Pertinax

The disaster in northern Italy forces Marcus to reevaluate his priorities.

Forces from the various frontiers are dispatched against Ballomar.

They come under the command of Claudius Pompeianus, with the future emperor Pertinax as one of his lieutenants.

A new military command, the praetentura Italiae et Alpium, is established to safeguard the roads into Italy, and the Danubian fleet is strengthened.

Aquileia is relieved, and by the end of 171, the invaders have been evicted from Roman territory.

Intense diplomatic activity follows, as the Romans try to win over various barbarian tribes in preparation for a crossing of the Danube.

A peace treaty is signed with the Quadi and the Iazyges, while the tribes of the Hasdingi Vandals and the Lacringi become Roman allies.

The year 193 opens in Rome with the murder of Emperor Commodus on New Year's Eve, December 31, 192 and the proclamation on New Year's Day of the City Prefect Pertinax as Emperor.

Pertinax is assassinated on March 28, 193, by the Praetorian Guard.

Didius Julianus outmaneuvers Titus Flavius Sulpicianus (Pertinax's father-in-law and also the new City Prefect) later that day for the title of Emperor.

Flavius Sulpicianus offers to pay each soldier twenty thousand sestertii to buy their loyalty (eight times their annual salary; also the same amount offered by Marcus Aurelius to secure their favors in 161).

Didius Julianus, however, offers twenty-five thousand to each soldier to win the auction and is proclaimed Emperor by the Roman Senate on March 28.

Three other prominent Romans also challenge for the throne: Pescennius Niger in Syria, Clodius Albinus in Britain, and Septimius Severus in Pannonia.

Septimius Severus marches on Rome to oust Didius Julianus and has him decapitated on June 1, 193, then dismisses the Praetorian Guard and executes the soldiers who had killed Pertinax.

Consolidating his power, Septimius Severus battles Pescennius Niger at Cyzicus and Nicaea in 193 and in 194 decisively defeats him at Issus.

Clodius Albinus initially supports Septimius Severus, believing that he will succeed him.

When he realizes in 195 that Severus has other intentions, Albinus has himself declared Emperor.

Perennis, though ruthless and ambitious according to Dio Cassius, is not personally corrupt and generally administers the state well.

A detachment of soldiers from Britain (they had been drafted to Italy to suppress brigands) also denounces Perennis to the emperor in 185 as plotting to make his own son emperor (they had been enabled to do so by Cleander, who is seeking to dispose of his rival), and Commodus gives them permission to execute him as well as his wife and sons.

The fall of Perennis brings a new spate of executions: Aufidius Victorinus commits suicide.

Ulpius Marcellus is replaced as governor of Britain by Pertinax; brought to Rome and tried for treason, Marcellus narrowly escapes death.

In this year, Commodus takes the title of Felix (Fortunate).

Cleander has meanwhile proceeded to concentrate power in his own hands and to enrich himself by becoming responsible for all public offices: he sells and bestows entry to the Senate, army commands, governorships and, increasingly, even the suffect consulships to the highest bidder.

Unrest around the empire increases, with large numbers of army deserters causing trouble in Gaul and Germany.

Pescennius Niger mops up the deserters in Gaul in a military campaign, and a revolt in Brittany is put down by two legions brought over from Britain.

In 187, one of the leaders of the deserters, Maternus, comes from Gaul intending to assassinate Commodus at the Festival of the Great Goddess in March, but he is betrayed and executed.

In the same year, Pertinax unmasks a conspiracy by two enemies of Cleander—Antistius Burrus (one of Commodus's brothers-in-law) and Arrius Antoninus.

As a result, Commodus appears even more rarely in public, preferring to live on his estates.

Cleander, now at the zenith of his power, continues to sell public offices as his private business.

The climax comes in the year 190, which has twenty-five suffect consuls—a record in the thousand-year history of the Roman consulship—all appointed by Cleander (they include the future Emperor Septimius Severus).

In the spring of 190, Rome is afflicted by a food shortage, for which the praefectus annonae Papirius Dionysius, the official actually in charge of the grain supply, contrives to lay the blame on Cleander.

At the end of June, a mob demonstrates against Cleander during a horse race in the Circus Maximus: he sends the praetorian guard to put down the disturbances, but Pertinax, who is now City Prefect of Rome, dispatches the Vigiles Urbani to oppose them.

Cleander flees to Commodus, who is at Laurentum in the house of the Quinctilii, for protection, but the mob follows him, calling for his head.

At the urging of his mistress Marcia, Commodus has Cleander beheaded and his son killed.

Other victims at this time are the praetorian prefect Julius Julianus, Commodus's cousin Annia Fundania Faustina, and his brother-in-law Mamertinus.

Papirius Dionysius is executed too.

The emperor now changes his name to Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus and, at twenty-nine, takes over more of the reins of power, though he continues to rule through a cabal consisting of Marcia, his new chamberlain Eclectus, and the new praetorian prefect Quintus Aemilius Laetus, who about this time also has many Christians freed from working in the mines in Sardinia.

