Roman Emperors, Prosperity and Decline
First Emperor, Augustus | Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero | Blunders from Galba to Dometian |Emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Prosperity | Rome Absorbed and Ruined Economically | Order under Diocletian, to Constantine...
First Emperor, Augustus (27 BCE - 14 CE)..
rOMe's empire began more than two centuries before Rome's republic faded into rule by those called emperors, but it is by the name of Roman Empire that the post-Republican phase of ancient Roman civilization is often described.
but it is by the name of Roman Empire that the post-Republican phase of ancient Roman civilization is often described.
The first emperor who ruled was Octavius, the nephew of Julius Caesar. He was recognized by the Senate as having authority over all of Rome's military, outside the city of Rome and within Rome. As a tribune for life he was allowed to convene the Senate when he pleased, to lay business before it and to veto its actions, to preside over elections and to speak first at any meeting. Given the powers of a censor, he had the right to supervise public morals and scrutinize laws to make sure they were what he thought to be in Rome's interest. And the title of augustus signified religious authority. Rome's priests were obliged to put him in their prayers.
Augustus made an effort to put himself on the side of the gods by launching a crusade to revive temperance and morality. He tried setting an example by dressing without extravagance and by living in a modest house. He emphasized the worship of those gods he thought had given him victory in battle, among them the god Apollo. He claimed that Rome's gods had given him victory over Cleopatra and what he saw as the monstrous gods of Egypt. He forbade the worship of Isis, and he forbade Druidism and fortune telling. He collected the oracles of Sibyl – the woman believed to have prophetic power by way of Apollo – and he had her writings stored in a newly built temple for Apollo on the Palatine Hill
Augustus tried to persuade one of the foremost writers of his time, the poet Horace, to create a work comparable to Homer's Iliad that would inspire Romans to the worship of the state's traditional gods and give the Romans pride in their history and their race. Horace was not interested, but the poet Virgil was. Virgil wrote the Aeneid, a story about the gods and the founding of the Roman race, a myth about the Romans having descended from Trojans who had fled the flames of Troy. The god Aeneas was described as the son of the goddess Venus and the Trojan Anchises. According to Virgil, among the descendants of Aeneas was Rhea Silva, who married Mars and gave birth to Romulus and Remus. And Virgil described Julius Caesar as a more distant descendant of Aeneas.
Augustus decided to protect the Roman race. Between 2 BCE and CE 4 he had laws passed that he hoped would reduce inter-breeding between Romans and non-Romans. These laws prohibited an indiscriminate emancipation of slaves, prohibited freed slaves from marrying Latins and prohibited Senators from marrying freed women.
Family Values
The Romans believed in the family, and they agreed that adultery should be illegal. They believed that the virtue of their women helped win their city favor from their gods, and they continued to be disgusted by criminality. Many Romans found pleasure in seeing criminals punished, which was done in the arena, Rome's entertainment center, where convicted criminals were forced to fight against each other or against ferocious animals. Occasionally, convicted criminals ran from the center of the arena, and men at the edge of the arena used hot branding irons to force the unwilling participant back to the contest, while the crowd expressed its disgust with the criminal's cowardice.
With wars having reduced Rome's population to a level lower than pleased him, Augustus saw having children as moral. He used his powers as tribune-for-life to initiate legislation that he hoped would encourage marriage. Infanticide remained legal and at a husband's discretion, but people who remained single or married without children after they were twenty were to be penalized through taxation. To further what he saw as morality, Augustus had prostitution taxed, and he made homosexuality a punishable offense. Adultery remained a crime, but it was no longer commonly punished by death. An adulterous wife and her lover could now be banished to different islands, with the woman obliged to wear the kind of short tunic worn by prostitutes.
Augustus' crusade for moral regeneration satisfied those who feared that evil would come with abandoned religious traditions. Many females continued to grow up patriotically and dutifully moral, and virginity before marriage continued to be seen as highly desirable and moral. But his moral crusade was hardly a success in changing behavior. Married men continued to look other than to their wives for sexual passion. With unmarried women endeavoring to remain virgins and married women constrained by the tough laws against adultery, males, married and otherwise, continued to seek sexual gratification and to some extent affection from prostitutes, and some from each other.
Augustus had his own daughter, Julia, punished for adultery. After Julia's two previous husbands had died (each of whom had been designated as heir to Augustus' power) Augustus arranged a marriage between Julia and his adopted son and heir, Tiberius. This involved Tiberius leaving a happy marriage. The marriage between Tiberius and Julia turned out to be an unhappy match. Tiberius was often away, and Julia searched for love and sexual gratification outside her marriage. Augustus heard of her infidelities, and he threatened her with death. Instead, he sent her to an island prison from which she was never to return, and he spoke of her as a disease of his flesh.
Expansion and Succession
By the end of his reign his armies had conquered northern Hispania, the Alpine regions of Raetia and Noricum Illyricum and Pannonia and had extended the empire's borders in Africa.
Concerning succession, he wanted to ensure stability and do this by designating an heir, done in an undramatic way that did not stir fears of monarchy. He wanted an heir who had proved himself through public service. No Roman law had given Augustus the right to pass his powers to anyone. But the Romans were without qualms about Augustus' transfer of power. They believed that for a continued peace and prosperity someone should rule as Augustus had ruled.
Augustus' choice was Tiberius, three years-old when Augustus married his mother, a divorcee, back in 39 BCE. Augustus married his stepson Tiberius to his daughter Julia and later adopted him, making him a member of the Julian family with the name Tiberius Julius Caesar. With the family name of Tiberius' father, the Julio-Claudian dynasty was born.
His service to Rome was as a military general and as a consul in 13 BCE. In 12 BCE he received military commissions in the volatile regions of Pannonia and Germania. He was consul a second time in 7 BCE. He withdrew from politics in 6 BCE but came back for a two-year campaign in Germania in the years 10 to 12 and returned to Rome triumphant, falling to the knee of Augustus, who was presiding over the ceremonies.
Augustus died in the year 14, at the age of 75. He was deified, and his will was read, which confirmed Tiberius as his sole surviving heir.
