[Of Petronius:] Nero… looked up to him as a decisive authority in matters of taste.

Tacitus makes this remark in his account of Gaius Petronius—often identified with the “Petronius Arbiter” associated with the Satyricon—during Nero’s reign. In the Annals, Petronius is portrayed as a court insider whose cultivated elegance and worldly sophistication made him influential in the emperor’s circle. Tacitus contrasts Petronius’s reputation for refined pleasure with the moral and political corruption of Nero’s court, and he situates Petronius’s prominence amid the intrigues that culminated in his downfall (linked in Tacitus to the jealousy and machinations of Tigellinus). The line underscores how aesthetic judgment itself became a form of power at an imperial court obsessed with display.

The sentence is both descriptive and satirical. Tacitus suggests that Nero’s “taste” is not an independent virtue but something outsourced to a fashionable arbiter—an indictment of an emperor who treats culture as ornament and authority as performance. Petronius’s role as a “decisive authority” implies that status at court could hinge on style, luxury, and the management of appearances rather than on civic or moral excellence. Tacitus also hints at the fragility of such influence: the same court that elevates a connoisseur can destroy him when taste becomes entangled with rivalry and suspicion. The quote thus exposes the decadence and insecurity of Nero’s regime.