At this point in his narrative Tacitus reports a story that Augustus had once suggested that, apart from Tiberius, there were other persons who were 'capable of being emperor', capaces imperii. He names them as M. Lepidus, Asinius Gallus and L. Arrundus (or alternadvely Cn. Piso). Tacitus does not give us the exact context of this statement; it may have been invented by an earlier historian. It may be more than a coincidence that two of those named were the fathers of men who were later themselves to lay claim to the Principate. The son of Marcus (rather than Manius, as printed in most editions of Tacitus since the seventeenth century) Aemilius Lepidus (cos. a.d. 6) was first trusted, and then

8 Liebeschuetz 1986 (c 163); cf. Tac. Ann. i.i i: 'partem curarum'.

executed, by Caligula; Lucius Arruntius (also cos. a.d. 6) was the son of one of Octavian's commanders at Actium, and adopted as his own son Camillus Scribonianus, who was to rebel against Claudius in 42; and various Julio-Claudian emperors felt themselves threatened by men called Piso. Whatever lies behind the anecdote, it raises the question what the source would be from which an alternative leader might derive his authority. Tacitus' account is intended to suggest that at the beginning of Tiberius' reign, there still existed political figures whose power was independent of the backing of the princeps. The fourth man named was the Asinius Gallus who took up Tiberius' question as to whether the cura borne by Augustus ought to be divided. He was the son of Asinius Pollio, one of the early generals of Octavian during the 40s and 30s B.C., but by no means a constant and unquestioning supporter. Virgil had dedicated the Fourth ('Messianic') Eclogue to Pollio; and Gallus is said to have told the literary critic Asconius Pedianus that he himself was the promised Messiah. According to Tacitus, it was Augustus' opinion that Gallus was incapable of exercising imperial power, but avid for it. Tiberius could not forget that after Augustus had forced him to divorce Vipsania, a woman he genuinely loved, in favour of Augustus' own daughter Iulia (and that was not a happy marriage), it was Gallus who married Vipsania.9

Gallus had implied that Tiberius could not shoulder Augustus' responsibilities alone. Tiberius could not conceal his displeasure; Gallus backtracked by pretending that he had made the point only in order to prove that imperial power could not in fact be divided. The episode raises the question of Tiberius' honesty in claiming that he did not want the imperial office. Contemporary evidence shows that Tiberius himself was worried about his reputation for disguising his real intentions, dissimulatio, a quality without which he might well have failed to live through Augustus' reign.10 Later emperors at their accession went through a pretence of rejecting the offer of imperial power; in Tiberius' case, such a recusatio imperii might have been misunderstood because there was no precedent for it. If Tiberius was genuine in not wishing to take on all Augustus' responsibilities, this is hardly likely to have been because he was afraid that his claims would be disputed by one, or possibly several, other candidates. Velleius Paterculus tells of the fear and uncertainty that filled Rome at the time of Augustus' death; not everyone believed that the transfer of power would run smoothly. But Velleius also makes it clear that the three main concentrations of legions, in Spain, the Balkans, and on the Rhine, were all in the hands of generals

' 'Capaces imperii': Tac. Ann. 1.13.2. Gallus: Oliver 1947 (c 582); Shorter 1971 (c 393). On M. Lepidus, Syme 1970 (в 178).

10 On the Tabula Siamsis and Tiberius' dissimulatio-. Gonzalez 1984(8 234); Zecchini 1986 (в 301).

loyal to Tiberius. In Spain there was Marcus Lepidus (the consul of a.d. 6), who had been Tiberius' legate in putting down the Pannonian revolt between a.d. 6 and 9; in Pannonia, Tiberius had his own legates, in particular Iunius Blaesus, and Germany was governed by Tiberius' adopted son Germanicus. Tiberius had nothing to fear from any of these generals; the soldiers themselves were not to transfer their allegiance without trouble, but that was a question of discipline, not of high politics. Even if Tiberius had already heard of the mutinies in the Pannonian army which broke out as soon as the troops heard of the death of Augustus, the commander to whom they had taken their oaths of military service, it does not follow that such a threat of rebellion would have been a real reason for declining the imperial office.

The Senate duly confirmed Tiberius' succession to the cura bestowed on his predecessor (and also granted him the title Augustus). Tiberius' were not the only powers the Senate was required to confirm. On the occasion when Augustus had adopted Tiberius into the Julian house­hold, he had also made him adopt Germanicus, the son of Tiberius' younger brother Drusus and of Antonia, daughter of Mark Antony and Augustus' sister Octavia. This formally made Germanicus Tiberius' eldest son. Tiberius, in a.d. i 4, was fifty-five. Should anything happen to him, it would be Germanicus who would succeed as head of the domus Caesaris.

The same session of the Senate also proposed to vote honours to Livia; Tiberius expressed reservations about these, possibly because he was embarrassed by suggestions that he derived his position from his mother's influence over Augustus. Other decisions relating to the extent of Tiberius' cura for the state were taken at the same meeting; in particular, Tacitus says that Tiberius proclaimed a change in the procedures for nominating candidates for magistracies. In future, the list of nominations would be discussed by the Senate; four of the praetor- ships would be filled by persons recommended by Tiberius, the other places would be open to any candidates selected by the Senate (though clearly the support of; the princeps would be decisive here too). Formally, the list would then go before the comitia centuriata for approval, just as had happened in republican times; but competition for the votes of the people now became a pure formality for candidates for the praetorship (as it had been for candidates for the consulship since the time of Julius Caesar). Candidates needed the support only of the emperor and of the Senate. An important effect of this was to make it unnecessary for quaestors and aediles who had an eye on a praetorship to win the favour of the Roman plebs by putting on spectacular games. The giving of games was one of the principal ways in which those who participated in public life advertised their prestige. The poverty of such spectacles under Tiberius is an aspect of the concentration of power in the hands of the princeps, to the detriment both of the senatorial elite and of the people.[410]

Apart from the imperial household, the Senate and the people, the emperor also had to control the army: as we have seen, Tiberius' first act after Augustus' death was to inform every provincial army. Tacitus describes in great detail the mutinies of the two most powerful groups of legions, on the Rhine and the Danube; but we should not assume that they were a serious threat in the same way as apparently similar events were in a.d. 69 and a.d. 97. Augustus' death gave the Roman conscripts serving in Pannonia and Germany an opportunity to express their long- repressed resentment at their terms of service.The Roman soldier's oath of loyalty was not only to the res publico, but to the individual imperator who had called him up for that particular campaign. This was the first time in almost half a century that an imperator had died and needed to be replaced by a new one — albeit one who had seen many years' service both in Pannonia and Germany. It was an appropriate occasion to demand improvements in conditions of service. Tacitus describes these events as a complete collapse of discipline, and maximizes both the moral disgrace and the potential danger to Tiberius. He and other historians following the same sources (probably Pliny the Elder's Histories of the German Wars and the younger Agrippina's memoirs) agree that the Pannonian mutiny was comparatively easy to control. The mutiny on the Rhine was politically more significant because of the presence there of Germanicus, whom these sources wish to represent as a potential alternative emperor.[411]

Tacitus' account of the unrest among the Pannonian legions includes a speech encapsulating the soldiers' (largely legitimate) grievances, such as long terms of service, often over twenty years, low pay and the deduction of money to buy exemption from unpleasant duties, and the quality of the land allotments granted to soldiers by the aerarium militare on completion of their period of service. The speech is attributed to Percennius, said to have been a professional claque-manager for the Roman theatre-audiences before having been called up during the emergency levy that followed the destruction of Varus' three legions just five years previously. The Pannonian commander, Quintus Iunius Blaesus (cons. a.d. 10; uncle of the praetorian prefect L. Aelius Seianus) was unable to prevent his soldiers from looting civilian settlements. Although he promised to send his son, a tribune, to Rome at the head of a delegation to request improved terms of service, he was only able to reimpose discipline when Tiberius' son Drusus arrived on the scene with two praetorian cohorts commanded by Sejanus (now described as co- prefect of the guard along with his father, Lucius Seius Strabo). Tacitus describes Tiberius' decision to send his son as though it was a response to a major threat; but we should remember that the theme of civil discord is basic to the Annals.

The story told by Tacitus implies that the mutineers were by no means inclined to accept Drusus' promise to refer their complaints to Tiberius as their commander, and through him to the Senate. But a coincidental eclipse of the moon on the night of 25-6 September served them as an excuse to back down, enabling Drusus to execute the two ringleaders and return to Rome without even bothering to await the return of the soldiers' delegation to Tiberius.

