077 - What Time is It

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, Episode 77, What Time Is It? Domitian's autocratic reign was approaching the decade mark when it finally ran into some serious blowback. There had been mumblings and grumblings from day one, but thus far, his loyal bureaucracy and his loyal troops had forestalled any major attempts at revolution or coup. But on January 1st, 89 AD, exactly twenty years after Vitellius' revolt along the Rhine, two legions stationed in Upper Germany, led by their provincial governor, Lucius Antonius Saturninus, refused to renew their oath to demission, and the Roman world once again stood on the brink of civil war.

No one had forgotten the horror of 69 AD, and from the outside, Saturninus' revolt looked eerily similar to the Vitellian Rebellion. Hadn't Caecina led two legions on the upper Rhine in revolt? And hadn't that spark been carried down the river until the whole of the Rhine legions stood opposed to the legal emperor in Rome? And hadn't that led to self-destruction on a scale not seen since the days of Octavian and Antony? Yes he had, yes it had, and yes it did. But this time, things would turn out differently, partly due to the widespread loyalty demission had earned from the legions, in contrast to the bitter hatred they had directed at Galba, but also partly due to a heaping shovelful of luck. Had there not been an early thaw, who knows what would have happened.

Unfortunately we're never going to know the full story behind Saturninus' rebellion, but it seems that the governor had been planning his revolt for some time, and had probably made contact with like-minded senators back in Rome. We're never going to know, because once the uprising was put down by Lapius Maximus, the governor of Lower Germany, who was first on the scene, the victorious governor burned all of Saturninus' correspondents before demission arrived. It is likely that the letters implicated all of Saturninus' fellow travelers, and Maximus, having done his duty and put down the revolt, had no wish for the aftermath to turn into a bloodbath. All that we really know is that Saturninus had made some kind of deal with the Chati, the same Chati demission had used as his triumphal prop six years earlier, and the two legions under Saturninus' direct command were supposed to be reinforced by a strong Germanic army to help them make their stand against demission.

The emperor responded quickly to the crisis, ordering Maximus to take all action necessary to quell the revolt, while he himself led a contingent of Praetorians north to deal with the situation. To help ensure victory, demission also ordered a legion from Spain to march in on the double. The legion arrived well after the danger had passed, but the unblinking loyalty of the legion's commander, a one Mr. Marcus Ulpius Traianus, earned the commander the gratitude of demission, who put the man history knows as Trajan on the fast track to his own date with imperial destiny.

Saturninus' army was on the Roman side of the Rhine, perhaps stuck on perpetual watchtower duty, which may have helped spurn the restless governor, and his plan was for the Chati to cross the frozen Rhine before the rest of the Roman world had a chance to react. But the luck of the Flavians returned with a vengeance, and in the middle of January an unheard of early thaw turned the stable and thoroughly frozen Rhine river back into a rushing torrent. The Chati were trapped on the far side, and Saturninus was suddenly left to face the full brunt of imperial reprisal, with only two legions at his back. Just 24 days after the revolt began, Saturninus and his legions surrendered to Maximus.

As I said, Maximus took the treasonous governor of Upper Germany into custody, and then proceeded to burn the paper trail that had led to the uprising. Who knows what friends, relatives, associates or otherwise Maximus was protecting, but he certainly did history no favor by destroying all the evidence. The revolt then is left as a known, but not very well understood, crisis. Saturninus and his officers were executed, and the two rebellious legions were sent to the front along the Danube. Maximus was awarded the governorship of Syria, and Trajan was elevated to a consulship in followed by key appointments to governorships in Moesia and along the Rhine. I think we all know where his star is headed.

The year after the revolt, Domitian decided to serve a term as consul himself, and as his colleague, he made the surprising choice of an influential, but quietly so man, named Marcus Coccius Nerva. Obviously, serving as the consul or colleague of an emperor was incredibly prestigious, and not lightly awarded, so scholars have been left to wonder what Nerva did to earn such an honor. Some have speculated that he may have had a hand in uncovering Saturninus' plot, buying the emperor valuable reaction time. After all, Nerva had been instrumental in uncovering the Pisonian conspiracy against Nero the generation before, so maybe the old hand had once again put his ear to the ground and delivered the imperial house from ruin.

