Chapter 3

Introduction

The rise of the Roman empire: the Twelve Caesars (60 BC–AD 96)

The end of the republic

‘Originally the city of Rome was ruled by kings. Lucius Junius Brutus introduced republicanism and consulships; dictators were appointed on a temporary basis. The committee of ten did not survive more than two years; the granting of consular authority to military tribunes did not last long either. Cinna and Sulla held sway only for a short time. The powers of Pompey and Crassus soon devolved on Caesar. [Octavian] took over the military resources raised by Lepidus and Antony, and, with the entire state exhausted by civil wars, assumed control with the title of princeps.’

(Tacitus, Annals 1)

The twenty years that followed Sulla’s death saw the rise of three men of particular ambition and power, and the flowering of the political and forensic skills of a fourth. Marcus Licinius Crassus (c. 115–53 BC) had prodigious wealth; Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106–48 BC), ‘Pompey the Great’, was a born military leader and organizer; and Gaius Julius Caesar was an astute politician who was also a military genius. Together they took advantage of Caesar’s election as consul for 59 BC to form a triumvirate, which ruled unconstitutionally for several years. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) lived through these times and left to posterity many examples of his oratorical and prose styles in the form of speeches and letters. All four were stabbed to death within ten years of each other.

Cicero’s first important speech in the courts was in defence of Roscius, who had been charged with murdering his father. He was brave to take on the case, for the charge had been brought by one of Sulla’s favourite freedmen, who had an interest in a conviction. Roscius was acquitted, and Cicero prudently went abroad ‘for reasons of health and study’.

On his return to Rome after Sulla’s death, Cicero ascended the political ladder, helped by his oratory, which led the Sicilians to retain him as prosecutor in Rome of their former governor Verres (d. 43 BC), a notorious embezzler and extortionist. Cicero’s courtroom tactics, as well as his skills, were such that the defence counsel threw up his brief while the evidence was still being called.

Cicero was elected consul for 63 BC, when he dealt firmly with a conspiracy against the state led by Lucius Sergius Catilina (c. 109–62 BC). The turning point in Cicero’s career came in 61 BC, when he appeared in court as a witness and destroyed the alibi of Publius Clodius (c. 92–52 BC), accused of attending in drag a ‘ladies-only’ religious ceremony. Clodius was a powerful toady of Caesar, who used him as a means of driving Cicero into exile (because Cicero had refused to join the triumvirate, and had even criticized its right to govern). Caesar only reluctantly agreed to his return in 57 BC.

Crassus bought cheap, from the state, the estates of those who had been proscribed by Sulla. He also ran a building racket. When there was a fire in the city, he would rush out and make a nominal offer not just for the burning building but for all the others in the neighbourhood. In this way, and by rebuilding damaged properties, he is said to have owned most of Rome. He used much of his wealth to gain popular favour, both essential assets for a politician.

As the supreme commander appointed by the Senate in 72 BC against the slave revolt of Spartacus the gladiator, Crassus is remembered for two acts. He revived the ancient punishment of decimation for disobeying orders, dividing the five hundred of his men whom he regarded as the most culpable into fifty tens, then choosing by lot one out of each ten to be publicly executed before the whole army. Then, after the final defeat of Spartacus in 71 BC, he crucified the 6,000 survivors, leaving them to hang at regular intervals along the main road from Rome to Capua, where the rising had started.

Crassus and Pompey were consuls in 70 BC, and again in 55 BC, after which Crassus obtained the governorship of the province of Syria. In an attempt to add military glory to his wealth, he misguidedly took on the Parthians to the east. He was ignominiously defeated, and murdered while negotiating the terms of surrender.

Pompey was first elected consul in 70 BC while under the statutory age limit and without having held any other office of state, though he had already made a name for himself as a soldier. In 67 BC he was appointed to rid the Mediterranean of pirates. The resources and powers put at his disposal were formidable, and included 250 ships, as well as 100,000 marines and 4,000 cavalry from Rome alone, which he reinforced with what was offered by other interested nations. With a concerted sweep against the pirates and their strongholds, he forced them out of business in just three months. He took 20,000 prisoners, most of whom he spared and offered employment as farmers.