The legions on the Lower Rhine, under the command of Aulus Caecina Severus, also used the death of the imperator to whom they had sworn their military oath as an occasion to express their discontent about the unremitting military operations which Augustus had imposed upon them for so many years. One theme which runs through Tacitus' account of the politics of Tiberius' reign is the conflict between the widow and children of Germanicus on the one hand, and Tiberius and his direct descendants on the other. Even if this analysis (probably going back to the younger Agrippina's memoirs) were correct, it would be wrong to accept the implication that Germanicus was a rival or a threat to Tiberius during his lifetime. On the contrary, there is epigraphical and other evidence that Germanicus was recognized as Tiberius' successor by men who had no wish to show disloyalty to Tiberius himself. When Ovid, in exile at Tomi on the Black Sea, addressed Germanicus as a princeps, he will hardly have assumed that he would be understood to want Germanicus to be emperor in Tiberius' place.13

According to Tacitus, the major difference between the mutinies in Pannonia and on the Rhine was that some of the soldiers on the Rhine offered to make Germanicus emperor if he acceded to their demands. We may be sceptical about how serious this offer was; an anecdote about a soldier who was prepared to help kill Germanicus himself is just as likely to be authentic. Whatever the political significance of the mutiny, it is clear from Tacitus' account that (some) soldiers who had completed long terms of service had to be discharged, and that in return the legions on both the lower and the upper Rhine were prepared to take the military oath to their new imperator. But the arrival at Ara Ubiorum (Cologne) of a delegation of senators sent by Tiberius led to renewed outbreaks of insubordination, since the soldiers correctly feared that Tiberius would

13 Ov. Fast. 1.19. G. Herbert-Brown, Ovid and the Fasti (Oxford, 1994), ch. An Ephesian inscription describes Germanicus and Drusus together as the 'New Dioscuri' (SEG iv.j 1j).

use the authority of the Senate as an excuse to reject the newly won concessions. The legate Lucius Munatius Plancus, who had been consul in the previous year, was humiliated; and Germanicus ostentatiously sent his wife and children (including the two-year-old Gaius, often dressed in 'little boots' - hence his later name Caligula) away to safety at Trier. Tacitus suggests that the mutiny was now so serious that Germanicus should have called on the upper Rhine legions to suppress it by force; in fact he seems to have been able to restore order without difficulty at Cologne, and Caecina was able to do the same for the two legions stationed at Xanten (when Germanicus inspected the bodies of those executed, he claimed to be appalled at the catastrophe). The mutinies on the Rhine and in Pannonia were not unimportant, but they were by no means the threat either to Rome or to Tiberius that Tacitus, or his sources, imply. Spectacular though the mutinies may have been, they were an expression of Augustus' failure, or inability, to provide for the real costs of his military policy, rather than a threat to Tiberius.

ii. the reign of tiberius14

In the autumn of a.d. 14, and during the following two summers, Germanicus employed his legions on a series of campaigns east of the Rhine. Both archaeological and literary evidence indicates that there was no serious attempt to expand the territory under direct Roman control. These campaigns were fought for reasons of prestige, both for Rome — whose reputation for military success had to be re-established after the Varus disaster of a.d. 9 - and for Germanicus himself. The fact that Germanicus received the news of Augustus' death while organizing a census of the Gallic provinces suggests that Augustus himself had planned these campaigns; they did not contradict the advice he allegedly appended to his summary of the resources of the empire, that its borders should not be expanded. Augustus' advice to his heir to restrict the opportunities for commanders to acquire military gloria was not intended to apply to Tiberius' own adopted successor. Tacitus' belief that historiographical literature required long military narratives, coupled with his desire to heroize Germanicus, gave him the oppor­tunity for an epic account of a visit to the site of the defeat of Varus' army and the reburial of the corpses of the slain, and of a heroic retreat through the north German marshes. This does not hide the fact that Germanicus achieved nothing of permanence - and probably did not intend to.15

We should not accept Tacitus' suggestion that Tiberius was jealous of any successes Germanicus might achieve, and therefore recalled him

14 Tiberius' reign: see n. j above. The main narrative sources are: Tac. Ann. i-vi; Suet. Tib.; Dio, Lvii-Lvin; Veil. Pat. 11.125—)i, with Woodman 1977 (в 202). 15 Koestermann 1957 (c 362).

after two years. He wanted to make it clear to the Germans that Augustus' death did not mean the end of Roman military efforts on the northern frontiers. He also wanted Germanicus to win enough glory to make his virtus manifest; consequently he awarded his adopted son and successor a full triumph, the highest mark of military distinction, in a.d. 17. In the following year Tiberius made Germanicus' position as his designated successor explicit by sharing his third consulship with him.

It was because of a genuine concern that his successor should have the experience required of a ruler that Tiberius sent Germanicus on a tour of the eastern half of the empire in this year. There were precedents from the Augustan period: Agrippa, Tiberius himself, and Gaius Caesar had all ruled the east of the empire for a time when they had been heirs- apparent. Some practical tasks had to be performed. King Archelaus of Cappadocia had died at Rome in a.d. 17 (of natural causes, but exacerbated by the hostility shown by hispatronus Tiberius). In order to help solve the shortage of funds for military pay, Tiberius wanted Cappadocia integrated into the empire as a province (see ch. 14л). Germanicus was also to oversee the fiscal administration of Palmyra, and inspect earthquake damage suffered by several cities of Asia in a.d. 17. As his adviser Tiberius appointed Cnaeus Calpurnius Piso - who had been his colleague as consul in 7 в.с. — to accompany him as legate of Syria. Tacitus insinuates that the intention was to use Piso to control Germanicus. If we abandon the idea that Tiberius and Germanicus mistrusted each other, then Piso's task as a trusted amicus of the domus Caesaris was simply to give support and advice. But Piso's advice was irksome to Germanicus; it may be that he restrained Germanicus from engaging in unnecessary military adventures against the Parthians to enhance his own glory. In any case, Piso's bad temper was notorious. Germanicus avoided further advice from Piso by travelling to Egypt (from which Roman senators were excluded), where his attempts to win popularity by opening the grain reserves may have had the effect of exacerbating a grain shortage at Rome. Tiberius was displeased, and Piso misinterpreted his displeasure as permission to quarrel with Germani­cus. Germanicus formally renounced the amicitia between Piso and the domus Caesaris. Piso had no option but to leave Syria. Unfortunately Germanicus died soon after (10 October a.d. 19), and Piso (despite the warnings of his consilium) thought he could return to take control of his province again. If Germanicus had acted provocatively, Piso's reaction was simply treasonable; he was arrested and sent to Rome to be tried before the Senate on the charge of having waged war on a province of the Roman people. Agrippina, bearing the ashes of her husband to Rome with her, saw to it that he was also accused of having had Germanicus poisoned; the charge was pressed by Publius Vitellius, who had been one of Germanicus' generals in Germany and whose brothers were to be loyal supporters of Germanicus' son Caligula and brother Claudius. There was no evidence to support it. But despite Tiberius' efforts to ensure that the affair was handled openly and fairly, Piso's suicide was later taken as a sign that he had done away with Germanicus — on Tiberius' orders.[412]

The death of Germanicus meant that Tiberius' other son, his natural son Drusus, was now the heir-apparent. That is suggested by coins celebrating the birth of Drusus' twin sons in a.d. 19/20 (only one, known as Tiberius Gemellus, was to survive). Drusus' position was fully confirmed when Tiberius shared his fourth consulship with him in a.d. 21; and in April 22 he was formally granted tribunicia potestas. Agrippina may have felt that Fortune had cheated her of the chance of becoming an emperor's wife, but she was not justified in laying the blame for this on Tiberius; nor is there evidence that she did so at this stage. It was in the memoirs of her daughter, Agrippina the Younger, that the picture of Germanicus as a new Alexander, poisoned in his prime, was created, and Tiberius attacked for failing to mourn him properly - though we may note that Tiberius made a point of his moderatio in mourning all his relatives, as in other respects; Seneca refers to the restraint he had shown when he had to arrange the obsequies for his own brother, Drusus, in 9 B.C.17

This moderatio did not imply restraint in protecting himself against those foolish enough to think that they had a claim to be emperor in his place. Accusations of sorcery were brought against Marcus Scribonius Libo, a great-grandson of Pompey and grand-nephew of Scribonia, who had been Augustus' wife and the mother of the elder Iulia; he was convicted (} September a.d. 16), and on his aunt's advice killed himself.[413] And despite insinuations to the contrary, Tiberius exercised his cur a over the provinces efficiently - taking care that too much military virtue should not be displayed by provincial governors. The need to suppress a rebellion in the province of Africa led by a romanized military leader called Tacfarinas brought into the open the question of whom the emperor could trust, and whom he could not. The proconsul of Africa was the only man apart from the princeps who commanded a legion under his own imperium (though the emperor would take the credit for his victories, too). Tiberius asked the Senate to appoint an extraordinary commander. Two candidates were proposed, both presumably known to be loyal servants of the princeps: Marcus Lepidus and Iunius Blaesus (suffect consul in a.d. io). Perhaps out of deference to Blaesus' nephew Sejanus, Tiberius' trusted praetorian prefect, Lepidus withdrew his candidature. Blaesus would not misuse the ornamenta triumphalia he was awarded for the expected victory.