Marcia, the widow of Quadratus, who had been executed in 182, is alleged to have been a Christian.

In opposition to the Senate, in his pronouncements and iconography, Commodus has always laid stress on his unique status as a source of godlike power, liberality and physical prowess.

Innumerable statues around the empire are set up portraying him in the guise of Hercules, reinforcing the image of him as a demigod, a physical giant, a protector and a battler against beasts and men.

Moreover, as Hercules, he can claim to be the son of Jupiter, the representative of the supreme god of the Roman pantheon.

These tendencies now increase to megalomaniac proportions.

Far from celebrating his descent from Marcus Aurelius, the actual source of his power, he stresses his own personal uniqueness as the bringer of a new order, seeking to recast the empire in his own image.

Commodus, perhaps seeing the fire’s destruction as an opportunity, declaring himself the new Romulus early in 192, ritually re-founds Rome, renaming the city Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana.

All the months of the year are renamed to correspond exactly with his (now twelve) names: Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus, Exsuperatorius, Amazonius, Invictus, Felix, Pius.

The legions are renamed Commodianae, the fleet which imports grain from Africa is termed Alexandria Commodiana Togata, the Senate is entitled the Commodian Fortunate Senate, his palace and the Roman people themselves are all given the name Commodianus, and the day on which these reforms are decreed is to be called Dies Commodianus.

Thus he presents himself as the fountainhead of the Empire and Roman life and religion.

He also has the head of the Colossus of Nero adjacent to the Colosseum replaced with his own portrait, gives it a club and places a bronze lion at its feet to make it look like Hercules, and adds an inscription boasting of being "the only left-handed fighter to conquer twelve times one thousand men".

In 191-92, a now-forgotten Roman sculptor executes a beautifully detailed polished marble bust of the bearded Emperor, represented as his patron god, Hercules, replete with lionskin and bearing a club in his right hand and the apples of the Hesperides in his left.

An inscribed altar from Dura-Europos on the Euphrates shows that Commodus's titles and the renaming of the months were disseminated to the furthest reaches of the Empire; moreover, that even auxiliary military units received the title Commodiana, and that Commodus claimed two additional titles: Pacator Orbis (pacifier of the world) and Dominus Noster (Our Lord).

The latter eventually will be used as a conventional title by Roman Emperors, starting about a century later, but Commodus seems to have been the first to assume it.

In November 192, Commodus holds Plebian Games, in which he shoots hundreds of animals with arrows and javelins every morning, and fights as a gladiator every afternoon, naturally winning all the bouts.

In December, he announces his intention to inaugurate the year 193 as both consul and gladiator on January 1.

At this point, the Praetorian prefect Quintus Aemilius Laetus forms a conspiracy with Commodus’ chamberlain Eclectus to supplant Commodus with Pertinax, taking the emperor’s mistress into their confidence.

On December 31, Marcia poisons his food but he vomits up the poison; so the conspirators send his wrestling partner Narcissus to strangle him in his bath.

Commodus's death marks the end of the Nervan-Antonian dynasty.

Pertinax, who is serving as urban prefect at this time, is hurried to the Praetorian Camp and proclaimed emperor the morning after Commodus’ assassination had been carried out.

The Senate declares Commodus a public enemy (a de facto damnatio memoriae) and restores the original name to the city of Rome and its institutions.

Commodus' statues are thrown down and his body buried in the Mausoleum of Hadrian.

Ancient writers detail how the Praetorian Guard expected a generous donativum on the ascension of Pertinax, and when they were disappointed, agitated until he produced the money, selling off Commodus' property, including the concubines and youths Commodus kept for his sexual pleasures.

Pertinax attempts to emulate the restrained practices of Marcus Aurelius, and makes an effort to reform the alimenta, but he faces antagonism from many quarters.

He revalues the Roman currency dramatically, increasing the silver purity of the denarius from 74% to 87%—the actual silver weight increasing from 2.22 grams to 2.75 grams.

His currency reform is far-sighted, but will not survive his death.

He attempts to impose stricter military discipline upon the pampered Praetorians.

Pertinax narrowly averts one conspiracy by a group to replace him with the consul Quintus Sosius Falco while he is in Ostia inspecting the arrangements for grain shipments.

The plot is betrayed in early March; Falco himself is pardoned but several of the officers behind the coup are executed.

Pertinax is at his palace on March 28, 193, when, according to the Historia Augusta, a contingent of some three hundred soldiers of the Praetorian Guard rushes the gates (two hundred according to Cassius Dio).

Ancient sources suggest that they had received only half their promised pay.

Neither the guards on duty nor the palace officials choose to resist them.

Pertinax sends Laetus to meet them, but he chooses to side with the insurgents instead and deserts the emperor.

Although advised to flee, Pertinax then attempts to reason with them, and is almost successful before being struck down by one of the soldiers.

