Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus

According to his daughter Fannia, whose account is preserved in a letter of Pliny, Thrasea attempted unsuccessfully to prevent his mother-in-law Arria from killing herself along with her husband.

[9] But Tacitus' first reference to him in the Annals relates to the following year, when he surprised both friends and enemies by speaking against a routine motion in the senate, a request by the Syracusans to exceed the statutory number of gladiators at their games.

[10] The objections to this which Tacitus attributes to (anonymous) 'detractors' show, if accurate, that Thrasea already had a reputation for opposition to the status quo and for dedication to the ideal of senatorial freedom.

[11] In 62, the praetor Antistius Sosianus, who had written abusive poems about Nero, was accused on a maiestas charge by Thrasea's old enemy Cossutianus Capito, who had recently been restored to the senate through the influence of his father-in-law Tigellinus.

[12] In the same year, at the trial of the Cretan Claudius Timarchus in the senate, the defendant was alleged to have said several times that it was in his power whether the proconsul of Crete received the thanks of the province or not.

[14] Such 'renunciations of friendship' on the part of the emperor were normally the prelude to the victim's death, but unexpectedly Nero seems to have changed his mind at this point, perhaps due to fluctuating power dynamics with Tigellinus, who as Capito's father-in-law might be presumed to have a strong motive to wish for Thrasea's elimination.

Perhaps, as Tacitus suggests, he wished to panic him into some sort of submission, but Thrasea's reaction was merely to inquire what the charges against him were and to ask for time to prepare a defence—the implication being probably that there was no legal basis for proceedings against him.

This was likely true, to judge by the bizarre nature of some of the supporting evidence alleged by Capito[18] (such as not sacrificing to the Heavenly Voice of the emperor), but the trial nonetheless took place in the senate.

A letter from Nero was read, mentioning no names but blaming senior senators for neglecting their public duties; then Capito spoke against Thrasea, and was followed by Eprius Marcellus, whom Tacitus regards as the more effective speaker.

[20] When the news was brought to Thrasea at his suburban villa, where he was entertaining a number of friends and sympathisers, he retired to a bedroom, and had the veins of both his arms opened.

The surviving text of Tacitus breaks off at the moment when Thrasea was about to address Demetrius, the Cynic philosopher, with whom he had previously that day held a conversation on the nature of the soul.