Both Victor and the Epitomator, who are the only ancient authorities to mention the matter, clearly understood Trajan's alleged remark about Nero's quinquennium as a compliment: in which case it is very high praise indeed from an impressive quarter. Both also clearly understood the quinquennium as the first five years, when Nero was a mere youth. Consequently, when it became fashionable to rehabilitate the reputations of Roman emperors, historians of the reign of Nero, at any rate in England, seldom forbore to invoke the authority of Trajan for a favourable verdict on the administrative record of its opening years. They would then proceed to catalogue examples of good government, both at home and abroad, down to A.D. 59, or even to A.D. 62. In 1911, in the first volume of this Journal, J. G. C. Anderson, who later preceded Mr. Hugh Last in the Camden Chair at Oxford, made a sharp attack on this procedure, and suggested an entirely new interpretation of the quinquennium. Since then historians of Nero have been, with some exceptions, more guarded on the subject, partly because of Anderson's paper, and partly, no doubt, because the degeneration of emperors after virtuous beginnings was recognized as a common topos in imperial biography. A few have explicitly accepted Anderson's thesis. None of them, however, has discussed Anderson's arguments in detail, which is what I wish to do here.
The Income Tax: A Study of the History, Theory, and Practice of Income Taxation at Home and Abroad.