Gaul, too, suffered from rebellion at this time, because of heavier taxation to pay for the army and perhaps also as a result of the cessation of military activity involving Gallic units in Roman operations against Germany. Tacitus' account mentions the leaders as Florus and Sacrovir, and implies that druids were involved. But he describes the crisis very much in terms of Vindex's uprising in a.d. 68, criticizing Tiberius for failing to go in person to defeat the rebels as though he was behaving as thoughtlessly as Nero did in 68.

One of the roots of Tiberius' later reputation for failing to exercise the responsibilities of an emperor was his own emphasis on moderatio, including a willingness to allow a plurality of opinions to be aired in the Senate when what senators wanted him to do was give a clear indication of what his own sententia was. Another was his lack of interest in spectacles — when the people of Trebia asked him what to do with money their city had been left, he told them to build a road rather than a theatre. Most crucially, he was physically absent from Rome. Augustus had often been away from the capital, but that was to take command of wars or to supervise provincial affairs. Tiberius went to Campania, where rich Romans had traditionally spent their holidays. His reasons may some­times have been valid — between a.d. 21-22 he spent twenty months away from Rome, probably to avoid a period of pestilence. When his mother fell ill, Tiberius returned at once.19

But Tiberius' absences resulted in a failure to control proceedings in the Senate. That was one of the elements responsible for the series of accusations of treason, maiestas, which made his reign so distasteful to later senatorial historians. For ambitious men with rhetorical ability, such prosecutions were the most effective way to get to the top now that Tiberius' policy of military retrenchment made it more difficult for 'new men' to demonstrate their virtus in the military field. A successful prosecutor would manage to eliminate a personal enemy, win acclaim for his rhetorical ability, receive at least one quarter of the goods of the convicted, and gain the emperor's gradtude - possibly resulting in appointment to the highest offices. While Tiberius remained in Rome, he did his best to restrain delatores in order to minimize the insecurity they created. Tacitus suggests, and coins confirm, that Tiberius made much of his self-restraint, moderatio, in rejecting the weapon of maiestas-

19 Trebia: Suet. Tib. ji. Tiberius' absences from Rome: Syme 1986 (a 95) 24; Stewart 1977 (f 583), Orth 1970 (c 384), Houston 1985 (c 357). Livia: Sutherland 1987 (в 358) ch. 20.

accusations against senators during these years. The emperor could intervene to exercise the imperial virtue of dementia-, in a.d. 22 he allowed Decimus Iunius Silanus to return from the exile that had been forced upon him when Augustus had revoked his amicitia because of Decimus' association with the younger Iulia during the crisis of a.d. 8. Tiberius did not, however, feel that Decimus could be allowed to return to public life.[414]

Another important effect of Tiberius' absences from the capital was to increase the importance of Aelius Sejanus, now the sole praetorian prefect, as the channel of communication between senators and the emperor. During these years Sejanus greatly strengthened his police powers in Rome by concentrating the praetorian cohorts in a single, permanent camp (one of the first military camps to have a permanent stone wall). There is no reason to believe that the immediate objective was anything more sinister than to impose better discipline on the soldiers; but the camp was also a suitable place to keep political prisoners.

The death ofDrusus on 14 September a.d. 23 ended for the time being any hopes Tiberius had of leaving his power in the hands of a son, natural or adopted, who would be old enough and experienced enough to rule. Perhaps Drusus would not have been an ideal emperor. Like his father, he was a heavy drinker; it was said that he had once physically attacked Sejanus during a drinking party. The story was one of the arguments later advanced in support of allegations that Sejanus had poisoned Drusus, but these inventions postdated Sejanus' fall; the two had been loyal colleagues and friends for many years, and the summer of a.d. 23 was another particularly unhealthy one. Tiberius made a point of being present in Rome to give the funeral speech.

The question of the succession was now open again. By early a.d. 23, two of Germanicus' sons had already come of age; to strengthen their position, their mother Agrippina asked Tiberius to provide her with a new husband. It is possible that she had Asinius Gallus in mind. One of his sons, Asinius Saloninus, had been betrothed to a daughter of Germanicus, but died in a.d. 22, before the marriage could take place; two other sons of Gallus were consuls during these years, C. Asinius Pollio in 23, and Marcus Asinius Agrippa in 25 (but he died in the following year). Tiberius would not allow Nero and Drusus to come under the protection of such a powerful stepfather, particularly one whom he loathed.

The emperor's concern that Germanicus' sons might replace him was shared by the praetorian prefect Sejanus. Sejanus' own interest in Tiberius' survival was illustrated by an incident in a.d. 26.21 While Tiberius was on his way to his villa at Capri, part of the ceiling of a grotto near Terracina collapsed on the imperial party during a dinner. Sejanus threw himself upon Tiberius, convincing him of the genuineness of his loyalty. In the previous year Tiberius had had doubts about Sejanus: he refused a request that he should be allowed to marry Drusus' widow Livilla (Livia lulia). Sejanus may have been a loyal supporter of the dynasty, like his father and perhaps grandfather before him, but that did not give him sufficient status to rank with the republican nobility. Even his wife's family had only been consular for one generation. In Tiberius' opinion, Sejanus would not have had the political influence needed to protect Tiberius Gemellus against the claims of Agrippina's children. In any case, he had every intention of remaining alive for many years to come, and was supported in this by the prognostications of his personal astrologer Thrasyllus.

Tiberius had been 66 in the previous November. At an age when other Roman senators could look forward to retiring from public life, he saw no escape from the responsibilities inherited from Augustus. It is not surprising that he should have preferred to stay away from Rome, even for the funeral of his mother Livia in a.d. 29. The question of the succession will have been a major source of conflict between mother and son; Tiberius Gemellus was Livia's great-grandson, but so (through Drusus) were Agrippina's three sons, and Augustus had clearly indi­cated in his will that the succession should ultimately go to them. So long as Livia was alive, she could protect them against Tiberius' displeasure. Livia's funeral oration was given by Gaius Caligula, whom Livia had taken into her own domus. Soon after the funeral, Sejanus hadAgrippina, Nero and Drusus arrested. Caligula had not been allowed to don the toga virilis yet, and consequently could not be treated as a political threat. He moved to the house of his grandmother the younger Antonia, who protected the interests of the supporters of her son Germanicus as well as she could during the years of Sejanus' supremacy.

Following her funeral, Livia was awarded full divine honours by the Senate, similar to those awarded to her husband on his death (there were minor differences, as protocol required; for instance the image of the divus was carried by a four-horse chariot, while the diva Augusta had to be satisfied with two horses). Her will was notable for the enormous legacy she bestowed on the young Servius Sulpicius Galba (born j B.C.); a relative of Livia's, Livia Ocellina, was his stepmother and had adopted him. Tiberius was understandably upset by the size of the legacy - 50 million sesterces — and apparently held back even the revised sum of

21 Stewart 1977 (f 583).

500,000 he was prepared to countenance. Galba's elder brother (cos. a.d. 22) had already attracted his disfavour, and was later forced to commit suicide (с. a.d. 36). Livia's legacy demonstrated both her displeasure at her son and a belief that Galba was worthy of holding a central position on the public stage. After Livia's death, Galba had the support of Antonia (and later of Caligula). His wife was probably the daughter of M. Aemilius Lepidus, capax imperii, the consul of a.d. 6; another of Lepidus' daughters married Drusus, son of Germanicus. Galba himself had already won the praetorship (it is not certain in what year he held it, but we are told of the tightrope-walking elephants he presented at the Floralia). In a.d. 33, he was consul ordinarius. It is not surprising that Tiberius, having worked out his horoscope, should have said that the young Galba was destined to be emperor one day.