This probably relies too much on his role in uncovering the earlier conspiracy, in its attempt to say that the consulship was a reward for uncovering the latter conspiracy, and really, we may need to look no further than Nerva's uncanny ability to survive regime change to explain what he was doing at so prominent a position. It takes a man of rare political skill to survive such turbulent times unharmed. Is it really so remarkable that he would one day find himself the consul or colleague of an emperor, or that one day he would simply find himself emperor?

Marcus Nerva was born November 8, 30 AD, into an Italian family that had risen to prominence as the Principate was taking shape. His family was not elite Roman nobility, but more and more, such distinctions were becoming irrelevant. Vespasian's family was not from Rome proper either, and soon enough, the empire would see its first provincial emperor in the aforementioned Trajan. Nerva's grandfather had been a friend of Tiberius and accompanied the emperor to Capri, while his father had risen to the rank of consul under Caligula.

Nerva himself eschewed the conventional curses on him, and seems to have had no interest in a military career, content instead to wield behind-the-scenes political influence as an advisor to the emperor of his own day, Nero. In this capacity, he earned Nero's eternal gratitude for the central role he played in uncovering the Pisonian conspiracy, and the emperor rewarded him with unprecedented triumphal regalia, an honor usually reserved for military victories. While skillfully navigating his way around Nero's imperial court, Nerva at some point ran into Vespasian, and the two struck up a friendship.

When Nero committed suicide, I think any reasonable bookmaker would have put Nerva down as a staunch Othonian. Not only was his sister married to Otho's brother, but most of Nero's court wound up in Otho's corner anyway during the civil wars, and Nerva was certainly a member of Nero's court. But Nerva ignored these obvious loyalties, and decided early to back Vespasian should the latter heed the calls to enter the ring. This friendship and support allowed Nerva to become one of the few members of Nero's inner circle to transition to the inner circle of the Flavians, which he did so in fine style by being named a consul ordinarii in 71 AD. And that's the prestigious one, remember, that Vespasian usually reserved for members of his own family.

Nerva spent the next two decades attached at the hip to the Flavian court, acting as a historically undocumented, but still powerful member of the regime. Indeed, after his consulship in 71, he doesn't really pop up again until 90 AD, when he is suddenly awarded the honor of serving as Domitian's colleague in the consulship. We'll probably never know what role, if any, Nerva played in uncovering Saturninus' rebellion, or whether it had anything to do with the consular appointment. It could be that after the failed uprising, Domitian wanted to reassert firm control over the empire, and took as his partner the only man he could trust without reservation. A man who had served as an advisor and mentor since Domitian's lonely days in Rome after being left behind when his father and brother went to fight the Jewish war.

After the rebellion, Domitian more than ever needed to surround himself with men he could trust. After all, Maximus had taken it upon himself to burn all the evidence in Saturninus' tent before the emperor and his agents could look at it. Who knows what names would have popped up as additional conspirators, or fellow travelers, or officially neutral, but secret nod-winkers. As is so often the case after failed assassinations, or coups, or rebellions, Domitian couldn't help but grow more paranoid and suspicious. Which members of that senatorial delegation are plotting to kill me? Which of my provincial governors are secretly building anti-imperial alliances? How many of my slaves would stab me to death to earn their freedom?

Distrustful by nature, Domitian's paranoia accelerated through the 90s AD. He was not blind to what was happening to him though, nor was he blind to the public's perception that their emperor was jumping at more shadows lately, and with harsher consequences. The problem, as Domitian saw it, was not that he was paranoid for no reason, but that he had every rational right to be paranoid because conspiracies did exist against his life that needed to be uncovered. Suetonius reports that Domitian lamented angrily that no one believes in murderous secret plots against the emperor unless the emperor turns up dead. Domitian was caught in a trap and he knew it. Stay vigilant and be accused of paranoid tyranny, or lighten up and die. A prudent survivor, Domitian decided he could live with the former if it meant that he would live.

After the events of 89 AD then, there was a sharp uptick in treason trials, the old imperial weapon of last resort, that had been abandoned by his father and officially outlawed by his brother. It would be neat and clean to say that the revolt caused Domitian to revive the practice, but over the course of his reign he had already killed a handful of senators for treasonous activities, and his decidedly reactionary take on free speech had dramatically increased the scope of what would be considered treasonous activities. This is why we can only say that the 90s AD saw Domitian's paranoia increase, rather than say that the 90s AD is when it began.