Julio-Claudians: Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero
Tiberius
Emperor, Military Leader (42–37)
Tiberius was born on November 16, 42 B.C.E., in Rome and became the adopted son of future emperor Augustus. After Tiberius became emperor himself, he established the concept of ruler as god and improved the Roman economy, though his erratic behavior made him unpopular with citizenry and the senate. Involved in murderous conspiracies related to the throne, Tiberius retired to Capri in his later years.
Tiberius was 56 when he took power as emperor. It was a succession accompanied by a quiet murder. The victim was Agrippa Postumus, the slow-witted 26 year-old son of his wife Julia's by a previous marriage, feared as a possible rallying point for disaffected persons.
Tiberius let the Senate know that he was he who ruled, but he left the Senate with some duties, saving himself from being overburdned with work. He told the Senate to stop bothering him about every question that came up and to take initiative. But, to his disgust, Senators cringed before him.
An amphitheater collapsed killing many, and the Senate took action against the frauds of contractors, including the slackness of authorities responsible for some roads having become impassible. Tiberius dismissed the Senate's desire to crackdown against the idea of freedom for women, but he did suggest it ban those who had come to Rome to put on obscene shows. And he went further than had Augustus by outlawing altogether the Druid religion.
Tiberius didn't like crowds and did not appear at the gladiator contests as had Augustus. Rather than appear as a loving father figure to the citizenry, Tiberius was seen as unfriendly and was a disappointment.
At the age of 68, Tiberius left Rome for the island of Capri, where he would spend the rest of his life, ruling, relaxing and bathing with boys he called his minnows.
The third of Rome’s emperors, Caligula (formally known as Gaius) achieved feats of waste and carnage during his four-year reign (A.D. 37-41) unmatched even by his infamous nephew Nero. The son of a great military leader, he escaped family intrigues to take the throne, but his personal and fiscal excesses led him to be the first Roman emperor to be assassinated.
Tiberius died at 77 and this news was welcomed by the citizenry. He was succeeded by the great grandson of Augustus: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, whose nickname was Caligula.
Caligula was a mediocrity. He wanted to rule well but was ill-equipped to handle the challenge of absolute rule. He failed that ingredient needed with power: measure. He had not proven himself with accomplishments and service to Rome. He had merely been born into the right family. It was the emperor's guard, the Praetorian Guard, that selected Caligula – a selection rubber stamped by the Senate.
Caligula began by wanting to rule well. He returned to the courts the power to make indpendent decisions in sentencing people, and he increased the number of jurors. He began publishing a budget and he began more building. But along with good intentions he suffered from vanity.. The godliness that was atttibuted to his great-grandfather Augustisus may have led him to believe not that he was a god but that he should be worshiped as a god.
He lacked self-restraint. He indulged his appetites for food and grew fat and irritable. He indulged his sexual appetites. He wanted to be adored, but he made enemies and indulged an appetite for revenge and control. He used his power to have those he saw as enemies executed. A conspiracy against him arose among those who felt their lives endangered, including officers of the Praetorian Guard. In the year 41, at the age of 29, after having been in power three years and ten months, members of his guard assassinated him.
Emperor Claudius
Claudius, a physical wreck, he was unadmired within the ruling Julio-Claudian family. He survived and became a diligent emperor. But he married poorly.
Claudius stammered and had a disability that made him clumsy. He had been an embarrassment to the imperial family and had spent much of his life secluded, writing books on Roman, Etruscan and Carthaginian history. (He is the last person known to have been able to read Etruscan.) Like historians with any competence, his histories offended. Not taken seriously as a possible heir, he had survived purges during the reigns of Tiberius and Caligula.
In addition to an unusually high intelligence, Claudius was genuinely affable. And he cared about the empire. He proved to be an able and efficient administrator. He was also an ambitious builder, constructing many new roads, aqueducts, and canals across the Empire.
Wanting public support, Claudius tried reviving the image of an expanding empire. A Celtic tribal king fled from southern Britain to Rome and appealed for help against invasion by another tribe in Britain, and this gave Claudius his opportunity in his third year of rule. Britain was a strange place for Romans, and Claudius' 40,000 troops at first refused to disembark from their invasion boats. But they overcame their first hesitation and that same year with their conquests they created Roman Britain, a new province.
An edict by Claudius held that a master who murdered his slave because the slave was no long of use to him could be tried for murder, and Caludius extended freedom to a slave who had been abandoned by his or her master.
He was annoyed by Jews and tried to expell them from Rome, but like others who thought of themselves as polytheists he was generally tolerant of the worship of gods that he didn't worship, but not tolerant of Druidism. Druids were known to perform human sacrifices, which the Romans viewed with abhorrence. It was around their Druid religion that Gauls rallied in opposition to Roman rule. With religious diffusion still common, Claudius was on guard against its spread and he had a Roman executed after he noticed a Duridic talisman on his breast.
Claudius married four times. The first was to his distant cousin Aemilia Lepida, but it was broken for political reasons. He divorced second wife, Aelia Paetina. After becoming empero he married again, when he fifty and she was about twenty.. She was flagrantly unfaithful and the marriage ended seven years later. His last marriage was on January 1, 49, to one of the few remaining descendants of Augustus, a great-granddaughter, Julia Agrippina (Agrippina the Younger), Caligula's sister. She was 33 and with a 10 year-old son by a previous marriage, a boy named Nero. And rumor has it she had poisoned her previous husband.
Empress Agripppina succeeded in getting Claudius to favor Nero as his heir-designate rather than his own son, Britannicus. In an attempt to make Nero eloquent, Agrippina had him schooled in mythology, the classical writers, rhetoric and philosophy. While a boy, Nero developed a liking for art, drama and music, especially singing, and he liked horses. When he was sixteen, Agrippina had him marrry Claudius's daughter by a previous marriage: Octavia.
Aggrippina used her power to destroy people she saw as a threat or who had crossed her. The Roman historian Tacitus was to writed that in the year 53 she goaded Claudius "into acts of savagery" against her imagined enemies.
The following year, 54, Claudius died, some believe by Agrippina having poisoned him after he had expressed second thoughts about Nero as his successor.