He was then transferred to Asia, where he succeeded completely where others had failed, and defeated Mithridates of Pontus, in the process enlarging the Roman empire. Unwilling at that time to assume sole power in Rome, but anxious to keep it within his sights, he threw in his lot with Crassus and Caesar, whose daughter Julia he married in 59 BC, as his fourth wife.

Though probably intended as a marriage of convenience, the partnership seems to have been a successful one, until Julia’s death in childbirth in 54 BC. There was now no one capable of reconciling the ambitions of Pompey and Caesar, neither of whom could bear to take second place to anyone.

It is also probable that Caesar, at the end of his campaign in Gaul (58–49 BC), wanting a further consulship and a command, and fearing prosecution for past irregularities if he did not get them, deliberately provoked a confrontation. He returned at the head of his army, had himself appointed temporary dictator, and pushed Pompey, his army and his senatorial supporters out of Italy and to final defeat at Pharsalus in Greece.

Pompey sought asylum in Egypt, but was assassinated by members of the Egyptian government as he stepped ashore. Caesar, in hot pursuit, was then persuaded by Cleopatra (68–30 BC), joint ruler of Egypt with her brother, to stay a while as her personal guest. He accepted her invitation with such pleasure that a son, known as Caesarion, was born the following year.

In the meantime Caesar had been confirmed in his absence as dictator, an appointment which was regularly renewed. Thus began, with a few interregna, the rule of Rome by twelve men who, with one exception, successively held the name Caesar, by birth, by adoption, by descent through the female line or by incorporating it into their official title.

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar: born 12 July 100 BC (or possibly 102) in Rome, son of Gaius Caesar and Aurelia. Governor of Gaul 58–49 BC. Appointed dictator for ten years in 47 BC; then for life on 14 February 44 BC. Married [1] Cornelia (one daughter, Julia); [2] Pompeia; [3] Calpurnia. Assassinated 15 March 44 BC. Deified 42 BC.

At the age of thirty, arguably the most famous Roman of them all was regarded as a dandy who had squandered his wife’s fortune (they had married when he was seventeen) as well as his own. He was, however, a fine public speaker, which served him well when campaigning successfully for the offices of quaestor (he served in Spain), aedile (his extravagance in providing gladiatorial shows and renovating public buildings at his own expense to gain further popularity put him even deeper in debt) and praetor (in 63 BC), when he resorted to massive bribery in order to be elected pontifex maximus. His duties as praetor took him again to Spain, where he discovered a talent as a military commander and amassed enough booty and tribute to pay off his debts.

The formation of the ruling triumvirate with Crassus and Pompey was a mark of Caesar’s determination to push through genuine and innovative measures in the face of a Senate that was suspicious of his motives, and to ensure that there was some continuity of progressive legislation after his year as consul was over. He then obtained the governorship of both provinces of Gaul for a period of five years, later extended for a second term: Cisalpine Gaul, the subjugated region south of the Alps and to the east of the Apennines as far as the river Rubicon; and Transalpine Gaul, roughly corresponding to modern-day Provence and Languedoc.

When Caesar had finished his series of brilliant but punitive campaigns, during which two million men, women and children are said to have died, he was master of the whole region to the west of the Rhine, which he crossed by military bridge to ensure that there would be no trouble from the Germanic tribes. In 55 and 54 BC he mounted expeditions to Britain, which until then had been unknown to the Roman world. In 55 he arrived without his cavalry, which had been prevented from landing by the weather. On both occasions storms and tides broke up his ships, which had been badly beached or wrongly anchored.

The size of his Gallic operation was matched by its complexity. Caesar’s most impressive achievement was the subjugation in 51 BC of Alesia, the fortified hill-city in which Vercingetorix, the Arvernian chief who had most successfully opposed Rome, made his final stand with his 80,000 infantry.

When Caesar left his province in 49 BC and crossed the Rubicon at the head of his troops, it was the signal that he came as an invader. After Pompey’s hasty departure and ultimate defeat, and his own fruitful holiday in Egypt, Caesar returned to Rome with his army via Asia Minor, pausing at Zela to annihilate the forces of Pharnaces of Pontus (d. 47 BC), son of Mithridates. This was the occasion of his celebrated message to the Senate, ‘Veni, vidi, vici!’: I came, I saw, I conquered!