Although Tacitus insinuates that one of Tiberius' main motives for leaving Rome had been to avoid his mother, her death made him no more willing to return. His absence did not mean that he ceased to control the empire; but it allowed Sejanus to monopolize the infor­mation and advice about events in the capital on the basis of which Tiberius' decisions were taken. Sejanus had already made clear to the emperor his readiness to marry Drusus' widow Livilla, and thus immediately become the stepfather of Tiberius' grandson and intended successor, and in due course perhaps the father of further children who would be eligible for imperial office. So long as Sejanus' stepson, or his own children, were still too young for this office, he could fulfil the role that Augustus had intended Tiberius to play for Germanicus. Tiberius understood this ambition, though it is not clear whether he was now prepared to allow the marriage.[415] What he did do was appoint Sejanus, although he was not a senator, consul ordinarius for a.d. 31, and he publicly demonstrated the extent to which the praetorian prefect was 'partner of his labours' by holding his own fifth consulship as Sejanus' colleague. His third consulship had been held with Germanicus, his fourth with Drusus: in both cases this was a way of indicating who was the heir- apparent. Sejanus' election was held on the Aventine hill, traditionally associated with the urban plebs, and the gifts and shows granted on this occasion were for them a welcome contrast to the neglect which Tiberius' electoral reforms had occasioned, since such bids for popular­ity now normally had little point.[416]

For Tiberius, the public recognition of another potential successor could only increase his freedom of manoeuvre vis-a-vis the children of

Agrippina. For Sejanus, on the other hand, the elimination of Agrip- pina's children as candidates was essential for the success of his dynasdc ambitions. Nero and Drusus were accused of plotting against the emperor by a relative of Sejanus, Cassius Longinus (probably Lucius, who was consul ordinarius in a.d. 30, rather than his brother Gaius, the famous jurist (see ch. 21), who was a suffect consul in the same year). The fact that the Cassii Longini were related to the Caesaricide Cassius did not make them republicans, though that was what Gaius was to be accused of by Nero after the conspiracy of Piso many years later. The threat posed by Nero and Drusus to Tiberius and to the succession of Gemellus (with or without Sejanus as his stepfather) was real. Even after the elimination of Sejanus, Tiberius took no steps to release Drusus from prison. It is likely that Agrippina and her sons, seeing the danger that Sejanus represented, thought it necessary to plan for Tiberius' removal before Sejanus' position had become unchallengeable.

It was Germanicus' mother the younger Antonia, the young men's grandmother, who warned Tiberius in a letter delivered to him person­ally through her freedman M. Antonius Pallas that Sejanus' consoli­dation of his power was not just aimed against Agrippina and her children, but beginning to threaten Tiberius' own chances of polidcal survival. With Sejanus as protector of Tiberius' heir, and no other candidates for the Principate surviving, Tiberius' own role would have been played out. And given that it was Sejanus who was responsible for Tiberius' personal security, Antonia must have pointed out to him that Sejanus would have no further interest in keeping Tiberius alive once Agrippina and her offspring no longer existed. It was a powerful argument, and Tiberius summoned Germanicus' remaining son, Gaius Caligula, to the safety of his household at Capri. He did not prevent Sejanus from executing Nero.

In over seventeen years as emperor, Tiberius had not ordered the execution of one single senator. The old man's well-planned and efficient elimination of Sejanus on 18 October a.d. 31 consequently came as a great shock to Rome. His agent was another equestrian public servant, Sutorius Macro, prefect of the urban vigiles: he brought two letters from Tiberius. One was read out to the Senate in Sejanus' presence; it was lengthy and impenetrable (in Juvenal's words, 'grandis et verbosa') and only after a long time did it come to the point: Sejanus was denounced as a traitor. While the Senate, and Sejanus himself had been kept guessing, Macro took command of the praetorians, authorized by Tiberius' second letter. Sejanus had expected to be granted tribunicia potestas as Tiberius' colleague. Instead he found himself stripped of his office and arrested. He was executed the same day; so were his wife and daughter. It was claimed that eight years before, Sejanus and Livilla had together poisoned Tiberius' son, Livilla's husband Drusus.

Sejanus' fall enabled a number of figures who had been supporters of Germanicus to return to the centre of the political stage, under the protection of the younger Antonia. Some of them were to give support to the regimes of her grandson Caligula, and then her son Claudius. Lucius Vitellius, who was to become Claudius' principal adviser and the father of another later emperor, was consul ordinarius in a.d. 34, and in 3 5 a suffect consulship was held by his friend Valerius Asiaticus from Vienne, whose son was to be betrothed to the emperor Vitellius' daughter, and whose grandson was to be a powerful figure into the next century (M. Lollius Paulinus Decimus Valerius Asiaticus Saturninus, cos. a.d. 94, cos. II a.d. 125). Flavius Sabinus {praefectus urbi under Nero, Otho and Vitellius, and the brother of Vespasian), entered the Senate in a.d. 34 or 3 5. Galba has already been mentioned; his successor as suffect consul in a.d. 3 3 was Lucius Salvius Otho, whose father, a novus homo, had reached the praetorship early in Tiberius' reign as a result of the favour of Livia. Otho's daughter had once been betrothed to Germanicus' son Drusus; his elder son Lucius Titianus was to reach the consulship in 5 2, become proconsul of Asia, and like his father, promagister of the Arval Brethren; his younger son became emperor.[417]

On the other hand the overthrow of Sejanus did not make any difference to Tiberius' hostility to Agrippina herself. Neither she nor Drusus were released from prison or exile, and they both died in a.d. 33. Her daughters could be made harmless without being killed. In 33, Tiberius married Drusilla to Lucius Cassius Longinus, and Germanicus' youngest daughter, lulia Livilla, to the powerful and loyal Marcus Vinicius; his grandfather, the consul of 19 B.C., had been one of Tiberius' early generals in Illyricum and won the ornamenta triumphalia for his services in Germany. The father, consul ordinarius in a.d. 2, was highly regarded as an orator; Vinicius himself had been consul in a.d. 30 (the year in which Velleius Paterculus dedicated his history to him), and perhaps was among those who felt insulted, if not threatened, by Sejanus' predominance. By entrusting Livilla to him, Tiberius was marking him out as someone to whom the empire too might be entrusted; and indeed (despite Caligula's banishment of Livilla in 39)

Vinicius was powerful enough to be the major contender for the succession after Caligula's removal in 41. The third daughter, Agrippina the Younger, had already been married in a.d. 28, to Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. a.d. 52). Through his mother Antonia the Elder, he was the grandson of Mark Antony and Augustus' sister Octavia. It is hardly surprising that the couple avoided having children so long as Tiberius was alive. Only in the last year of Tiberius' life was Ahenobar­bus exiled on a charge of incest with his sister, Domitia Lepida. Tiberius also forced Asinius Gallus to end his life in a.d. 33, after three years of house-arrest. Tiberius' hatred for him went much further back than Gallus' association with Agrippina and alleged support for Sejanus. Nevertheless three of his sons survived to take office again under Caligula (Servius Asinius Celer, cos. 38, executed in 47; Asinius Gallus, banished in 46; and Asinius Pollio, proconsul of Asia 38/39).

Tacitus notes that the attacks on Sejanus and Livilla in the Senate were led by 'men with the great names Scipio, Silanus, Cassius'. If Tacitus wished to imply that the political significance of these men derived from their republican ancestry, that was not the whole story. Their links with the domus Caesaris mattered as much, if not more. These men, and others, used the freedom provided by Tiberius' absence from Rome to indulge in an orgy of recrimination, accusing their personal opponents of having been associated with Sejanus. Some of those who suffered were no doubt indeed close associates of Sejanus - though it is interesting that even his uncle, Quintus Iunius Blaesus, was not formally condemned and executed, but committed suicide after Tiberius renounced his amicitia. Blaesus' two sons even survived until 36. Indeed, some of those keenest to attack Sejanus' memory were related to him: the grandfather of the two Cassii, Quintus Aelius Tubero, had been Sejanus' stepfather. The trials of the next few years were certainly not the result of any plan by Tiberius to round up those who had participated in Sejanus' 'conspiracy' against him: there had been no such conspiracy.

But it suited other political figures to suggest that there had. The charge of association with Sejanus was used as a cover for political, family and personal hatreds in such a way as to give the impression that there must have been a major conspiracy organized by Sejanus in which half the Senate had been involved. Rumour exaggerated his power to such an extent that it was even said that Tiberius had given instructions that, if Sejanus' supporters in the praetorian guard posed a threat, Germanicus' children might have to be released from prison to act as a rallying-point for those loyal to the dynasty. But the minute number of those directly convicted of being Sejanus' associates suggests that they were not executed for being conspirators, but because they might resent the way in which a loyal servant and his wife and daughter had been dealt with by Tiberius. Had Sejanus managed to remove all the offspring of Germanicus, he might have been a real threat to Tiberius. As it was, the conspirator was not Sejanus, but Tiberius.

