with annual games; a golden statue of the goddess, with an effigy of the emperor by her side, was to be erected in the curia, and Agrippina's birthday included among the inauspicious dates. Earlier sycophancies Thrasea Paetus had usually allowed to pass, either in silence or with a curt assent: this time he walked out of the senate, creating a source of danger for himself, but implanting no germ of independence in his colleagues. Portents, also, frequent and futile made their appearance: a woman gave birth to a serpent, another was killed by a thunderbolt in the embraces of her husband; the sun, again, was suddenly obscured, and the fourteen regions of the capital were struck by lightning â events which so little marked the concern of the gods that Nero continued for years to come his empire and his crimes. However, to aggravate the feeling against his mother, and to furnish evidence that his own mildness had increased with her removal, he restored to their native soil two women of high rank, Junia and Calpurnia, along with the ex-praetors Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus â all of them formerly banished by Agrippina. He sanctioned the return, even, of the ashes of Lollia Paulina, and the erection of a tomb: Iturius and Calvisius, whom he had himself relegated some little while before, he now released from the penalty. As to Silana, she had died a natural death at Tarentum, to which she had retraced her way, when Agrippina, by whose enmity she had fallen, was beginning to totter or to relent. 14.13. And yet he dallied in the towns of Campania, anxious and doubtful how to make his entry into Rome. Would he find obedience in the senate? enthusiasm in the crowd? Against his timidity it was urged by every reprobate â and a court more prolific of reprobates the world has not seen â that the name of Agrippina was abhorred and that her death had won him the applause of the nation. Let him go without a qualm and experience on the spot the veneration felt for his position! At the same time, they demanded leave to precede him. They found, indeed, an alacrity which surpassed their promises: the tribes on the way to meet him; the senate in festal dress; troops of wives and of children disposed according to their sex and years, while along his route rose tiers of seats of the type used for viewing a triumph. Then, flushed with pride, victor over the national servility, he made his way to the Capitol, paid his grateful vows, and abandoned himself to all the vices, till now retarded, though scarcely repressed, by some sort of deference to his mother. |
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5. Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah, None (3rd cent. CE - 6th cent. CE)
| 10a. שית שנין יתירתא סבור רבנן קמיה דרב' למימר האי שטר מאוחר הוא ניעכביה עד דמטיא זמניה ולא טריף אמר רב נחמן האי ספרא דוקנא כתביה והנך שית שנין דמלכו בעילם דאנן לא חשבינן להו הוא קחשיב ליה ובזמניה כתביה,דתניא ר' יוסי אומר שש שנים מלכו בעילם ואח"כ פשטה מלכותן בכל העולם כולו:,מתקיף לה רב אחא בר יעקב ממאי דלמלכות יונים מנינן דלמא ליציאת מצרים מנינן ושבקיה לאלפא קמא ונקטיה אלפא בתרא והאי מאוחר הוא אמר רב נחמן בגולה אין מונין אלא למלכי יונים בלבד,הוא סבר דחויי קא מדחי ליה נפק דק ואשכח דתניא בגולה אין מונין אלא למלכי יונים בלבד,אמר רבינא מתניתין נמי דיקא דתנן באחד בניסן ר"ה למלכים ולרגלים ואמרינן למלכים למאי הלכתא אמר רב חסדא לשטרות,ותנן באחד בתשרי ר"ה לשנים ולשמיטין ואמרינן לשנים למאי הלכתא ואמר רב חסדא לשטרות קשיא שטרות אהדדי,ומשנינן כאן למלכי ישראל כאן למלכי עובדי כוכבים למלכי עובדי כוכבים מתשרי מנינן למלכי ישראל מניסן מנינן,ואנן השתא מתשרי מנינן ואי ס"ד ליציאת מצרים מנינן מניסן בעינן למימני אלא לאו ש"מ למלכי יונים מנינן ש"מ:,ויום גינוסיא של מלכיהם וכו': מאי ויום גינוסיא של מלכיהם אמר רב יהודה יום שמעמידין בו עובדי כוכבים את מלכם והתניא יום גינוסיא ויום שמעמידין בו את מלכם לא קשיא הא דידיה הא דבריה,ומי מוקמי מלכא בר מלכא והתני רב יוסף (עובדיה א, ב) הנה קטן נתתיך בגוים שאין מושיבין מלך בן מלך (עובדיה א, ב) בזוי אתה מאד שאין להן לא כתב ולא לשון אלא מאי יום גינוסיא יום הלידה,והתניא יום גינוסיא ויום הלידה לא קשיא הא דידיה הא דבריה,והתניא יום גינוסיא שלו יום גינוסיא של בנו ויום הלידה שלו ויום הלידה של בנו אלא מאי יום גינוסיא יום שמעמידין בו מלכם ולא קשיא הא דידיה הא דבריה,ואי קשיא לך דלא מוקמי מלכא בר מלכא ע"י שאלה מוקמי כגון אסוירוס בר אנטונינוס דמלך,א"ל אנטונינוס לרבי בעינא דימלוך אסוירוס ברי תחותי ותתעביד טבריא קלניא ואי אימא להו חדא עבדי תרי לא עבדי אייתי גברא ארכביה אחבריה ויהב ליה יונה לעילאי בידיה וא"ל לתתאה אימר לעילא דלמפרח מן ידיה יונה אמר שמע מינה הכי קאמר לי את בעי מינייהו