Opposition from the Pompeian faction, however, was stamped out only after two more campaigns, in Africa and Spain, culminating in the Battle of Munda on 17 March 45 BC. In October of that year, Caesar was back in Rome. Five months later he was dead, at the hands of a band of conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus (c. 85–42 BC) and Gaius Cassius Longinus (d. 42 BC), former Pompeians whom Caesar had pardoned after the Battle of Pharsalus.

In the meantime Caesar had established order in Rome, begun measures to reduce congestion in the city and to drain large tracts of marshy ground, given full voting rights to the inhabitants of his former province south of the Alps, revised the tax laws of Asia and Sicily, resettled many Romans in new homes in the Roman provinces, and reformed the calendar, which, with one slight adjustment, is the one in use today.

The judgement of history is that Caesar’s driving ambition and energy led him to try to make too many changes too quickly and without ensuring that there were workable substitutes for the traditions he was sweeping away. Further, the senators were concerned not so much with reverting to democracy, but with preserving rule by the aristocracy, and their own positions in that rule. Caesar’s position was that of a king, and though he refused the crown it was for reasons of diplomacy, not modesty.

The imperium that Caesar assumed, however, gave him the position of sole ruler. The literal translation of imperium is something akin to both ‘command’ and ‘power’. The word is related to imperator, which came to mean emperor but was originally the title bestowed on a victorious military commander by his troops.

The package of powers that Julius Caesar’s successor assumed in 27 BC gave him the constitutional right to greater imperium than anyone else at the time. It is for this reason that the establishment of the rule of Rome by emperors is said to have begun then.

Augustus (r. 27 BC–AD 14)

Gaius (Julius Caesar) Octavi(an)us: born 23 September 63 BC in Rome, son of Gaius Octavius and Atia, niece of Julius Caesar, who adopted him as his heir. Consul 43, 33, 31–23 BC. Effectively became emperor in 27 BC, with extended powers in 23 BC. Married [1] Claudia; [2] Scribonia (one daughter, Julia); [3] Livia Drusilla, mother of Tiberius. Died at Nola, 19 August AD 14. Deified 17 September AD 14.

Octavian was in Epirus, pursuing his military studies, when he heard of his great-uncle’s murder, and that Caesar had named him not only his son by adoption but also his principal heir. It was late April when he got back to Rome, by which time Marcus Antonius (c. 83–30 BC) – Marc Antony – and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (c. 90–13 BC), who had been Caesar’s chief assistants, had assumed control of the state, and Brutus and the other conspirators had, at the prompting of Cicero, been granted an amnesty by the Senate.

A confused series of battles and comings and goings resulted in Octavian being elected consul, at the age of nineteen, and forcing through a motion to the effect that he, Antony and Lepidus should be formally recognized as the ruling triumvirate for five years. Their first act was to revive the feared Sullan policy of proscription.

While the triumvirate formally remained in power beyond its statutory term, the twelve years until 31 BC were almost entirely taken up with wars between its members, and against fellow Romans. Brutus and Cassius were defeated in two battles at Philippi in Macedonia in 42 BC, and committed suicide. Sextus Pompey (son of Pompey the Great and his third wife), having obtained a large fleet and taken possession of Sicily, was finally murdered by his own troops in 35 BC. Antony’s long-standing affair with Cleopatra, and his preference for her company and Alexandria over that of his wife Octavia (Octavian’s sister) and Rome, culminated in Octavian’s victory over the Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the subsequent suicides of the lovers.

With Lepidus now a back number and Caesarion murdered, Octavian was in charge of the Roman world. However, he needed to assemble his powers into an acceptable constitutional form, avoiding any suggestion of a return to the monarchy or even to a dictatorship, which had caused so much trouble in the past. He achieved this gradually over a number of years, and in a manner which did not appear to undermine the authority of the Senate, at least as a consultative body. While continuing to hold successive consulships, in 27 BC he formally relinquished all the special powers he had been granted, but accepted in return for ten years the strategic provinces of Cilicia, Cyprus, Gaul, Spain and Syria, for which troops were required, together with his confirmation as divine successor to the pharaohs in Egypt.