Tacitus blames Tiberius for the deaths of a considerable number of people accused of maiestas (as he does for virtually any other death during these years, whether from sickness or old age, like that of Manius Lepidus, or by suicide like that of L. Arruntius). If Tiberius was to blame, then it was by omission: his absence from Rome lifted any restraint on delatores who made use of treason-accusations to attack their personal rivals or simply to enrich themselves. Maiestas-accusations at this dme had the great advantage to the accuser that they were based on the accused's dissadsfaction with an emperor; hence those accused lost the emperor's amicitia the moment they were charged, and that meant that their public careers (and usually their lives) came to an immediate end. One of the first to suffer this fate was C. Annius Pollio, accused in a.d. 32; he had been suffect consul in 21 or 22. His son Lucius Annius Vinicianus was accused with him, but was to survive to become consul suffect, probably under Caligula, and important enough to be considered an imperial candidate after Caligula's assassinadon. But not all treason- accusations resulted in conviction. One who survived was C. Appius Iunius Silanus (cos. 28).

Tiberius' main concern during these years continued to be to ensure the succession of his grandson Tiberius Gemellus. His astrologer seems to have persuaded him that he would survive to see Gemellus old enough to succeed him. Consequently there was no danger in honouring Caligula: he was made a member of the college of augurs and a pontifex and in 3 j he held the office of quaestor. At some time during these years, Tiberius tried to bring Caligula more firmly under his control by marrying him to Iunia Claudilla, the daughter of his old supporter Marcus Silanus (cos. a.d. i 5). Also in 33, Tiberius' granddaughter Livia lulia was remarried; her husband was the relatively insignificant Gaius Rubellius Blandus (cos. suff. a.d. 18, and grandson of Tiberius' rhetoric teacher). Tiberius will have assumed that they and their descendants would represent no threat to Gemellus, though many years later Nero was to be sufficiendy frightened of their son Rubellius Plautus to have him killed in a.d. 62. Together with Domitius Ahenobarbus, Marcus Vinicius and Cassius Longinus, Blandus was publicly honoured as one of the emperor's grandsons-in-law, progeneri Caesaris. When large areas of Rome were destroyed by fire in a.d. 36, the four of them were appointed to supervise the distribution of aid on Tiberius' behalf.25

Tiberius continued to carry out his other duties as princeps with equal efficiency. Not only did he help those members of the Roman plebs

25 Blandus: Syme 1982 (c 401) Progeneri Caesarir. Tac. Am. «.45.j.

whose houses had been destroyed by fire, he intervened to avoid a major crisis of credit in a.d. 33, apparently caused by a shortage of coin; although the economic significance of Tiberius' actions has been grossly overestimated by modern historians applying anachronistic economic models to antiquity, it was thought to be part of an emperor's duties to ensure that the wealthy could feel secure in the possession of their property. In another respect too Tiberius' reign was a period when the security of those with property increased, through the continuing development of Roman jurisprudence by the so-called 'schools' of jurists whose legal opinions were backed by the emperor's authority. In comparison, Tiberius' own absence from the courtrooms of Rome will have made little difference, though it made life more difficult for those who sought privileges (and would have to travel to Campania) and was a major reason for the emperor's increasing unpopularity. Claudius attacked 'the constant absence of my uncle' in a surviving edict.[418]

It is less clear how much attention he devoted to providing good government for provincials; although he was credited with telling Aemilius Rectus, a later prefect of Egypt, that 'good governors shear their sheep, they do not strip them', there is no reason for believing that he took a personal interest in initiating accusations against governors for corruption, or that the reason why he left his legates in charge of the same province for years on end was that this would make them less greedy. Poppaeus Sabinus served as legate of Moesia from a.d. 1 i unul 3 5. Tiberius himself complained to the Senate about the unwillingness of consulars to accept their obligation to govern distant provinces. Nevertheless the old emperor was clearly afraid that change might mean trouble; Augustus too had kept governors on in their respective commands after the crisis of a.d. 9. One reason why a legate might be left in charge of an army was that Tiberius feared that he would rebel if he tried to recall him: the governor of the upper Rhine army, Lentulus Gaetulicus, is reported to have come to an unofficial arrangement whereby he promised to cause no trouble for Tiberius so long as he was not recalled. Gaetulicus must have calculated, rightly, that Tiberius' reign would soon be over. But where the good of the Republic required it, Tiberius was still capable of taking decisions. In a.d. 35 Lucius Vitellius was sent to Syria as legate, to intervene in the affairs of Armenia by imposing a Roman nominee, Tiridates, on the throne.[419]

Despite his firm belief that he would live for another ten years,

Tiberius died on 16 March a.d. 37 at Misenum, while on a journey back to the capital. The following day was the feast of the Liberalia, traditionally one of the days suitable for bestowing the toga virilis on a boy. If Tiberius had intended to perform this ceremony for Gemellus before presenting him to the Senate and people at Rome as his heir, then his death was remarkably opportune for Caligula. The inevitable rumour had it that Caligula and Macro helped Tiberius on his way by smothering him with a pillow. In any case Gemellus was still a child, and in no position to stop Caligula from taking command of the domus Caesaris.

iii. gaius caligula28

The popular rejoicing that greeted the news of Tiberius' death was not just a reaction against an unpopular princeps who in his last years had failed to provide Rome with his presence and consequently with the public shows and other beneficia that a Roman ruler owed his supporters. There was also a positive welcome for the Principate of Caligula, the surviving son of Germanicus, a man who had been destined by Augustus to be head of the domus Caesaris only to be robbed of his expectations by premature death. On 18 March, two days after Tiberius' death, the Senate met and acclaimed Caligula, and Caligula alone, as emperor. Caligula and Macro hastened to Rome ahead of Tiberius' body; they arrived on 28 March, and Caligula attended a meeting of the Senate which confirmed his position (there is no need to assume that he had made a pretence of refusing the imperial acclamation of 18 March).29 It was probably at this point that Tiberius' will was produced; in accord­ance with normal Roman custom, he had instituted his two grandsons, natural and adopted, as equal heirs. But the domus Caesaris was not a normal household; its formal division between the two brothers - which was what the will required — would have had disastrous political results, even if it had been possible in practice. There was no precedent at Rome for one household to be headed by twopatresfamilias. Only in the time of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus in the 160s a.d. would the position of 'Caesar' become sufficiently recognizable as a public office to make the concept of a college of equal emperors feasible. In any case Gemellus was still a child and could hold no public office. Caligula alone was recognized as Tiberius' heir. As a standard justification for the setting aside of the will, it was declared that Tiberius had been insane.

я Tacitus does not survive for Caligula: we have Dio ux and Suet. Calig. The acta of the Arval Brethren survive for the period January 58 to June 40 (= GCN 1-11). Caligula's personality continues to attract interpretations in terms of psychosis. The most far-reaching attempt at a rehabilitation remains Balsdon 1934 (c 331). For a conservative account, see Barrett 1989 (c 333).

n Timpe 1962 (c 403)', for date of acclamation and recusatio, Jakobson and Cotton 198) (c 358).

Communities and officials in East and West swore their loyalty to Caligula and to his domus. Caligula's speech at Tiberius' funeral on 3 April emphasized that he was Germanicus' son, and proclaimed a return to the style of Augustus. Although the dead emperor's apotheosis was duly reported, as Augustus' had been, he was too unpopular for the Senate to grant him divine honours. (The mint at Lyons erroneously struck aurei and denarii depicting Tiberius as divine.) Caligula promised formally to adopt Gemellus and honoured him as princeps iuventutis. This both labelled him as too young to be a serious alternative to Caligula, and removed any justification his supporters might have for resentment against the emperor.[420]

The immediate requirement if the new regime was to establish itself was the distribution of beneficia to Romans of all classes. Tiberius' will had promised the praetorians a donative of 5 00 sesterces each; by giving them twice as much, Caligula set the precedent that the loyalty of the guard should be bought by their new imperator, instead of being rewarded by the old one at his death. The fact that sesterces representing the emperor addressing his praetorian cohorts appear to have been produced throughout his reign suggests that these donatives were repeated. Caligula also demonstrated his care for the people; inscriptions confirm that 75 sesterces were distributed to the entire citizen population of Rome on 1 June and 19 July. In pointed contrast to Tiberius, Caligula spared no expense in providing the plebs with games; the very first privilege he requested from the Senate was for permission to exceed the statutory number of gladiators. He is also said to have returned the right to elect praetors to the comitia. What that meant in practice was that potential candidates for the praetorship — notably the aediles - would try to win popularity by putting on much more lavish games than they had needed to under Tiberius. Caligula also inaugurated a grandiose pro­gramme of public building, on the Palatine hill and elsewhere, to make up for Tiberius' years of neglect. It will have been these plans, rather than the distributions of cash (which cannot have come to more than 150 million sesterces) that lie behind the accusadon that Caligula squandered the 2.7 billion sesterces reported to have been left by Tiberius.