Emperor Nero. He also wanted to rule well. But emotionally and intellectually he was no better than mediocre
NERO’S MURDEROUS PATH TO POWER
Born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Nero took his familiar name when he was adopted at age 13 by his great-uncle, the emperor Claudius (his father, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, had died when the future emperor was only 2). Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, had married Claudius after arranging the death of her second husband and was the driving force behind her son’s adoption She arranged for Nero to wed Claudius’ daughter Octavia in 53, further sidelining the emperor’s son Britannicus. Upon Claudius’ sudden death in 54—classical sources suggest Agrippina fed him poisoned mushrooms—the 17-year-old Nero ascended the throne.Although it’s unknown whether Nero sang and strummed his lyre while Rome burned in 64 A.D., he certainly didn't play a fiddle: bowed string instruments wouldn't appear in Europe for another 800 years.
Nero became emperor at seventeen, the day that Claudius died. Like Caligula had wanted when he took power, Nero wanted to rule well. And, like Caligula, he craved public adoration. But he was never able to bear frustrations with patience. His mother became an irritant, and in the year 59 he had her murdered. Following this, Nero became more defensive and by the year 61 he had re-instituted treason trials.
His wife, Octavia, grew to hate him, and he feared that she was spreading dislike of him in his household and at court. He had her charged with treason and executed in the year 62. He had a love interest at this time, remarried and exercised this power against his next wife, Poppaea Sabina, one of the many attractive women across history who sought association with men of wealth and fame. She married Nero in 62.
In the year 64 was the great fire in Rome. It burned wooden tenement houses, which were as high as six stories, and it burned the home of the wealthy, including Nero's palace. According to the historian Tacitus, who wrote decades later, many Romans many believed the rumor that Nero had started the fire to make space for his new great mansion, and they pitied Christians who were blamed for the fire, believing that instead of being sacrificed for the welfare of the state, the Christians were being sacrificed as Nero's scapegoats.
The popularity Nero had wanted escaped him. Military commanders outside Rome were aware of Nero's unpopularity. Nero didn't realize where the real power was. In 68, he ordered the execution of his military commander in Spain, Servius Galba. With nothing to lose, Galba declared himself a subject of the Senate and Rome's citizens rather than of the emperor. Galba and his army headed for Rome. Realizing that he was powerless, Nero ran through his palace screaming hysterically. The Senate aroused itself, declared Nero a public enemy and ordered his execution. Soldiers closed in on Nero at his villa. The family dynasty begun by Augustus was at an end 54 years after it had begun. With Senate approval, power passed to Servius Galba. An era of rule by military men had begun.
Nero was the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian family, a dynasty that had lasted only 54 years following the death of its founder, Augustus – not an ucommon length of time for a ruling dynasty, but much shorter than some other dynasties elsewhere in the world.
Blunders, from Galba to Dometian
Galba tried to correct the misrule of Nero by restoring Rome's finances and restoring discipline to the military. However much Galba had the qualities of leadership that Rome needed, he would be destroyed by the weaknesses and corruption of others. Galba's frugality alienated citizens, and it alienated his soldiers, with Galba saying in response that he levied troops rather than bribed them for their support. Galba announced that he had adopted someone as his heir, but he failed to pay the Praetorian Guard the donation that it had come to expect for supporting a new emperor. A senator, Otho, age 37, was eager to replace Galba and offered the Praetorian Guard the donation that it expected. Galba was cut down in the street by guardsmen on horseback. His close associates were murdered soon after, and the Senate proclaimed Otho emperor.
Otho's rule went unrecognized among Roman soldiers in Germany, and they followed the precedent laid down by Galba's troops and hailed as emperor their commander, Vitellius. Vitellius had become popular with his troops by allowing them to bully civilians and take anything they could grab. Vitellius and his army marched toward Rome and battled troops that supported Otho. Vitellius won. Otho committed suicide after only three months in office. It was believed by many that he had done so to save Rome from another civil war, and a few impressed soldiers who considered Otho heroic tried to match his heroism by throwing themselves onto his funeral pyre.The new emperor by military coup, Vitellius, was unpopular with everyone but his troops. He executed everyone he believed had wronged him. His bloodbath disgusted the Romans. And picking up on his unpopularity, soldiers of another army selected their military commander to put things straight in Rome. That commander was Flavius Vespasian, aged 60, who had led Rome's recent campaign against a the Jewish uprising in 66 in Judea. Vespasian and his army marched on Rome. They found Vitellius hiding in the palace. Vitellius was taken to the Forum, and there the crowds ridiculed him before someone stabbed him to death.
Vespasian was capable politically and generally good natured. He re-established order and ruled for ten years. His son Titus modeled himself after his father. He had won the admiration of the Romans for his devotion to his father, and like his father he was bright and good natured. But his rule was plagued by disasters not of his making. Mount Vesuvius erupted. Titus provided relief and rehabilitation programs for survivors, and he paid for much of it with his own money. Then came another great fire that burned Rome, followed by an epidemic of disease. Titus made great efforts to find a remedy for the epidemic and to comfort his subjects. Then, after having been in power only two years, Titus himself died of fever, and the Romans responded with more genuine grief than they had with the death of any previous emperor, including Augustus.
Titus was succeeded by his thirty year-old brother, Domitian, younger than Titus by eleven years. Domitian skillfully managed the state's finances and contributed more to public construction. He insisted on each individual being protected by law, and he was concerned with morality. He wanted senators and their families and the equites (families of wealth from commerce) to behave according to accepted moral standards and to avoid scandals. He severely punished Vestal Virgins who had given into the temptation of sexual intercourse. He drove prostitutes from Rome's streets and enforced a law against what was considered unnatural sexual practices, including homosexuality. In the interest of children he outlawed their castration, which had been the practice of some religious cults. And he sought to end the buying and selling of eunuchs.
But Domitian became impatient with criticism and dissent and afraid of opposition, which started him down the same path as the failed emperors before him. His brother Titus had acted against subversion, banning anarchists and cynic-philosophers from Rome, but he had done so with confidence about Rome's security. But Domitian feared that subversion was about to get out of hand. He banned philosophers from Italy, and he overreacted when some soldiers stationed on the Rhine River revolted against his rule. The revolt was easily crushed, but he began a reign of terror against imagined traitors, including burning books and listening more to informers.