In addition he renounced the name of Octavian in favour of the more dignified Augustus. In 23 BC, because of illness, he gave up his apparent claim to hold the office of consul for life. This was diplomatically a sound move which opened up to others an additional chance of honour (if not much responsibility), especially as in its place he was granted the privileges of a tribune of the people, with the powers to apply a veto at will and to take matters directly to the popular assemblies.

That illness proved to be only a minor setback in a rule that lasted over forty years and gave to the Western world the term ‘Augustan’ to denote an age of glittering literary achievement. Though the boundaries of the Roman empire had not yet reached their widest extent, Augustus consolidated them by strengthening the army and removing it from Italy to patrol the provinces. He remodelled the civil service, largely rebuilt parts of Rome itself, and appointed 3,500 firemen under a chief fire officer to guard against conflagrations.

Augustus died in his family home at Nola, in Campania, at the age of seventy-six. He was married three times, but his only child was a daughter by his second wife. He had, however, after several attempts to do so had been aborted by deaths, nominated a successor: his stepson Tiberius.

Tiberius (r. AD 14–37)

Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar: born 16 November 42 BC, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero (d. 33 BC) and Livia Drusilla (c. 58 BC–AD 29), who married Augustus in 39 BC. Became emperor in AD 14. Married [1] Vipsania (one son, Drusus 13 BC–AD 23); [2] Julia, daughter of Augustus. Died at Misenum, 16 March AD 37.

Though Tiberius had been groomed by Augustus as his successor, he was actually fourth choice after Agrippa, husband of Augustus’ only daughter Julia, and their sons Gaius and Lucius, all of whom died in Augustus’ lifetime. Thus, to an already diffident nature was added a sense of inferiority.

On Agrippa’s death, Augustus compelled Tiberius to divorce his wife and become Julia’s third husband. Five years later, in 6 BC, in spite of his appointment to a five-year term as senior tribune of the people, a function until then performed by Augustus himself, Tiberius obtained leave of absence, and retired to Rhodes.

Tiberius, now Augustus’ adopted son, was then sent to command the imperial armies, all based outside Italy. From then until Augustus’ death, which happened while Tiberius was travelling, he hardly visited Rome. He was summoned back not by the Senate, but by his elderly mother Livia, Augustus’ widow. In order to secure his position, he had Agrippa junior, Augustus’ last surviving grandson, killed, though some said that this was organized by Livia.

There followed several years of intrigue over the future succession, in the course of which Tiberius’ son Drusus and his nephew Germanicus died. Tiberius was so affected by indecision that finally, in AD 26, he departed to his holiday villa on the island of Capri, never to return to the city.

Tiberius left the administration in the hands of Lucius Aelius Sejanus (d. AD 31), praetorian prefect (commander of the imperial guard), who was conspiring against his emperor while removing people in his own path to the post. Tiberius wrote to the Senate expressing his suspicions. Sejanus, his family, including his children, and many of his cronies were brutally executed.

Tiberius’ last years were still fraught with morbid mistrust. Whether, at the age of seventy-eight, he died naturally or was murdered is uncertain, but by then the number of serious candidates for the succession had been reduced to two: his own grandson, Tiberius Gemellus (c. AD 20–37), and his last surviving great-nephew, Gaius Caesar, now twenty-four, and nicknamed Caligula (‘Bootsie’) after the miniature army boots he had worn as a child.

With typical vacillation to the last, Tiberius named them joint heirs.

Caligula (r. AD 37–41)

Gaius Caesar: born AD 12, son of Germanicus Caesar (15 BC–AD 19), nephew of Tiberius, and Agrippina (14 BC– AD 33), granddaughter of Tiberius. Became emperor in AD 37. Married [1] Junia Claudilla; [2] Livia Orestilla; [3] Lollia Paulina; [4] Caesonia (one daughter, Julia). Assassinated 24 January AD 41.

The question as to who would succeed Tiberius was resolved by Naevius Cordus Sutorius Macro (d. AD 38), commander of the imperial guard in succession to Sejanus. He proposed Caligula’s name to the Senate and there was no objection.