At the same time, Caligula did what he could to win the support of the upper classes; he refused the title pater patriae on the grounds that he was too young, recalled exiles, and made a public show of burning Tiberius' private papers without (he claimed, falsely) having read the contents. An early sestertius with the legend 'For Citizens Saved' advertises his claim to have restored the security of the law. The backlog of legal business for which Tiberius' absence from Rome was blamed was tackled by adding a fifth panel of jurors and allowing magistrates' sentences to be carried out without the need for imperial confirmation.31

The new emperor's policy towards client kings should also be seen primarily as an attempt to ensure that the network of hellenistic rulers which was an integral part of the Roman empire had close personal links with the reigning Caesar. The fact that some of them were related to Caligula through Antony, and some had been brought up together with him in the house of Antonia the Younger, also helped to bind them and their territorial resources to him; but the great-grandson of Antony had no grand plan to resolve the conflict between East and West.32 The three Thracian princes, Cotys, Polemo and Rhoemetalces, to whom he granted the kingdoms of Lesser Armenia, Pontus and eastern Thrace, were probably cousins. The son of the last king of Commagene was given back his father's kingdom, plus the taxes extracted by the Romans over the intervening twenty years. The Jewish prince Marcus Iulius Agrippa (usually known as Herod Agrippa I) was also presented with extensive domains. We should be sceptical of later accusations that these kings trained Caligula in the ways of oriental (ie. hellenistic) despotism.

Caligula was particularly keen to draw attention to his family relationships in order to stress that (by implication, unlike Tiberius) he deserved loyalty because he was a Caesar by descent and not just by adoption. He went in person to bring back to Rome the ashes of his exiled mother and brother Nero for interment in the mausoleum built for the Caesars by Augustus. Coins show his mother Agrippina and grandfather Agrippa, his brothers Nero and Drusus on horseback, and his sisters Agrippina, Drusilla and lulia Livilla holding the attributes of 'Security', 'Concord' and 'Good Fortune'. The three sisters were given the honours due to Vestal Virgins. Caligula's uncle, Claudius (who had not been adopted into the imperial household), was honoured as befitted Germanicus' brother; he became Caligula's colleague in his first consul­ship, held from 1 July to 31 August (so as not to impair the respect due to the regular consuls). The memory of Livia was also honoured: Caligula began the construction of a temple and cult, voted but never undertaken at her death. When his grandmother Antonia died on 1 May, the prestige of the imperial family was emphasized again by the grant of similar honours.

The losers were those who had supported Tiberius. It is hardly

» ADLOCVT СОН, OB CIVES SERVATOS. For Caligula's coinage, cf. Sutherland 1987 (в }j8) chs. 26-9; GCN 81-6. Congiaria: Fasti Ostienses= GCN 31 = AN 174. Building programme: Thornton 1989 (p 594). The 2.7 billion sesterces was perhaps the value of the patrimoniunr. Suet. Ca/ig. 37.3.

12 Ceaujescu 1973 (c 337) (at a time when Rumania was seeking to play a similar role as mediator between East and West). Cf. Sherk 42; Braund 1984 (c 254) 41-6; Sullivan 1983 (e 1224) (Judaea).

surprising that Gemellus was soon required to commit suicide on the charge of having taken an antidote, ie. implicitly accusing Caligula of wanting to poison him. Caligula executed Tiberius' long-term associate Marcus Iunius Silanus (cos. a.d. i 5), the father of his deceased wife Iunia Claudilla, and presumably a supporter of Gemellus. Caligula accused him of attempting a coup while he was away, possibly during his trip to recover his mother's ashes. Macro, too, soon met his end: Caligula had no intention of making the mistake of being as dependent upon him as Tiberius had been on Sejanus. It is interesting that while later tradition accuses Caligula of having been too friendly with client kings, there are no references to his being under the influence of his freedmen or even prefects: Caligula did not shift the responsibility for his own actions onto others.

The way in which Caligula built up support and eliminated potential opposition shows that the new emperor had learnt a great deal from Tiberius. These executions also suggest that attempts to divide his reign into a 'good' beginning followed by unremitting atrocities, or even lunacy, are misplaced. It is useless to date the turning-point to before the death of Antonia (two months after his accession), an illness in the autumn of a.d. 37 which is supposed to have affected his brain, or the death of his sister Drusilla on 10 June 38. (According to the ancient sources, Drusilla was so dear to him that he was accused of incest with her, and modern historians have suggested that she was a 'restraining influence' on him.) We cannot judge how genuine Caligula's affection for his sisters was; but it is clear that he knew from the start that their children, and their husbands, were his rivals. We are told that when his sister Agrippina and her husband, Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, had a son on 15 December 3 7, Caligula insultingly suggested that he be named after Claudius. The death of Ahenobarbus in 39 meant that Agrippina and her child — the later Nero — were not an immediate threat.

Drusilla was married to Lucius Cassius Longinus; Caligula gave her instead to Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, member of one of the wealthiest surviving republican dynasties, long associated with Augustus' family.33 His father (cos. a.d. 6) was one of those allegedly described by Augustus as suitable for imperial office (see p. 204f. above); he was related to the younger Iulia's husband Aemilius Paullus, exiled in a.d. 8; and his sister Aemilia Lepida had been the wife of Caligula's brother Drusus. Caligula trusted Lepidus to the extent that they were said to have been homosex­ual lovers, and more significantly he gave his seal-ring to Lepidus during his serious illness in a.d. 37 — the customary sign that Lepidus, as Drusilla's husband, was to administer the household if Caligula were to die without issue.

33 Syme 1970 (в 178) ch. 4; 1986 (a 95); PIR.

When Drusilla died, Caligula had her deified (23 September 38).There was nothing un-Roman about her cult: as a Julian, she was associated with Venus, the ancestor of the Iulii. The title 'Panthea' associated her with the Magna Mater, but that cult too (notwithstanding its hellenistic origins) had been at home in Rome for over two centuries. And there was nothing 'oriental' about the new goddess' elephant-drawn biga (male divi like Augustus had their image drawn by a quadriga of elephants), nor about the requirement that Roman women should swear by Drusilla (Claudius made the women of his household swear by the diva Livia).

The deification of Drusilla raises the question of whether Caligula had a 'religious policy', wanting to be adored as a god in the style of hellenistic monarchs. 'Emperor-worship' can no longer be dismissed as an irrational oriental superstition (see ch. 16 for a discussion of the various cults); if Caligula saw himself, or his office, as divine, then this was an attempt to express the reality of his position as a mediator between the Roman community and the world of the gods. It was not fantastic to express this position as analogous to that of Hercules, the man whose labours made him divine (and, like later emperors with a special devotion to Hercules, Caligula liked to be seen as a gladiator, imposing law and order upon wild beasts and criminals), nor strange to commune with Jupiter. That monotheism made it impossible for the Jews to accept the emperor as divine in this sense was beyond the comprehension of Caligula, as of so many other Romans. Recent excavations suggest that some anecdotes about Caligula's claims to divinity (eg. that Castor and Pollux were his 'doorkeepers') were based on his building activities on and around the Palatine.34

A number of the peculiar stories told about Caligula suggest that, more clearly than other emperors, he saw that the emperor's role symbolized the struggle of man against nature. Although unable to swim, he seems to have been particularly keen to impose his will upon the sea: according to Suetonius' grandfather, the astrologer Thrasyllus had once told Tiberius that Caligula had no more chance of being emperor than of riding a horse across the sea. To refute him, he built a bridge of boats from Baiae to Puteoli and rode across. Soon after his accession he braved the elements to sail to the island of Planasia, where his mother and brother had died in exile, in order to demonstrate his piety towards them; and control over the Ocean also featured in his military expeditions. In a successful emperor, such attempts to control nature were divine, but — like Xerxes' bridge over the Hellespont - they might also be the acts of a tyrant. It is not surprising that Caligula is reported to have suffered from nightmares in which he pitted himself against the Mediterranean Sea.