With the public, Domitian remained popular, as most people were not the target of his campaign against subversion. But his zeal in weeding out enemies created fear among those who were close to power, and after seven years of rule, palace officials who felt threatened joined a conspiracy that led to his assassination – a familiar way of recalling an emperor.
Servius Sulpicius Galba
3BC ~ AD69
Servius Sulpicius Galba, born in 3 BC was the first emperor in what historians refer to as the year of the four emperors.
He came from a noble family and quickly earned a solid reputation for his military capability. He loyally served Claudius and was retired by the time Nero came to power.
In 68, Nero ordered a murderous rampage on many roman nobles and although Galba feared for his life he was spared. When Galba heard of Nero’s death he assumed the title of Caesar and headed straight to Rome where soldiers halted him and made clear their demands if he was to continue peacefully. In fact, many of these soldiers were killed by Galba and his men.
During his brief reign Galba refused to pay soldiers for their loyalty and was disliked by many as he was like a puppet in the hands of 3 well known men of power.
Riots began in 69 and the masses demanded a new power be elected and took into their own hands the election of Vitellius.
In response to this Galba realised how unpopular he had become and elected his coadjutor Piso to replace him.
Otho, one of Galba’s earliest supporters was angry that he wasn’t chosen, communicated with the discontented Praetorians who adopted him as the new emperor and slaughtered Galba and Piso soon after.
Servius Sulpicius Galba
3BC ~ AD69
Servius Sulpicius Galba, born in 3 BC was the first emperor in what historians refer to as the year of the four emperors.
He came from a noble family and quickly earned a solid reputation for his military capability. He loyally served Claudius and was retired by the time Nero came to power.
In 68, Nero ordered a murderous rampage on many roman nobles and although Galba feared for his life he was spared. When Galba heard of Nero’s death he assumed the title of Caesar and headed straight to Rome where soldiers halted him and made clear their demands if he was to continue peacefully. In fact, many of these soldiers were killed by Galba and his men.
During his brief reign Galba refused to pay soldiers for their loyalty and was disliked by many as he was like a puppet in the hands of 3 well known men of power.
Riots began in 69 and the masses demanded a new power be elected and took into their own hands the election of Vitellius.
In response to this Galba realised how unpopular he had become and elected his coadjutor Piso to replace him.
Otho, one of Galba’s earliest supporters was angry that he wasn’t chosen, communicated with the discontented Praetorians who adopted him as the new emperor and slaughtered Galba and Piso soon after.
Otho (Marcus Salvius Otho, born on 28 April A. D. 32 and died on 16 April A.D. 69) of Etruscan ancestry and the son of a Roman knight, was emperor of Rome in A.D. 69. He had entertained hopes of being adopted by Galba whom he had helped, but then turned against Galba. After Otho's soldiers proclaimed him emperor on January 15, 69, he had Galba assassinated. Meanwhile the troops in Germany proclaimed Vitellius emperor.
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Otho offered to share t
Otho's rule went unrecognized among Roman soldiers in Germany, and they followed the precedent laid down by Galba's troops and hailed as emperor their commander, Vitellius. Vitellius had become popular with his troops by allowing them to bully civilians and take anything they could grab. Vitellius and his army marched toward Rome and battled troops that supported Otho. Vitellius won. Otho committed suicide after only three months in office. It was believed by many that he had done so to save Rome from another civil war, and a few impressed soldiers who considered Otho heroic tried to match his heroism by throwing themselves onto his funeral pyre.
The new emperor by military coup, Vitellius, was unpopular with everyone but his troops. He executed everyone he believed had wronged him. His bloodbath disgusted the Romans. And picking up on his unpopularity, soldiers of another army selected their military commander to put things straight in Rome. That commander was Flavius Vespasian, aged 60, who had led Rome's recent campaign against a the Jewish uprising in 66 in Judea. Vespasian and his army marched on Rome. They found Vitellius hiding in the palace. Vitellius was taken to the Forum, and there the crowds ridiculed him before someone stabbed him to death.
Vespasian was capable politically and generally good natured. He re-established order and ruled for ten years. His son Titus modeled himself after his father. He had won the admiration of the Romans for his devotion to his father, and like his father he was bright and good natured. But his rule was plagued by disasters not of his making. Mount Vesuvius erupted. Titus provided relief and rehabilitation programs for survivors, and he paid for much of it with his own money. Then came another great fire that burned Rome, followed by an epidemic of disease. Titus made great efforts to find a remedy for the epidemic and to comfort his subjects. Then, after having been in power only two years, Titus himself died of fever, and the Romans responded with more genuine grief than they had with the death of any previous emperor, including Augustus.
Titus was succeeded by his thirty year-old brother, Domitian, younger than Titus by eleven years. Domitian skillfully managed the state's finances and contributed more to public construction. He insisted on each individual being protected by law, and he was concerned with morality. He wanted senators and their families and the equites (families of wealth from commerce) to behave according to accepted moral standards and to avoid scandals. He severely punished Vestal Virgins who had given into the temptation of sexual intercourse. He drove prostitutes from Rome's streets and enforced a law against what was considered unnatural sexual practices, including homosexuality. In the interest of children he outlawed their castration, which had been the practice of some religious cults. And he sought to end the buying and selling of eunuchs.
But Domitian became impatient with criticism and dissent and afraid of opposition, which started him down the same path as the failed emperors before him. His brother Titus had acted against subversion, banning anarchists and cynic-philosophers from Rome, but he had done so with confidence about Rome's security. But Domitian feared that subversion was about to get out of hand. He banned philosophers from Italy, and he overreacted when some soldiers stationed on the Rhine River revolted against his rule. The revolt was easily crushed, but he began a reign of terror against imagined traitors, including burning books and listening more to informers.
With the public, Domitian remained popular, as most people were not the target of his campaign against subversion. But his zeal in weeding out enemies created fear among those who were close to power, and after seven years of rule, palace officials who felt threatened joined a conspiracy that led to his assassination – a familiar way of recalling an emperor.