Caligula, though inexperienced in matters of government, recalled many political exiles and dropped charges against them; he also banished all male prostitutes. He formally adopted his cousin, Tiberius Gemellus, and appointed his uncle Claudius (his dead father’s younger brother) to his first public office as consul. Then he fell ill. When he recovered, the citizens of Rome found themselves in a living nightmare.

Caligula became totally irrational, with delusions of divinity as well as of grandeur. He put Tiberius Gemellus and Macro to death without trial. He proposed that statues of himself be erected in synagogues. His extravagance knew no bounds, and he introduced heavy taxes to meet his personal expenditure.

In such an atmosphere executions and displays of bloodlust were commonplace, and conspiracies proliferated. Finally, one of the plots succeeded, and Caligula was assassinated by members of his imperial guard. His fourth wife and his child were murdered at the same time.

Claudius (r. AD 41–54)

Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus Caesar: born 1 August 10 BC at Lugdunum, Gaul, son of Nero Claudius Drusus (38–9 BC), brother of Tiberius, and Antonia (36 BC–AD 37), daughter of Marc Antony. Became emperor in AD 41. Married [1] Plautia Urgulanilla (one son, Drusus, d. c. AD 26; one daughter, Claudia); [2] Aelia Paetina (one daughter, Antonia); [3] Valeria Messalina (one son, Tiberius Claudius Britannicus, AD 41–55; one daughter, Octavia, d. AD 62); [4] Agrippina. Died 12 October AD 54. Deified AD 54.

After the assassination of Caligula, members of the imperial guard came across his uncle Claudius cowering behind a curtain. They carried him off to their camp and made him an offer: to be their nominee as emperor. Obviously feeling that to be emperor was better than death, Claudius accepted and promised a special bonus in return, thus creating a precedent which future aspirants had to follow.

In the absence of any other obvious candidate, the Senate confirmed the choice of the imperial guard. Claudius was fifty at the time, and a scholar, but he had no experience of administration. He was also lame, had a tic, and stammered. In history and in the accounts of ancient historians, he comes across as a mishmash of conflicting characteristics: absent-minded, hesitant, muddled, determined, cruel (by proxy), intuitive, wise, and dominated by his wife and his personal staff of freedmen. He was probably all of these. If his choice of women was disastrous, there are other instances of this failing on the part of public figures. And he may, with sound reasoning, have preferred the advice of educated and trained executives from abroad to that of potentially suspect aristocratic senators, even if some of those executives did use their influence to their own advantage. It was a thoroughly sound if not glittering rule, which lasted almost fourteen years; even if it did end in violence, at least it was by poison at the hands of his wife, not by the dagger of a political assassin.

Claudius revived the office of censor, which had fallen into disuse, and took on the job himself, introducing into the Senate several chiefs from Gaul. He reorganized and rationalized the financial affairs of the state and empire, setting aside a separate fund for the emperor’s private and household expenses. Almost all grain had to be imported, mainly from Africa and Egypt. To encourage potential importers and to build up stocks against winter months and times of famine, he offered to insure them against losses on the open sea. To make unloading easier and to relieve congestion in the Tiber, he carried out a scheme originally proposed by Julius Caesar and constructed the new port of Ostia on the coast.

Claudius’ most far-reaching initiative led to the first successful full-scale invasion of Britain: a potentially hostile and possibly united nation just beyond the fringe of the existing empire presented a threat which could not be ignored. Besides, Claudius, for so long the butt of his family and peers, wanted a piece of military glory.

The force which sailed in AD 43 was a formidable one, even by Roman standards. Whether its leader, Aulus Plautius, had instructions to call on Claudius if he got into difficulties or simply to invite him over to preside at the kill is not clear. He did, however, get into difficulties. Though Togodumnus, son of Cunobellinus (Cymbeline), king of the Catuvellauni, whose capital was Colchester, had been killed, this acted as a spur to other tribes to unite in a determination to avenge his death.

In Rome preparations had already been made, including the mobilization of an elephant corps. Claudius handed over the administration of affairs to his consular colleague, then travelled overland, by river transport, and by sea to meet up with his troops, who were encamped by the river Thames. Assuming command, he took Colchester and subdued many other tribes. He was in Britain just sixteen days. Plautius followed up the advantage gained, and was governor of this newest province in the empire from AD 44 to 47. When Caratacus (brother of Togodumnus) was finally captured and brought to Rome in chains, Claudius pardoned him and his family.