דאסוירוס ברי ימלוך תחותי ואימא ליה לאסוירוס דתעביד טבריא קלניא,א"ל מצערין לי חשובי [רומאי] מעייל ליה לגינא כל יומא עקר ליה פוגלא ממשרא קמיה אמר ש"מ הכי קאמר לי את קטול חד חד מינייהו ולא תתגרה בהו בכולהו | 10a. a date that had bsix additional yearsrelative to the correct scribal date, which takes for its starting point the beginning of Greek rule. bThe Sageswho studied bbefore Rabba thought to say: This is a postdatedpromissory bnote,which can be used only from the date it specifies. Therefore, blet us hold it until its time arrivesso that the creditor bwill not repossessproperty that the debtor sold prior to the date that appears in the note. bRav Naḥmandisagreed and bsaid: Thispromissory note bwas written by an exacting scribe, and those six yearsare referring to the years bwhenthe Greeks bruledonly bin Elam. We do not count them,as Greek rule had not yet spread throughout the world, but bhe does count them. Andtherefore bhe wrote inthe promissory note the correct btime,as the date does in fact match the year in which the promissory note was written.,Rav Naḥman cites a proof for his resolution: bAs it is taughtin a ibaraitathat bRabbi Yosei says:The Greeks bruled for six years in Elamalone, band afterward their dominion spread throughout the entire world.It is the later event that serves as the basis for the dating system used by most scribes., bRav Aḥa bar Ya’akov objects toRav Naḥman’s answer: bFrom whereis it known bthat we countyears according btothe bGreek rule,and that this promissory note was dated according to a system that uses the Greek rule as a starting point and was written by an exacting scribe? bPerhaps we countthe years using bthe exodus from Egyptas the starting point, which occurred one thousand years before the start of the Greek rule, bandin this case the scribe bleftout bthe first thousand yearsfrom the time of the exodus band held ononly bto the last thousand years,omitting the thousands digit and writing merely the hundreds, tens, and single digits. bAndif so, bthispromissory note bis postdated. Rav Naḥman saidin response: The practice is that bin the exile we countyears bonlyaccording bto the Greek kings. /b,Upon hearing this reply, Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov bthought:Rav Naḥman bismerely bdeflectingmy legitimate questions with this answer. Afterward, bhe went out, examinedthe matter, band discoveredthat it was as Rav Naḥman said. bAs it is taughtin a ibaraita /i: bIn the exile we countyears bonlyaccording bto the Greek kings. /b, bRavina said: The mishna is also preciselyformulated, as it teaches that we calculate years according to the Greek kings. bAs we learnedin a mishna ( iRosh HaShana2a): bOn the first of Nisan is the New Year for kings and for the Festivals. And we sayabout this: bWith regard to what ihalakha /iis it stated that the first of Nisan is the New Year bfor kings? Rav Ḥisda said:It is said bwith regard todating bdocumentsand determining their validity., bAnd we learnedin the same mishna: bOn the first of Tishrei is the New Year forcounting byears and forcalculating bSabbaticalcycles. bAnd we say: With regard to what ihalakha /iis it stated that the first of Tishrei is the New Year bforcounting byears? And Rav Ḥisda said:It is said bwith regard todating bdocuments.These two statements with regard to the dating of bdocumentsare bdifficultin light of beach other,as according to one statement the dating system is based on Nisan as the first month, whereas according to the other the year begins in Tishrei., bAnd we resolvedthe contradiction by explaining that bherethe dating is according bto kings of Israel,and btherethe dating is according bto the kings of thegentile bnations of the world.That is, when we date years according bto the kings of the nations of the world, we count fromthe month of bTishrei,whereas when we date years according bto the kings of Israel, we count fromthe month of bNisan. /b,Ravina explains his proof: bAnd nowthat bwe count fromthe month of bTishreiwhen dating documents, one can claim as follows: bIf it enters your mindthat bwe countand date years using bthe exodus from Egyptas the starting point, while leaving off the first thousand years, then bwe should count fromthe month of bNisan,when the exodus occurred. bRather, isn’t itcorrect to bconclude fromthe mishna that bwe countyears according bto the Greek kings?The Gemara affirms: bConclude from itthat the scribal years are in fact calculated according to the Greek kings. Therefore, one should explain as did Rav Naḥman: A promissory note that