The new emperor by military coup, Vitellius, was unpopular with everyone but his troops. He executed everyone he believed had wronged him. His bloodbath disgusted the Romans. And picking up on his unpopularity, soldiers of another army selected their military commander to put things straight in Rome. That commander was Flavius Vespasian, aged 60, who had led Rome's recent campaign against a the Jewish uprising in 66 in Judea. Vespasian and his army marched on Rome. They found Vitellius hiding in the palace. Vitellius was taken to the Forum, and there the crowds ridiculed him before someone stabbed him to death.
Vespasian was capable politically and generally good natured. He re-established order and ruled for ten years. His son Titus modeled himself after his father. He had won the admiration of the Romans for his devotion to his father, and like his father he was bright and good natured. But his rule was plagued by disasters not of his making. Mount Vesuvius erupted. Titus provided relief and rehabilitation programs for survivors, and he paid for much of it with his own money. Then came another great fire that burned Rome, followed by an epidemic of disease. Titus made great efforts to find a remedy for the epidemic and to comfort his subjects. Then, after having been in power only two years, Titus himself died of fever, and the Romans responded with more genuine grief than they had with the death of any previous emperor, including Augustus.
Titus was succeeded by his thirty year-old brother, Domitian, younger than Titus by eleven years. Domitian skillfully managed the state's finances and contributed more to public construction. He insisted on each individual being protected by law, and he was concerned with morality. He wanted senators and their families and the equites (families of wealth from commerce) to behave according to accepted moral standards and to avoid scandals. He severely punished Vestal Virgins who had given into the temptation of sexual intercourse. He drove prostitutes from Rome's streets and enforced a law against what was considered unnatural sexual practices, including homosexuality. In the interest of children he outlawed their castration, which had been the practice of some religious cults. And he sought to end the buying and selling of eunuchs.
But Domitian became impatient with criticism and dissent and afraid of opposition, which started him down the same path as the failed emperors before him. His brother Titus had acted against subversion, banning anarchists and cynic-philosophers from Rome, but he had done so with confidence about Rome's security. But Domitian feared that subversion was about to get out of hand. He banned philosophers from Italy, and he overreacted when some soldiers stationed on the Rhine River revolted against his rule. The revolt was easily crushed, but he began a reign of terror against imagined traitors, including burning books and listening more to informers.
With the public, Domitian remained popular, as most people were not the target of his campaign against subversion. But his zeal in weeding out enemies created fear among those who were close to power, and after seven years of rule, palace officials who felt threatened joined a conspiracy that led to his assassination – a familiar way of recalling an emperor.
he power and to make Vitellius his son-in-law, but that was not in the cards. After Otho's defeat at Bedriacum on April 14, it is thought that shame led Otho to plan his suicide. He was succeeded by Vitellius.
Aulus Vitellius Germanicus
AD15 ~ AD69
Aulus Vitellius Germanicus, born in 15.
Chosen by Galba in 68 to lead the Germania Inferior army he became popular among these men due to his extremely good nature and generosity.
In 69 when two commanders of legions refused to renew their vows of allegiance to Galba, Vitellius was proclaimed emperor of both the Germania Inferior and Superior armies. 3 more armies sided with them shortly after.
They marched on to Rome to find that Otho was the present ruler after the death of Galba. It was in fact the senate that recognised his rule and was never acknowledged as emperor by the greater Roman Empire.
Hoping to win Othos favour around 120 people confessed to being a part of Galba’s death. A list of these names was drawn up and after Othos' reign was over, Vitellius had every person on that list executed.
His reign however was to be short lived as he soon found out that eastern armies had proclaimed their commander, Vespasian as emperor. When the armies ruled by Vitellius discovered this he was virtually deserted by his former supporters.
Vespasian was officially known as Imperator Titus Flavius Vespasianus Caesar.
Vespasian was born Nov. 17, 9 A.D., at Falacrinae (a village northeast of Rome), and died June 23, 79, of "diarrhea" at Aquae Cutiliae (location of baths, in central Italy).
In A.D. 66 Emperor Nero gave Vespasian military command to settle the revolt inJudaea. Vespasian acquired a military following and soon became Roman emperor (from July 1, 69-June 23, 79), coming to power after the Julio-Claudian Emperors and putting an end to the chaotic year of the four emperors(Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian).
Vespasian established a short (3-emperor) dynasty, known as the Flavian dynasty. Vespasian's sons and successors in the Flavian Dynasty were Titus and Domitian.
Vespasian's wife was Flavia Domitilla. In addition to producing the two sons, Flavia Domitilla was mother of another Flavia Domitilla. She died before he became emperor. As emperor, he was influenced by his mistress, Caenis, who had been secretary to the mother of Emperor Claudius.
Titus, son of Vespasian, and popular, but there were disasters, including the eruption of Vesuvius.
The most momentous event during the short reign of Titus was the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the destruction of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. He also inaugurated the Roman colosseum, the amphitheater that his father had built.
Titus, the older brother of the notorious emperor Domitian and son of the Emperor Vespasian and his wife Domitilla, was born December 30 around 41 A.D.
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He grew up in the company of Britannicus, son of the Emperor Claudius and shared his training. This meant Titus had enough military training and was ready to be alegatus legionis when his father Vespasian received his Judaean command.
While in Judaea, Titus fell in love with Berenice, daughter of Herod Agrippa.
She later came to Rome where Titus continued his affair with her until he became emperor.
In A.D. 69, the armies of Egypt and Syria hailed Vespasian emperor. Titus put an end to the revolt in Judaea by conquering Jerusalem and destroying the Temple; so he shared the triumph with Vespasian when he returned to Rome in June 71. Titus subsequently shared 7 joint consulships with his father and held other offices, including that of praetorian prefect.
When Vespasian died on June 24, 79, Titus became emperor, but only lived another 26 months.
When Titus inaugurated the Flavian Amphitheater in A.D. 80, he lavished the people with 100 days of entertainment and spectacle. In his biography of Titus, Suetonius says Titus had been suspected of riotous living and greed, perhaps forgery, and people feared he would be another Nero.
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Instead he put on lavish games for the people. He banished informers, treated senators well, and helped out victims of fire, plague, and volcano. Titus was, therefore, remembered fondly for his short reign.