Claudius was married four times and, in spite of his physical disadvantages, he was more successful in fathering children than any of his imperial predecessors. At his succession, he was already into his third marriage, to Messalina, who three weeks later had a son. Eventually she was discovered too many times in flagrante delicto, and in AD 48, aged about twenty-four, she was executed.

Speculation was rife as to who would be the next imperial consort. It turned out to be Agrippina, Caligula’s sister and Claudius’ own niece. In order to marry her, he first had to have a law enacted to permit such a union. Agrippina had a teenage son by a former marriage, later known as Nero, and she persuaded Claudius formally to adopt him, and to give him his daughter Octavia in marriage. Then she poisoned him.

Nero (r. AD 54–68)

Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus: born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus at Antium, AD 37, son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, consul in AD 32, and Agrippina, sister of Caligula, who then married Crispus Passienus and later, in AD 49, her uncle Claudius. Became emperor in AD 54. Married [1] Octavia, daughter of Claudius; [2] Poppaea Sabina (one daughter, Claudia Augusta, died in infancy); [3] Statilia Messalina. Committed suicide 9 June AD 68.

Nero was artistic, sporting, brutal, weak, sensual, erratic, extravagant, sadistic, bisexual … and latterly almost certainly deranged. He was sixteen when his mother secured for him the office of emperor, by having him presented to the troops as their candidate and by promising what was now the customary bonus. Shortly afterwards the only other possible contender, Claudius’ son Britannicus, was dead, almost certainly poisoned.

During the early years of his reign, Nero was kept in hand by his tutor, the philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, and by Africanus Burrus, praetorian prefect, who between them managed to persuade him to withdraw, and forget, a proposal to abolish all indirect taxation. They also averted attempts by Agrippina to exert imperial influence until Nero took as his mistress Poppaea, wife of Marcus Salvius Otho, whom Nero now dispatched to be governor of Lusitania.

Agrippina sided with Nero’s wife, Octavia. Nero retaliated with a series of grotesque attempts to murder his mother, including the construction of a collapsible boat, which deposited her in the Bay of Naples. She swam ashore. Finally, in AD 59, he sent to her house a man who clubbed and stabbed her to death.

Burrus died in AD 62. When Seneca retired soon afterwards, Nero became totally subject to corrupt and evil advisers, and indulged to the exclusion of everything else his passions for sport, music, preposterous parties and murder. Having divorced Octavia in AD 62 and then seeing to it that she was executed on a trumped-up charge of adultery, he married Poppaea, now divorced, before kicking her to death, it is said when she complained at his coming home late from the races.

In AD 64 fire ravaged Rome for six days, leaving only four of its fourteen districts undamaged. An unauthenticated report that Nero sang and played his lyre while the city burned made people suspicious of the relief measures he initiated. Nor did faith in his motives increase when he used a vast tract of land razed by the fire on which to build his ‘Golden Palace’, a huge luxury complex set in rambling pleasure gardens designed for his amusements.

When rumours of arson surfaced again, Nero, looking around for scapegoats, found them in members of the latest religious sect, Christianity, many of whom were rounded up and torn to death by dogs or crucified as a public spectacle.

In AD 65 there was a genuine conspiracy to assassinate Nero; when it was discovered there was terrible retribution in which Seneca and his nephew, the poet Lucan, died. People whom Nero suspected or disliked, as well as those who had merely aroused the jealousy of his advisers, were sent a note ordering them to commit suicide.

Finally the tide of organized revolt gathered pace. In AD 68, one of the governors in Gaul, Gaius Julius Vindex, himself Gallic-born, withdrew his oath of allegiance to the emperor and encouraged the governor of northern and eastern Spain, Galba, a hardened veteran of seventy-one, to do the same. Vindex’s troops were suppressed by legions who marched in from Germany, and Vindex committed suicide.