In the last five years of his reign though, Domitian killed about 20 men of senatorial rank and confiscated the property of dozens more. Banishments and executions came with disturbing regularity, and it was during this time that Domitian's reputation as a bloodthirsty tyrant was really cemented. To a man, the senate feared and loathed him. Some were afraid of being falsely accused, or being deliberately set up by personal enemies, while others were afraid that their very real attempts to overthrow the emperor were going to be discovered. Domitian meanwhile, was stuck trying to sort through rumors, innuendo, and vague shreds of evidence, convinced that every day might be his last if he didn't get to them before they got to him. It was, simply put, a bad time all around for everyone.

In 96 AD, Domitian finally struck too close to home, and his own court officials turned against him, determining that none of them were safe as long as Domitian remained alive. Supposedly, this last plot was hatched after Domitian executed one of Nero's old freedmen, who had once upon a time helped Nero escape the palace, and then helped the outlaw emperor commit suicide. Citing the crime of not doing enough to protect his former master, Domitian had the freedman killed, even though the man had been serving as an imperial secretary for years. The convoluted rationale and cross-loyalties in the story cast doubt on how much of this version of events is true. Whether or not the man actually returned to imperial service, for example, or really whether Domitian had him killed at all.

But his alleged death is cited by Suetonius as the catalyst for Domitian's chamberlain Parthenius to organize an assassination in 96 AD. Most of who knew what remains pure speculation, but the three men we know for sure that were in on the plot were Parthenius himself, his freedman Maximus, and an attendant to one of Domitian's nieces named Stephanus. Maximus was to be the inside man in the palace, making sure that the right doors were locked and the right doors were unlocked, and making sure that on the day of the deed, the sword Domitian kept under his bed would be removed. Stephanus was to be the actual assassination, and in preparation for his attack, he faked an arm injury so everyone would get used to seeing him around with his arm in a sling. With his presence in the palace never suspicious, as he was in the direct employ of the imperial family, and his injured arm now old news to the praetorians watching over the emperor, Stephanus was able to then hide a dagger in the bandages and come and go as he pleased.

The legend then goes that Domitian had long been particularly agitated around noontime, as an astrologer had once told him that that was the time of day he was destined to die. So he was in the habit of constantly asking what time it was until the hour of his demise passed so he could relax and go about his business without the fear of death hanging over his head. But on September 18, one of his servants, who was in on the plot, lied to the emperor and told him it was well past noon, when it was in fact just reaching that hour. Content that he was going to live at least one more day, Domitian let down his guard and retired to his personal quarters to sign some paperwork.

When Stephanus arrived and demanded an audience with the emperor, claiming that he had uncovered a plot against the emperor's life, Domitian let the boy in to hear what he had to say, unaware that the plot Stephanus was about to reveal was, you know, the one he was planning to execute right then and there. Since he was close enough to the emperor, Stephanus pulled the dagger out of his sling and stabbed Domitian in the groin. But Domitian was not going to be an easy kill, and having survived the initial attack, he managed to fend Stephanus off for several minutes before further accomplices rushed in and overwhelmed the wounded emperor. Suetonius reports that at least four other men helped Stephanus inflict seven fatal stab wounds on Domitian, who finally collapsed on the floor, dead at the age of forty-five. The conspirators then hauled the body off and had it cremated without ceremony. The only concession the dead emperor was afforded was that his ashes were eventually deposited in the Flavian temple, rather than simply being scattered to the four winds. He had ruled the empire for fifteen dictatorial, but more or less successful years, and would be remembered as a monster.

Questions have long abounded about who else was in on the final plan to kill Domitian. Cassius Dio implicates his wife Domitilla, and others have accused the Praetorians of purposeful apathy, if not outright complicity. Further, the Senate's sudden announcement the next day that Nerva, man of the political shadows, was their unanimous choice to serve as the next emperor, has raised more than a few ancient and modern eyebrows about his involvement in the plot. I think we can safely say that in their conduct both before and after the assassination, that Domitilla and the rank-and-file Praetorians probably knew nothing of the plot. However, one of the Praetorian prefects, Titus Petronius Secundus, was probably aware of what was unfolding, and did nothing to prevent it. But it also seems that he did nothing to bring any of the guardsmen under his command into his confidence.