Pertinax must have been aware of the danger he faced by assuming the purple, for he refused to use imperial titles for either his wife or son, thus protecting them from the aftermath of his own assassination.

Immediately after the murder of Pertinax, the Praetorian assassins announce that the throne is to be sold to the man who will pay the highest price.

Titus Flavius Sulpicianus, prefect of the city, father-in-law of the murdered emperor, being at this moment in the camp to which he had been sent to calm the troops, begins making offers when Didius Julianus, having been roused from a banquet by his wife and daughter, arrives in all haste, and being unable to gain admission, stands before the gate, and with a loud voice competes or the prize.

Julianus, consul in 175 along with Pertinax, had further distinguished himself in a campaign against the Chatti, ruled Dalmatia and Germania Inferior, and then was made prefect charged with distributing money to the poor of Italy.

It was around this time that he had been charged with having conspired against the life of Commodus, but he had had the good fortune to be acquitted and to witness the punishment of his accuser.

After governing Bithynia, he had succeeded Pertinax in 190 as the proconsul of Africa.

As the bidding goes on, the soldiers report to each of the two competitors, the one within the fortifications, the other outside the rampart, the sum offered by his rival.

Eventually Sulpicianus promises 20,000 sesterces to every soldier; Julianus, fearing that Sulpicianus will gain the throne, then offers 25,000.

The guards immediately close with the offer of Julianus, throw open the gates, salute him by the name of Commodus, and proclaim him emperor.

Threatened by the military, the Senate declares him emperor.

His wife and his daughter both receive the title Augusta.

Julianus immediately devalues the Roman currency  upon his accession, decreasing the silver purity of the denarius from 87% to 81.5%—the actual silver weight dropping from 2.75 grams to 2.40 grams.

After the initial confusion subsides, the population does not tamely submit to the dishonor brought upon Rome.

Whenever Julianus appears in public he is saluted with groans, imprecations, and shouts of "robber and parricide."

The mob tries to obstruct his progress to the Capitol, and even throws stones.

When news of the public anger in Rome spreads across the Empire, the generals Pescennius Niger in Syria, Septimius Severus in Pannonia, and Clodius Albinus in Britain and Gaul, each having three legions under his command, refuses to recognize the authority of Julianus.

Clodius Albinus, born into an aristocratic family at Hadrumetum in Africa had, according to his father, received the name of Albinus because of the extraordinary whiteness of his body.

Showing great disposition for a military life, he had entered the army at an early age and served with great distinction, especially during the rebellion of Avidius Cassius against the Emperor Marcus Aurelius in 175.

His merits were acknowledged by the Emperor in two letters in which he calls Albinus an African, who resembled his countrymen but little, and who was praiseworthy for his military experience and the gravity of his character.

The Emperor likewise declared that without Albinus the legions (in Bithynia) would have gone over to Avidius Cassius, and that he intended to have him chosen consul.

Commodus had given Albinus a command in Gallia Belgica and afterwards in Britain.

A false rumor having been spread that Commodus had died, Albinus denounced the man before his soldiers in Britain, calling Commodus a tyrant, and maintaining that it would be useful to the Roman Empire to restore to the senate its ancient dignity and power.

The Senate was very pleased with these sentiments, but not so the Emperor, who sent Junius Severus to relieve Albinus of his command.

Some time before, Commodus had offered him the title of Caesar, which he declined.

Notwithstanding the appointment of Junius Severus as his successor, Albinus has kept his command.

Although Pescennius Niger had been born into an old Italian equestrian family, he is the first member of his family to achieve the rank of Roman senator.

Not much is known of his early career; it is possible that he held an administrative position in Egypt, and that he served in a military campaign in Dacia early in Commodus’ reign.

During the late 180s, Niger was elected as a Suffect consul, after which Commodus made him imperial legate of Syria in 191.

He is still serving in Syria when news comes through firstly of the murder of Pertinax, followed by the auctioning off of the imperial title to Didius Julianus.

Niger is a well regarded public figure in Rome and soon a popular demonstration against Didius Julianus breaks out, during which the citizens call out for Niger to come to Rome and claim the imperial title for himself.

As a consequence, it is alleged that Julianus dispatched a centurion to the east with orders to assassinate Niger at Antioch.

The result of the unrest in Rome sees Niger proclaimed Emperor by the eastern legions by the end of April 193.

On his accession, Niger takes the additional cognomen Justus, or "the Just".

Although imperial propaganda issued on behalf of Septimius Severus later claims that Niger was the first to rebel against Didius Julianus, it is Severus who beats Niger to it, claiming the imperial title on April 9.

Although Niger sends envoys to Rome to announce his elevation to the imperial throne, his messengers are intercepted by Severus.

Septimius Severus, whose Romanized North African family is not politically prominent, has nevertheless held a number of important posts, and had received from the Emperor Commodus the command of the legions in Pannonia.

In response to the murder of Pertinax, Severus' soldiers proclaim him Emperor at Carnuntum, whereupon he hurries to Italy.