34 Buildings and religion: Wiseman 1987 (e 140); Barrett 1989 (c 553) ch. 13.

Sexual licence was another characteristic of the typical tyrant. Stories of incest and homosexuality have to be understood as representing Caligula's tight political control over his family, and over others who might threaten him. We are told that he intervened to prevent a marriage between C. Calpurnius Piso (the man who was to lead the conspiracy of a.d. 65) and Livia Orestilla, presumably a relative of Livia's; he slept with her himself, to ensure that, if there were any children, it would not be clear that they were Piso's. Caligula took steps to control other Pisones, too. When Lucius Piso (consul in 27, and urban prefect under Tiberius) was proconsul of Africa in 39/40, he felt it necessary to remove the Third Legion from the proconsul's command (a decision which later emperors did not think it politic to rescind).

The threats represented by his sisters as well as by more distant relatives would be much less immediate if Caligula had a child of his own. In 38, he married Lollia Paulina, the granddaughter of Augustus' general (and Tiberius' enemy) the consul of 21 в.с. Paulina did not please Caligula, and she was divorced after a year (but survived to rival Agrippina for the hand of Claudius). His last wife was Milonia Caesonia, whose mother Vistilia was famous for marrying six husbands in succession; one of Caesonia's stepfathers, Cnaeus Domitius Corbulo (father of Nero's general), was given a suffect consulship in 39. Caesonia provided Caligula with a daughter, lulia Drusilla; he was delighted, and his position vis-a-vis potential successors was greatly strengthened. Marcus Lepidus was no longer the heir-apparent, and could be dispensed with.

In the autumn of 39, Caligula claimed to have uncovered a major conspiracy to replace him with Lepidus; although the exact sequence of events is impossible to reconstruct, it is clear that he acted swiftly and decisively. He publicized the striking failure of the consuls to offer prayers on his behalf on his birthday on 31 August. Cnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, consul in a.d. 26 and in command of the upper Rhine legions since 30, could be represented as constituting a military threat. Caligula gave orders for a major military force to be concentrated in Upper Germany, and marched north himself with the praetorians (he pretended that the object of the expedition was to levy Batavians for his personal bodyguard). Lentulus Gaetulicus' own legions were overawed by the display of imperial might, and he was executed; a considerable number of tribunes and centurions had to be retired.

Caligula had kept Lepidus, Agrippina and Livilla by his side during this expedition. Lepidus was now formally tried and executed; corre­spondence was produced incriminating both sisters, and Caligula sent to Rome three daggers with which he claimed they had intended to kill him. Agrippina and Livilla were condemned on the standard charge of adultery, and exiled. In a parody of the return of their grandfather Drusus' and father Germanicus' ashes to Rome, Caligula forced Agrip­pina to return bearing those of her 'lover' Lepidus. The future emperor Vespasian, who was praetor in that year, distinguished himself by his attacks on Agrippina in the Senate. The records of the Arval Brethren inform us that on 27 October 39, the promagister L. Salvius Otho sacrificed in thanksgiving for the unmasking of the conspiracy. The deaths of Calvisius Sabinus (the legate of Pannonia) and his wife at about the same time may have been connected with the conspiracy, pretended or real.35

Caligula's visit to the Rhine legions provided him with an opportunity to enhance his status by winning military glory. The first imperative was to regain the loyalty of the Rhine army. Gaetulicus' replacement was Lepidus' brother-in-law Servius Sulpicius Galba; his friendship with Caligula will have dated to the period when Caligula lived in Livia's household. Galba restored strict standards of discipline to the legions, and Caligula himself led a number of expeditions across the Rhine. They were not obviously less successful in reasserting Roman prestige in the eyes of the German tribes than his father Germanicus' had been in a.d. 14-16. It is only because of Caligula's own unpopularity that our ancient sources with one accord decry them as artificial and unreal, accusing Caligula of cowardice, and suggesting that he fabricated the fighting, and bought or kidnapped the captives in Gaul, where he spent the winter.

Accounts of Caligula's activities at Lyons during the winter empha­size his bad relations with the Senate, and his need for funds. The property of Gallic notables was confiscated, as well as senatorial estates in Italy (eg. those of Sextus Pompeius, cos. a.d. 14); he auctioned off the property of his exiled sisters, and even some of the effects of the imperial household. Such anecdotes illustrate the fiscal requirements of policies that were themselves likely to strengthen the regime. Coins advertise the abolition of the \ percent sales tax on slaves, which will have been welcome to wealthy Italians; the tax had already been reduced from 1 per cent by Tiberius, at the time when Germanicus had overseen the annexation of Cappodocia. To make up for the lost income, Caligula will have looked for another client kingdom to integrate into the empire. His choice fell on Mauretania, whose king, Caligula's cousin Ptolemy, was summoned to Lyons and executed (not, as has been suggested, because Caligula coveted his alleged position as high priest of the Isis cult).36

и Lepidus and Gaetulicus: Meise 1969(0 5 75) ch. 5; Simpson 1980(0 394); Acta Arvalium,GCN 9. For Vespasian's role, Jones 1984 (c 560).

36 Ptolemy and Mauretania: Fishwick 1971 (e 732); Braund 1984 (c 254); Hoffman 1959 (c 275) (Isis). Coins advertising tax reduction ('RCC'): Sutherland 1987 (в 358) ch. 19. Victory over the Ocean: Suet. Calig. 46; Dio ux.25.

But Caligula was also planning to follow in the footsteps of his ancestor Iulius Caesar by imposing Roman military control over Britain. The expulsion from his kingdom and flight to Gaul of Cunobelinus' son Adminius gave Rome an excuse to intervene. Two new legions (the Fifteenth and Twenty-second) seem to have been raised at this time; they were called Primigeniae, probably in honour of the emperor's first-born daughter. Their numbers suggest that they were intended to be twinned with two of the upper Rhine legions, the Fourteenth at Mainz and Twenty-first at Vindonissa, an indication of Caligula's caution regarding the loyalty of Gaetulicus' old army. Other preparations for the invasion included the construction of a lighthouse at Boulogne. Again, the ancient sources argue that Caligula was far too great a coward to have been serious about invading Britain; and anecdotes about the operation are selected with a view to suggesting that the whole affair was further proof of his madness. It is impossible to judge why the army never embarked. The story that Caligula intended to punish the legions by decimation suggests that there may have been a mutiny (he is said to have reminded them of the mutiny of their predecessors after Augustus' death, in which as a baby he had been taken away to Trier by Agrippina); alternatively, the Bridsh chieftains may have acceded to his demands without the need for an invasion. If there is any truth behind Suetonius' story that Caligula ordered his troops to collect seashells in the context of military operations either on the north German coast or against Britain, it may be that he meant these shells to be a symbol of his victory over the Ocean. (An unlikely alternative explanation has been that the musculi he ordered the troops to pack up were not sea-shells, but siege engines.)

Caligula returned to Italy in the summer of a.d. 40. ТЪе winter in Lyons had not been conducive to good relations with the Senate. Communications were a problem; when one of the consuls-elect died shortly before 1 January, there was not enough time for Caligula to be consulted about a replacement, and he was (very unreasonably) blamed for entering office without a colleague — perhaps the context of the story about his wishing to appoint the horse Incitatus to the consulship. There had been executions, such as that of the father of Tacitus' father-in-law Agricola. After the removal of Lepidus, any relative represented a threat, even his uncle Claudius. He was said to have thrown Claudius into the river Rhine when he arrived at the head of a senatorial delegation sent to congratulate him on the elimination of Lepidus and Gaetulicus.

Caligula remained outside Rome for a time, possibly simply to avoid the unhealthy summer months, rather than out of fear of conspiracies (although he is said to have remarked that he wished he could eliminate the entire Senate at a stroke). We should beware of taking Seneca's hostile remarks, or the later justifications for his murder, as evidence for widespread unpopularity. It is hardly surprising that Cassius Chaerea and the other disgruntled praetorian officers responsible for Caligula's death and the brutal killing of his wife and baby daughter on 24 January a.d. 41 should have justified their treason by claiming that it was tyrannicide. No doubt Chaerea was genuinely unhappy about Caligula's persecution of other members of Germanicus' family, but it also irked him that the emperor kept drawing attention to Chaerea's effeminate tone of voice.

IV. CLAUDIUS37

Most ancient sources treat Claudius as a fool who became emperor by accident. Already in Seneca's satire the Apocolocyntosis, written some months after Claudius' death, he is represented as vicious, stupid and fearful. It may not have been entirely Claudius' fault that he executed some two hundred equestrians and thirty-five senators, including many of his relatives, during a reign of just over thirteen years. But we should not be too keen to rehabilitate Claudius in the face of the judgment of antiquity. Nor should all Claudius' acts be ascribed to a grandiose and far-seeing overall 'policy', when many can be explained as particular responses to standard political threats. Claudius' 'policy' was above all that of any other Roman princeps-. staying alive, controlling the succes­sion, rewarding clients and winning glory - even though the form it took may have been influenced by traditions about the Claudii, and by his respect for Iulius Caesar.