appears to be postdated by six years may not actually be a postdated promissory note; rather, it is assumed to have been written by an exacting scribe.,§ One of the gentile festivals listed in the mishna is bthe day of the festival [ igeinuseya /i] of their kings.The Gemara asks: bWhat ismeant by: bThe day of igeinuseyaof their kings? Rav Yehuda says:This is referring to the bday on which the gentiles appointand crown btheir king.The Gemara asks: bBut isn’t it taughtin a ibaraita /i: Two gentile festivals are bthe day of igeinuseyaandthe bday on which the gentiles appoint their king?This indicates that these are two separate occasions. The Gemara answers that it is bnot difficult: This,the day of igeinuseya /i, is referring to the coronation of the king bhimself,whereas bthat,the day on which the gentiles appoint and crown their king, is referring to the coronation bof his son,when a son is crowned during his father’s lifetime.,The Gemara asks: bAnd dothe Romans actually bappointas bking the son of the king? But didn’t Rav Yosef teach:The verse relating a prophesy about Edom, associated with the Roman Empire: b“Behold, I made you small among the nations”(Obadiah 1:2), is a reference to the fact bthatthe Romans bdo not placeon the throne as bking the son of the king.The continuation of the verse: b“You are greatly despised,”is a reference to the fact bthatthe Romans bhave neithertheir own bscript northeir own blanguage,but use those of other nations. The Gemara therefore rejects the explanation of the ibaraitathat distinguishes between coronation of a king and coronation of the king’s son: bRather, what is the day of igeinuseya /i?It is btheking’s bbirthday. /b,The Gemara asks: bBut isn’t it taughtin a ibaraita /i: Two gentile festivals are bthe day of igeinuseyaand the birthday.Once again, these two events cannot be the same. The Gemara answers: It is bnot difficult: This,the day of igeinuseya /i, is referring to the birthday of the king bhimself,whereas bthat,the birthday mentioned in the ibaraita /i, is referring to the birthday bof his son. /b,The Gemara further asks: bBut isn’t it taughtin a ibaraita /i: bThe day of igeinuseyaofthe king, bthe day of igeinuseyaof his son, andthe king’s bbirthday and the birthday of his son?If so, the igeinuseyacannot be either his or his son’s birthday. bRather, whatis meant by the bday of igeinuseya /i?In fact it is referring to the bday on whichthe gentiles bappointand crown btheir king. Andthe fact that a ibaraitamentions both the day of igeinuseyaand the day on which the gentiles appoint and crown their king is bnot difficult,as bthis,the day of igeinuseya /i, is referring to bhisown coronation, whereas bthat,the day on which the gentiles appoint and crown their king, is referring to the coronation bof his son. /b, bAnd ifit is bdifficult for you thatwhich was stated earlier, bthatthe Romans bdo not appointas bking the son of the king,in fact bthey do appointa son of the king as king bthrough the requestof the king. bFor example,there was bAsveirus, son of Antoninus, who ruledat the request of Antoninus.,The Gemara provides the background for this assertion. It is related that bAntoninus said to RabbiYehuda HaNasi: bI wish for Asveirus my son to rule instead of me, and thatthe city bTiberias be released[ikelaneya/b] from paying taxes. bAnd if I tellthe Roman senate boneof my wishes, bthey will doas I wish, but if I ask for btwoof them bthey will not doas I wish. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi conveyed his answer in the following manner: bHe brought a man, placed him onthe shoulders of banotherman, band put a dove in the hands of the one on top. And he said to the one on the bottom: Tell the one on top that he should cause the dove to fly from his hands.Antoninus bsaidto himself: bLearn from itthat bthisis what Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi bis saying to me: Youshould baskthe Senate: bLet Asveirus my son rule instead of me, and say to Asveirus that he should release Tiberiasfrom paying taxes.,Antoninus also bsaid toRabbi Yehuda HaNasi: bImportant Romans are upsetting me;what can I do about them? Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi bbrought him tohis bgarden,and bevery day he uprooted a radish from the garden bed before him.Antoninus bsaidto himself: bLearn from itthat bthisis what Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi bis saying to me: Youshould bkill them oneby bone, and do not incite all of themat once. |
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