Galba, having informed the Senate that he was available if required to head a government, waited. The Senate, obviously relieved that someone else was prepared to take responsibility, declared Nero a public enemy and sentenced him to death by flogging. Nero thought of flight, dithered, then killed himself with the help of his secretary.

Galba (r. AD 68–69)

Servius Sulpicius Galba: born 24 December 3 BC near Tarracina. Consul AD 33, after which he was governor of Upper Germany, and then, in AD 45, of Africa. Called back from retirement to be governor of Hispania Tarraconensis AD 61–68. Became emperor AD 68. Married Lepida (two sons, all three died early in his career). Assassinated 15 January AD 69.

Galba’s accession marked the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty: he assumed the name Caesar when Nero’s death was reported. It also proved that it was feasible for an emperor to emerge from, and be appointed, outside Rome itself.

Galba arrived in Rome in October 68, and committed the solecism of refusing to pay the traditional bonus which the imperial guard had been promised on his behalf. On 2 January AD 69, the legions in Germany proclaimed as emperor Aulus Vitellius, who had been appointed by Galba commander in Lower Germany. To try to avert civil war, Galba named as joint ruler and his successor Marcius Piso Licinianus, who had neither qualifications nor distinction. Otho, former husband of Poppaea, took offence and bribed the imperial guard to support him. On 15 January they swore allegiance to him and hacked Galba and Piso to death.

Otho (r. AD 69)

Marcus Salvius Otho: born 28 April AD 32. Governor of Lusitania AD 58–68. Married Poppaea Sabina, future wife of Nero. Became emperor 15 January AD 69. Committed suicide 14 April AD 69.

Otho returned to Rome after having performed creditably in Lusitania. His immediate task was to overcome the threat of Vitellius. The armies of Upper and Lower Germany advanced into Italy, each by a different route. Otho crossed the Po and was outflanked. His army surrendered and he killed himself.

Vitellius (r. AD 69)

Aulus Vitellius: born 24 September AD 15. Consul AD 48, then governor of Africa. Governor of Lower Germany AD 68–69. Became emperor 14 April AD 69. Married [1] Petronia (one son); [2] Galeria Fundana (one son; one daughter). Assassinated 24 December AD 69.

Vitellius reached Rome in mid-July AD 69, and was officially recognized as emperor, though he refused the title of Caesar. He celebrated with bouts of entertaining, drinking and betting on the races, and was so out of touch with public sensitivities that as pontifex maximus he made a pronouncement about worship on a day which was regarded as unlucky.

During July, forces in the east swore their allegiance to Titus Flavius Vespasianus, commander in Judaea. The Danube legions did the same, and while Vespasian remained where he was, they marched into Italy, defeated the imperial army, and made a dash for Rome, which capitulated. Vitellius was hunted down and tortured to death on 24 December AD 69. Within one year three successive emperors of Rome had died violently, and now a fourth was acclaimed.

Vespasian (r. AD 69–79)

Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus: born 17 November AD 9 at Reate. Served in Thrace, Crete, Cyrene, Germany, Britain and Africa. Military commander in Judaea AD 66–69. Became emperor AD 69. Married Flavia Domitilla, who died c. AD 65 (two sons, Titus and Domitian; one daughter, Domitilla). Died at Reate 24 June AD 79. Deified AD 79.

Vespasian was almost sixty-one when he arrived back in Rome in October AD 70, but he was still fit and active, and he had two sons, Titus (twenty-nine), who was left to continue the Jewish campaign, and Domitian (nineteen). Titus took Jerusalem, and on his return to Rome was made Vespasian’s associate in government, also with the title Caesar, and appointed commander of the imperial guard.

Vespasian was a professional soldier who as a legionary commander had served with distinction during the first assault on Britain by Aulus Plautius. He was consul suffectus in AD 51, and subsequently governor of Africa, before being sent by Nero to conduct the war against the Jews. He had neither the time nor the liking for extravagant living, and was a first-rate administrator with a talent for picking the right man for a job. Such a man was Gnaeus Julius Agricola (AD 40–93), whom he appointed governor of Britain in AD 78. Though the destruction of Jerusalem and retaliation against the Jews were carried out with unnecessary severity, Jews were excused Caesar-worship.