Domitian (a possible fratricide) commissioned an Arch of Titus, honoring the deified Titus and commemorating the Flavians' sack of Jerusalem.
Domitian was a Roman emperor from years AD 81 to 96 and was known for the reign of terror members of the Senate lived under in his last years.
Synopsis
Domitian was hated by the aristocracy, and it seems that cruelty and ostentation were the grounds of his unpopularity, rather than military or administrative incompetence, though his military and foreign policy was not uniformly successful. Domitian was the first emperor since Claudius to campaign in person, and a conspiracy led to his murder, after which his memory was officially condemned.
Emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Prosperity
A new emperor had to be found, and Senators and palace officials, including those who had conspired against Domitian, hoped to avoid civil war. They sought consensus and joined together in selecting an interim ruler: a 66-year-old senior senator named Nerva, who had not taken part in the conspiracy against Domitian but had probably been aware of it. Nerva sought allies in army generals and was able to stay in power. And as these generals wished, he adopted one of their own as his son and successor, a forty-four year-old commander named Trajan. Two years later, Nerva died, and Trajan became emperor.
Similar to Vespasian, Trajan was a good soldier and a man of talent. He was also a man of tolerance and courtesy. He expanded the empire against the Parthians. He put down another rebellion by Jews. He favored applying the law against only those Christians about whom people complained, or Christians who had created disturbances, and he declared that the accused were to receive a proper trial in which they were able to face their accusers. During his nineteen years of rule he improved the empire's roads and harbors, he beautified Rome and he provided support for the children of Rome's poor. And although the Senate continued to have little real power, Trajan consulted it and maintained its good will. The historian Tacitus – who lived during Trajan's rule – praised Trajan for restoring Rome's "old spirit," including the feeling that one could express oneself freely.Before Trajan died he selected as his successor another soldier: Hadrian. And, like Trajan, Hadrian would be considered a good emperor. Hadrian traveled across the empire, stabilizing local governments. He patronized the arts and added to the beautification of cities. He continued Trajan's policy regarding law and the treatment of Christians. He penalized those who mistreated their slaves. He kept the army at peak efficiency through constant training and unannounced inspections. He strengthened the empire's frontiers by building walls.
Four generals disappointed by Hadrian's retreat from military aggression and imperial expansion plotted to overthrow him. But Hadrian learned of their conspiracy before they attacked, and he had the generals executed.
Hadrian ruled for 21 years, to the year 138, during which the empire prospered. The Roman Empire was the largest area in the world without internal customs barriers. Its roads had improved. Private industry was regulated but government did not interfere much in the economy. The empire had prospered from internal trade in agriculture and in crafted goods. From one end of the empire to the other were bountiful farms. Improvements had been made in medicine and public health, and across the empire were good hospitals. Trade from the empire reached as far east as China – the caravan route from Parthia to China having opened in the year 115. The empire's trade reached eastern Africa, and it passed out through the Strait of Gibraltar (between Mauritania and Spain) to as far north as Norway. Roman ruled Gaul and Western Germany had become the workshop of Europe. Gaul was busy with metal working. The city of Cologne had a glass blowing industry. The eastern provinces of the empire, including Greece, exercised age-old skills in technology and trade, and Greek businessmen had become the wealthiest in the empire.
Some of Rome's common people still grumbled, while welfare allowed them to survive. Many still lived in tiny quarters on narrow streets, amid overcrowding, noise and dirt, but their tenement houses were now likely to be of concrete faced with brick, and they were proud to be Romans.
Rome's aristocrats were also proud, but this was not the same aristocracy that had been imagined to be the superior breed that had made Rome great. That aristocracy had disappeared through intermarriage and out-of-wedlock births. They and Rome's common people were becoming more of a blend. About four-fifths of Rome's plebeians carried some genes of former slaves. Around 140 years earlier, Emperor Augustus had laws passed that he hoped would reduce inter-breeding between Romans and non-Romans, laws prohibiting freed slaves from marrying Latins and prohibiting Senators from marrying freed women. But his attempt at what he saw as racial purity was by now a failure.
Rome Absorbed and Ruined Economically – 96 to 250 CE
The emperor from 161 to 180 was Marcus Aurelius, a student of philosophy, religion and morality. He wanted to do right by the empire and to improve the world. He defended the empire against military offensives by the Parthians and incursions by Germans. He was one of those who would be labeled a good emperor – a reminder to some that the saying "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is one of those sayings that sounds profound but is false sociology.
Nevertheless, Aurelius made his contribution to Rome's failings. Staying with the passing of power from father to son, he had his son Commodus succeeed him, which began Rome on a path of ruin.
Commodus was not the hard worker and self-denying soldier that his father had been. He managed governmental affairs poorly, including selling government offices to the highest bidder. He was a disappointment to Romans. He disliked anyone who reminded him of his failure to live up to his father's moral standards or who reminded him that in his youth he had tried to pursue virtue. Like Nero, he tried to win popularity in public performances. He entered the arena, wearing animal skins or elaborate costumes that many thought too feminine. There he stabbed or clubbed animals to death to the applause of the crowd, while many who were not applauding thought that he was demeaning his position as emperor.
Commodus allowed his Guard in Rome and soldiers elsewhere to be abusive toward civilians. Concerned about opposition from military governors, he had their children cared for under his custody – in effect hostages. He had an enemies list of those he planned to execute, but others got to him first. He was assassinated twelve years after having succeeded his father.
The Senate then chose one of their own as emperor, Pertinex, who was assassinated after eighty-seven days. Another Senator, Julianus, bribed his way to a Senate declaration as emperor. Whenever Emperor Julianus appeared in public the Romans jeered him. When news of what was happening in Rome reached the military-governors in the provinces, a number of them became interested in replacing Julianus, and four years of civil war between rival military commanders followed.
The victorious commander was Septimius Severus. Like some other military commanders, he had been born outside Italy – in what today is Libya. He had spent most of his career in the provinces and had no sense of the people of Rome as privileged above others in the empire. Rome, in fact, was being swallowed by its empire. Severus deprived Rome's aristocracy of its traditional places in the city government of Rome and in the military.