Nerva's involvement is far cloudier, as he shied away from the public eye. He was well-connected enough to have eyes and ears everywhere, so it seems reasonable that he may have known something. And the speed with which he was confirmed as heir to the throne suggests that someone may have approached him directly, about whether he would be willing to don the purple. But his years of loyalty not just to the Flavians, but to the imperial house in general, seemed to belie such suspicions. But then again, he did let all the conspirators go without so much as a slap on the wrist, so who knows?

With Nerva in place, the senate then let fifteen years of simmering anger explode in a series of edicts officially damning Domitian's memory. His name was taken off all the public monuments and buildings he had constructed over the years, and statues or reliefs that bore his likeness were re-carved to look like Nerva. The goal was to pretend as if Domitian never happened, just as Augustus had once tried to pretend that Mark Antony had never happened. But the law banishing Domitian from the collective memory worked no better than it had for Augustus, and even in Rome itself it was difficult to keep everyone on the same revisionist page. Out in the province it was an utter impossibility, and in the legions it was downright dangerous to even suggest it. The rank and file still loved Domitian, and they screamed for blood when his murder was announced. When the assassins were let go, they howled for vengeance, and for the entirety of his brief reign, Nerva would have difficulty exerting any kind of real influence on the troops for having allowed such a betrayal.

Next week, things will get so bad for Nerva that the Praetorians will actually besiege the palace and take him hostage, demanding, among other things, the literal heads of Domitian's assassins.

As I've said a few times, Domitian wanted to usher in nothing less than an Augustan renaissance, and during his time in office he certainly matched the breadth and depth of the first emperor's interests. Just as with Augustus, Domitian did not limit himself to war and politics. To both of them, the influence of the princeps rightly extended into all aspects of Roman life, the economy, culture, the arts, morality, and sexuality. Domitian attempted to follow the blueprint laid down by Augustus, after all, it had worked out great the first time around, but unfortunately he never did have the personal gravitas to pull it off.

Domitians of all stripes had scoffed when Augustus tried to implement his conservative morality laws. The reception, when Domitian tried to revive them, was a healthy belly laugh. When Augustus put his foot down after the disaster in the Teutoburg and declared an end to Roman expansion and a reorganization of the legions into a defensive force, his commanders obeyed. Augustus's military credentials were, after all, impeccable. But when the more or less civilian Domitian hewed the identical line, he was accused of cowardice, dereliction of duty, and worse. He had done nothing to earn the respect of his officers, and generals openly vented their frustrations. Even though, had the order come from Augustus, they would have hopped to without question. Augustus was able to do much because he was Augustus, and Domitian's difficulties stand as living proof of the first emperor's unique talents. Domitian forever battled on, but his Augustan renaissance was doomed to failure as long as Augustus himself was not around to make it work.

Next week, we'll begin the smooth transition from the Flavian dynasty to the so-called Nervan-Antonine dynasty, which will control Rome until the assassination of Commodus nearly a century hence. This new dynasty will be populated by the men Gibbon famously dubbed the Five Good Emperors, and during their time on the throne, the empire will reach its peak culturally, economically, and geographically. In addition to their own unique talents, the Five Good Emperors are collectively remembered for the wisdom they showed in picking their successors. Rather than relying on their own possibly deficient biological sons, they chose to adopt men of merit who would rule the empire as well as they had. The example they set in this regard is often lauded as basically the pinnacle of enlightened politics and noble sacrifice in the name of civic virtue.

The only problem with this is that until Marcus Aurelius, none of the emperors of the Nervan-Antonine dynasty actually had biological sons to pass power onto. Nerva had to adopt Trajan, who had to adopt Hadrian, who had to adopt Antonius Pius, who had to adopt Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, because between them there was not a biological son to be found. So while it was a remarkable run of capable men, and they all deserve credit for their eventual choices and heirs, we should not pretend that they were purposely refusing to hand power to their biological heirs. The first chance one of them had to pass the throne onto a son took it, and that decision is where Gibbon finally landed in his search for the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.

The last thing I'll mention before I go is that I recently recorded a short interview about the history of Rome for BBC5 Radio's Pods and Blogs series that should be airing this Tuesday night. If you're interested, I've posted a link to the interview at thehistoryofrome.typepad.com, where you can also get the episode on iTunes by searching for Pods and Blogs. I will note, however, that I haven't actually heard the final cut of the interview, so if it turns out that I sound like a damn fool, then I'm going to erase the link and deny the whole thing ever happened.