Vespasian took a sensible and enlightened course in other matters, too. He instituted the first salaried public professorship when he appointed Quintilian (AD 35–95) to a chair of literature and rhetoric. He exempted doctors and teachers of grammar and rhetoric from paying taxes, and created a new class of professional civil servants, drawn largely from the business community.

Vespasian died of natural causes in the family home in the Sabine mountains. There were no doubts or worries about the succession.

Titus (r. AD 79–81)

Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus: born 30 December AD 40 in Rome, son of Vespasian and Flavia Domitilla. Legionary commander and then commander-in-chief in Judaea. Became associate emperor AD 71, then emperor AD 79. Married [1] Arrecina Tertulla; [2] Marcia Furnilla (one daughter, Flavia Julia). Died 13 September AD 81. Deified AD 81.

Titus lived long enough to demonstrate that he had some talent for government, but not long enough for any judgement to be made as to how effective a ruler he might have been. We do, however, have more tangible evidence from his short reign than from that of many emperors who ruled for much longer.

 In August AD 79 the volcanic Mount Vesuvius erupted, engulfing within an hour Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as several other towns and villages in the area. Many survivors managed to escape with the help of the fleet stationed at Misenum. Others died where they were.

Some people suggested that the tragedy was divine retribution on Titus for his destruction of Jerusalem. Though he had been emperor for only a few weeks, he announced a state of emergency, set up a relief fund for the homeless, offered practical assistance in rehousing survivors, and appointed a team of commissioners to administer the disaster area.

Titus was twice married, but his only legitimate child was a daughter. While he was in Judaea he had a passionate affair with Berenice, daughter of the Jewish king Herod Agrippa, and brought her back to Rome. The pressure of public opinion, however, forced them apart, and she returned home. He was forty when he died suddenly. Some people suspected that it was the work of his younger brother, Domitian.

Domitian (r. AD 81–96)

Titus Flavius Domitianus Augustus: born 24 October AD 51 in Rome. Became emperor AD 81. Married Domitia Longina (no children). Murdered 18 September AD 96.

Both his father and his brother had kept Domitian at a distance from playing any part in the administration. So when supreme power finally came his way, he accepted it as his right and gloried in it, especially after having himself elected to the office of censor for life. The usual methods of address were not for him: he preferred to be known as ‘our master, our god’.

Under the Flavian emperors, the economy of the empire was rationalized still further, to the extent that expenditure could be projected. Dependent kingdoms were converted into provinces. Rome and its aristocracy became more cosmopolitan. Domitian helped these processes by efficient administration, combined with a refreshing pedantry.

Domitian was, however, often unsure when handling measures that required initiative. He attempted to resolve the problem of the Italian ‘wine lake’ by forbidding the planting of any new vines and ordering the destruction of vineyards on the far side of the Alps. Though he was popular with the army – he raised their pay, the first emperor since Augustus to do so – and had a successful campaign in Germany in AD 83, two or three years later he allowed himself to be deceived into leading his army into battle against a combined force of German tribes who were merely creating a diversion on the Danube. The result was a heavy defeat.

To bolster his forces for these campaigns he drafted in troops from Britain, thus ensuring that the initiative of Agricola in extending the frontiers of the empire into Scotland was largely dissipated. Though Agricola’s son-in-law, the historian Cornelius Tacitus (c. AD 56–after 117), suggests that Domitian’s recall of Agricola was a disaster, it could be justified from both a military and an economic point of view, and Agricola had served as governor for seven years, more than two full terms, a long time for such a post to be held.

Under Domitian, widespread executions returned. He used a vague charge of maiestas (treason) to justify all manner of persecutions and killings, from which members of his own family were not exempt. Conspiracies, real and imaginary, abounded, but the murder of Domitian himself was not political. It was engineered by his former wife, Domitia, whom he had divorced but with whom he later reconciled. He was stabbed by a steward, ironically while reading the report of yet another fictitious plot.

The Senate, no doubt relieved that none of its members was openly involved, was at last in a position to make its own choice of ruler. It nominated a respected lawyer, Marcus Cocceius Nerva (AD 32–98), to take over the government. He was sixty-five and childless when he became emperor. These two factors must have influenced the decision of a Senate that did not want to be ruled by another family dynasty.