Severus was followed by his son, Emperor Caracalla, who had murdered for power by killing his brother – in front of their mother. Caracalla extended citizenship to all free persons within the empire, further submerging Rome within the empire.
Caracalla was assassinated while urinating. He was followed by Severan family weaklings. One was Elgabalus in 218, emperor from age fourteen. Elgabalas was assassinated a little less than four years later in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by the Praetorian Guard. This made Elgabalas' cousin, Alexander Serverus, age 13, emperor. And he remained emperor until he was 26, with his mother continuing as his advisor. In the year 235, while in his tent during a millitary campaign, he was assassinated by military officers and he died cringing and crying in his mother's arms.
The new soldier-emperor, Maximinus, was not from Rome. He was the son of Thracian peasants – a German and an Alan. He had little respect for what remained of Rome's institutions. He was the first emperor who did not win or seek Senate confirmation of his rule. He was never to set foot in Rome. But the senators, afraid for their safety, were only silently antagonistic toward him.
Maximinus doubled the pay of his soldiers, and he upset Rome's civilians by giving money to the army that had been slated for welfare. Farmers in North Africa grew disturbed over Maximinus' high taxes, and they began to create disturbances. Romans in various parts of the empire saw Maximinus as a barbarian foreigner pretending to be an emperor. In Rome, angry packs of men hunted down and murdered his supporters. An army of North Africans, members of the Praetorian Guard, some senators, and some who saw themselves as the Romans of Old, went north from Rome to battle against Maximinus. They managed to isolate him and a some of his soldiers. To buy their safety, these soldiers killed Maximinus and his son.
Maximinus had ruled only three years – to the year 238. In the coming decades the rule of others would also be short. Soldiers would continue to choose their commanders as emperors, and some army commanders would become emperors only reluctantly, sensing the danger in it. Some of these emperors would attempt to bribe soldiers with gifts to ensure their continued loyalty, and the loyalty of some soldiers would depend on their being allowed to satisfy their appetite for booty at the expense of civilians. These new emperors would govern by decree, and they attempted to reinforce their rule with spies, informers and secret agents. In the coming five decades, only one emperor was to die a natural death, and only one was to die in battle. The rest would be murdered by soldiers,
The political chaos, meanwhile, produced a decline in respect for authority, caused in part by armies on the move within the empire, plundering towns and farms. Military-emperors sent tax collectors about the empire forcing more taxes from people.
During the first half of the 200s, taxation encouraged men of commerce to hoard their money rather than invest it. To pay soldiers, emperors debased money. Prices skyrocketed. The empire's middle class went bankrupt, and roads deteriorated.
More people had become beggars, and many others feared that they too would soon be impoverished. In Rome and other big cities, proletarians remained disinclined to organize themselves against authority, but here and there in the countryside desperate peasants did revolt, but their uprisings were not coordinated and not widespread enough to challenge the empire militarily. In various parts of the empire, bands of desperate people wandered the countryside, surviving by theft. In 235 bands of brigands had swept through Italy. In Gaul, hordes of people roamed about, pillaging as they went. Piracy grew on the Aegean Sea, and tribal people from the Sahara attacked Roman cities along the coast of North Africa.
Disorders sometimes cut off trade routes. By 250, Rome's trade with China and India had ended. Agricultural lands in the empire were going unused. With the declining economy, people moved from cities and towns to rural areas in search of food. Cities began shrinking to a fraction of their former size, some to be occupied only by administrators. Where agricultural estates felt threatened by barbarian or Roman soldiers they protected themselves by fortification, and their neighbors surrendered their holdings to them in exchange for protection. Economic relations were developing that would last into the Middle Ages.
The kind of governance put in place by Rome's revered Augustus as an alternative to democracy and the chaos he wanted to avoid, had failed.
Commodus was not the hard worker and self-denying soldier that his father had been. He managed governmental affairs poorly, including selling government offices to the highest bidder. He was a disappointment to Romans. He disliked anyone who reminded him of his failure to live up to his father's moral standards or who reminded him that in his youth he had tried to pursue virtue. Like Nero, he tried to win popularity in public performances. He entered the arena, wearing animal skins or elaborate costumes that many thought too feminine. There he stabbed or clubbed animals to death to the applause of the crowd, while many who were not applauding thought that he was demeaning his position as emperor.
Emperor Marcus Aurelius, philosopher
His no-good son, Emperor Commodus
Emperor Severus, killed would-be opponents
Son of Serverus, Emperor Caracalla, had some citizens of Alexandria slaughtered because they had ridiculed him – not the kind of thing that happens in a democracy.
The Senate then chose one of their own as emperor, Pertinex, who was assassinated after eighty-seven days. Another Senator, Julianus, bribed his way to a Senate declaration as emperor. Whenever Emperor Julianus appeared in public the Romans jeered him. When news of what was happening in Rome reached the military-governors in the provinces, a number of them became interested in replacing Julianus, and four years of civil war between rival military commanders followed.
The victorious commander was Septimius Severus. Like some other military commanders, he had been born outside Italy – in what today is Libya. He had spent most of his career in the provinces and had no sense of the people of Rome as privileged above others in the empire. Rome, in fact, was being swallowed by its empire. Severus deprived Rome's aristocracy of its traditional places in the city government of Rome and in the military.
Severus was followed by his son, Emperor Caracalla, who had murdered for power by killing his brother – in front of their mother. Caracalla extended citizenship to all free persons within the empire, further submerging Rome within the empire.
Caracalla was assassinated while urinating. He was followed by Severan family weaklings. One was Elgabalus in 218, emperor from age fourteen. Elgabalas was assassinated a little less than four years later in a plot formulated by his grandmother, Julia Maesa, and carried out by the Praetorian Guard. This made Elgabalas' cousin, Alexander Serverus, age 13, emperor. And he remained emperor until he was 26, with his mother continuing as his advisor. In the year 235, while in his tent during a millitary campaign, he was assassinated by military officers and he died cringing and crying in his mother's arms.
The new soldier-emperor, Maximinus, was not from Rome. He was the son of Thracian peasants – a German and an Alan. He had little respect for what remained of Rome's institutions. He was the first emperor who did not win or seek Senate confirmation of his rule. He was never to set foot in Rome. But the senators, afraid for their safety, were only silently antagonistic toward him.
Maximinus doubled the pay of his soldiers, and he upset Rome's civilians by giving money to the army that had been slated for welfare. Farmers in North Africa grew disturbed over Maximinus' high taxes, and they began to create disturbances. Romans in various parts of the empire saw Maximinus as a barbarian foreigner pretending to be an emperor. In Rome, angry packs of men hunted down and murdered his supporters. An army of North Africans, members of the Praetorian Guard, some senators, and some who saw themselves as the Romans of Old, went north from Rome to battle against Maximinus. They managed to isolate him and a some of his soldiers. To buy their safety, these soldiers killed Maximinus and his son.
Maximinus had ruled only three years – to the year 238. In the coming decades the rule of others would also be short. Soldiers would continue to choose their commanders as emperors, and some army commanders would become emperors only reluctantly, sensing the danger in it. Some of these emperors would attempt to bribe soldiers with gifts to ensure their continued loyalty, and the loyalty of some soldiers would depend on their being allowed to satisfy their appetite for booty at the expense of civilians. These new emperors would govern by decree, and they attempted to reinforce their rule with spies, informers and secret agents. In the coming five decades, only one emperor was to die a natural death, and only one was to die in battle. The rest would be murdered by soldiers,
The political chaos, meanwhile, produced a decline in respect for authority, caused in part by armies on the move within the empire, plundering towns and farms. Military-emperors sent tax collectors about the empire forcing more taxes from people.
During the first half of the 200s, taxation encouraged men of commerce to hoard their money rather than invest it. To pay soldiers, emperors debased money. Prices skyrocketed. The empire's middle class went bankrupt, and roads deteriorated.
More people had become beggars, and many others feared that they too would soon be impoverished. In Rome and other big cities, proletarians remained disinclined to organize themselves against authority, but here and there in the countryside desperate peasants did revolt, but their uprisings were not coordinated and not widespread enough to challenge the empire militarily. In various parts of the empire, bands of desperate people wandered the countryside, surviving by theft. In 235 bands of brigands had swept through Italy. In Gaul, hordes of people roamed about, pillaging as they went. Piracy grew on the Aegean Sea, and tribal people from the Sahara attacked Roman cities along the coast of North Africa.
Disorders sometimes cut off trade routes. By 250, Rome's trade with China and India had ended. Agricultural lands in the empire were going unused. With the declining economy, people moved from cities and towns to rural areas in search of food. Cities began shrinking to a fraction of their former size, some to be occupied only by administrators. Where agricultural estates felt threatened by barbarian or Roman soldiers they protected themselves by fortification, and their neighbors surrendered their holdings to them in exchange for protection. Economic relations were developing that would last into the Middle Ages.
The kind of governance put in place by Rome's revered Augustus as an alternative to democracy and the chaos he wanted to avoid, had failed.
Order under Diocletian, to Constantine
In the early 280s, another battle for power between rival Roman armies brought to power Gaius Diocletian. He went to Egypt and quelled a rebellion there. He restored Roman control in Britannia. And invasions of Roman territory by Goths subsided, enabling him to devote attention to reconstruction. He saw uncontrolled activity as godlessness, and he moved to create order.
With a threat of more disturbances, Diocletian judged the empire too vast for any one emperor to rule effectively, so he divided the empire among four vice-emperors, who were also military men. He postured as the exalted supreme ruler of the empire and proclaimed himself the earthly representative of Rome's supreme god, Jupiter. He claimed that he was responsible only to Jupiter. He surrounded himself with bureaucrats and a small army of bodyguards. And his court grew in size and did its business with elaborate ceremonies and fanfare.
Emperor Diocletian. He divided the empire into rule under vice-emperors.
Peace and a degree of order followed. Impressed, some people looked to him with hope. But Diocletian's economic policies failed. Despite the death penalty for violations of his laws on prices, violations became so widespread that his government stopped trying to enforce them. Diocletian's increased taxation resulted in the owners of estates producing less for the open market, and these estates continued to expand and absorb poor peasants as laborers.
For the sake of law and order and collecting taxes, Diocletian renewed an attempt made earlier in the century to prohibit people from moving off the lands they worked. Everyone was ordered to remain at his present occupation. Tenant farmers were to inherit the obligations of their fathers and were becoming serfs, to be sold as property when the landowner sold his land.
Diocletian tried to create order in the realm of ideas. He outlawed astrologers and the alchemists of Egypt and had their writings burned. He viewed Manichaeanism as a Persian religion and ordered Manichaean writings burned and death for those of the Manichaean faith.
Trouble arose involving Christians during a religious ritual performed in the presence of Diocletian. One or more of Diocletian's Christian courtiers made a sign of the cross to ward off the demonic influences of the ritual. Diocletian ordered everyone in the palace to worship Rome's gods or be beaten. More trouble with Christians resulted in Christians ordered to sacrifice to the gods of the state or face execution. Christian assemblies were forbidden. Bibles were confiscated and burned, and churches were destroyed. But by now, Christians had become too numerous to be wiped out. Moreover, because Christians could read and write – in an effort to study scripture – they had become an indispensable part of government. The purges slowly and intermittently dragged on into the year 305, when Diocletian retired because of ill-health.
Emperor Constantine, recognized by Christian bishops as a Church authority.
In the spring of 312, Constantine moved against Maxentius, advancing from Gaul across the Alps and into Italy. The city of Milan surrendered to his forces, and Constantine won control over northern Italy. Maxentius and his army moved north to confront Constantine, and on October 28 the two forces met and fought at the Milvian Bridge along the Tiber River, a few miles north of the center of Rome. Constantine faced an army that greatly outnumbered his. But Constantine had trained his troops well, and his tactics were superior. His cavalry swept the left-wing of Maxentius' foot soldiers into the river. Maxentius lost many men and his own life when the pontoon bridge they were on collapsed. Constantine and his troops marched into Rome the next day, said to be welcomed by Rome's citizenry. Maxentius' decapitated head was paraded in trimphant display to show who was now boss. Constantine was now emperor of the Western half of the empire, and a new era had began.