The reported views of Augustus, of Claudius' grandmother Livia and his mother Antonia the Younger as to his unsuitability for public office should not be ignored. A public position was not something automati­cally inherited at Rome; it was something that each individual had to prove himself fit for. Neither Augustus nor Tiberius felt that Claudius was suitable for election to office, and he had remained an eques. Although he had been granted some honours by Tiberius, on the rare occasions when he appeared on the political scene it was only in a private capacity - for example, to accompany his brother Germanicus' ashes on their return from the East - or as the representative of the equestrian ordo at Augustus' funeral and to congratulate Tiberius on the overthrow of Sejanus. Tiberius had no intention of allowing Claudius to inherit the political support of his brother Germanicus. Like other Romans excluded from politics, Claudius turned to intellectual pursuits, and in particular to the study of history. He wrote about Carthage and the Etruscans (many of his associates, including his first wife Plautia

37 Main literary sources: Tac. Ann. xi-xii, with Mehl 1974 (в 125); Dio lx; Suet. Claud.-, Sen. Apocol. Assessments: Momigliano 1954 (c 377); Levick 1978 (c 367); Levick 1990 (c 372).

Urgulanilla, had an Etruscan background). The effect has been to make him particularly sympathetic to modern historians, who see a fellow- worker in Claudius. More crucially, the mask of pedantry enabled him to survive Tiberius' reign.

At his accession, Caligula brought his uncle fully into public life as part of his attempt to strengthen his position by enhancing the respect due to his relatives. From i July to 12 September a.d. 37 Claudius was Caligula's colleague during his first consulship. In 39 he married his third wife, Valeria Messallina; her father was Claudius' cousin Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus, son of the consul of 12 в.с. and of Augustus' niece Marcella the Younger, and her mother was Domitia Lepida. Although Octavia and Britannicus were not born until 40/1, the possibility that his uncle might produce children who, unlike Antonia (Claudius' daughter by Urgulanilla), had Augustus' blood in their veins, cannot have pleased Caligula.

When Caligula was unexpectedly assassinated, there was no precedent for the form which the transfer of power to a new princeps should take. Of course, death might come suddenly to political leaders then as now, and it should not surprise us that potential claimants had contingency plans ready. The speed with which some of them acted does not prove that they were involved in Chaerea's plot. Once it was clear that Caligula's baby daughter had been killed with him, the obvious person to claim to inherit the domus Caesaris was Marcus Vinicius, husband of the exiled lulia Livilla (Caligula's other sister, Agrippina, was a widow). Where Vinicius erred was in turning to the Senate to confirm his position.38

The Senate was immediately summoned by the consul Quintus Pomponius Secundus: this need not indicate that he was privy to the plot. As a half-brother of Caesonia, he too had an interest in the succession. Later, after the Senate had failed to institute a Caesar of its own, it became politic for everyone, including the new emperor, to pretend that they had merely been acting in the public interest. The Senate debated the situation in the language of republicanism, and that language masked the ambitions of those involved. On the evening of the assassination, the hundred or so senators who had the courage to appear were in no mood to confirm Vinicius' claims. Instead, they celebrated the removal of a tyrant, and the consuls - for the first time since the establishment of the Principate — gave the urban cohorts their watch­word for the following day. But the celebradon of libertas did not exclude the search for a new .princeps-, the urban cohorts made it clear that that was what they wanted.

While the Senate debated, Claudius had taken control of the house-

38 Accounts of the succession crisis: Joseph. A] xix.248-73 = AN 194; Timpe 1962 (c 403); Swan 1970 (c 395); Jung 1972 (c 361); Ritter 1972 (в 151).

hold of the Caesars. Tradition had it that after Caligula's death he was found hiding in the palace by a guardsman who acclaimed him as emperor, and taken to the praetorian camp where he was recognized as the legitimate head of the Caesars. In strict law, that may not have been so; but Roman law also recognized the principle of possessio. The Praetor's Edict protected the rights of the person who was in actual control of an estate until such time as the appropriate court (in the case of inheritances, the centumviral court) had passed judgment on the question of ownership in accordance with strict iusQuiritium. 'Whether (possessio) existed or not was regarded as a question of fact, but if it existed, it conferred rights'.[421] It was certainly a fact that Claudius now had possessio.

Claudius was not a member of the Julian household; but his uncle Tiberius and his brother Germanicus had been adopted into it, and they and his nephew Caligula had headed, or been expected to head, that household. After his acclamation as their new imperator by the praetorian guard, Claudius immediately adopted the name Caesar, to show that he had inherited that household; the name did not imply any fictitious posthumous adoption, nor was it pre-empting the bestowal of a title (like that of 'Augustus') by the Senate. Nor was Claudius arrogating any constitutional powers to himself by calling himself Caesar. It represented the fact that Claudius was now Caligula's successor as head of the domus Caesaris. In the aftermath of the assassination no will was sought out that would have to be adhered to, like that of Augustus, or set aside, like that of Tiberius.

When the Senate reconvened on the following day, it was too late to recognize the claims of Marcus Vinicius or any other candidate. The consul Pomponius allowed other names to be considered, including those of Annius Vinicianus (who supported his uncle Vinicius) and Decimus Valerius Asiaticus, who had been an early adviser of Caligula and was married to a sister of Lollia Paulina. There were a number of other consulars who were related to the Julian family through descent or by marriage; they too might want a say in who was to head the domus Caesaris, but most of them happened to be away from Rome as provincial governors in January 41, and January was not a good time for communicating with Spain or the Rhine or Danube, nor for travel thence to Rome. Servius Sulpicius Galba, who had given Caligula such excellent support in the aftermath of Gaetulicus' rebellion and was now legate of the upper Rhine army, Aulus Plautius in Pannonia, Camillus Scribonianus in Dalmatia, and Appius Iunius Silanus in Tarraconensis, could not be consulted and could not intervene to affect the recognition of a new Caesar at Rome — even if their names may later have been mentioned as alternative candidates. In the end, the Senate summoned Claudius to discuss the situation. He politely pretended that the praetorians were keeping him against his will; but the consuls and other senators had to accept that the support of the praetorians for Claudius left them with no choice but to confirm his position.

Claudius' debt to the guard is reflected in his early coins. A gold aureus shows one of the first representations of a walled Roman camp with battlements, arched gateways, and a pair of columns supporting a pediment. A praetorian stands guard, and the inscription proclaims 'The Commander Received' [sc. into the guard's loyalty]. The other side of the special relationship between the new imperator and his soldiers is depicted by a bronze as with Claudius, in the civilian's toga, clasping hands with a soldier, and the inscription 'The Praetorians Received'. These issues were of course intended for the eyes of the guard, and were very probably the coins used to pay the unprecedented donative of 15,000 sesterces which Claudius had promised them at his elevation; we are told that he continued to give each soldier a payment of 100 sesterces annually throughout his reign.

Other coins celebrate decidedly non-military aspects of the image the new ruler wished to present of himself: there are representations of 'Augustan Liberty' holding a liberty-cap, and dedications 'To Augustan Peace' and 'Augustan Constancy'. A copper quadrans, listing the emper­or's new honours (including his designation to a second consulship, i.e. the consulship of 42), may refer to a decision to return to the traditional metal-content of the coinage, debased by Caligula. Some of Caligula's coins were ceremonially defaced. Like some of the coin-issues by means of which Caligula at his accession had distanced himself from Tiberius, Claudius wanted to emphasize a return to legality, and to the precedents set by Augustus. A sestertius depicts the oak wreath awarded 'For Citizens Saved'. Claudius was also anxious to stress the links between his Claudian relations and the Julian family. Early coins show his father, Drusus; his mother Antonia (given the title Augusta); and his brother Germanicus, formally 'son of Tiberius Augustus and grandson of the Divine Augustus'. Livia, too, was honoured; and the dedication of an altar to 'Augustan Piety' in c. a.d. 43 symbolized the new emperor's claim to be close to Augustus.40

One way to show that he intended his reign to be an improvement on Caligula's was by recalling those who had been exiled (as Caligula himself had done at his accession). Those who returned included Agrippina and lulia Livilla. The public honour Claudius bestowed upon

40 Coins: AN 187-8, 194; GCN 81-6; Sutherland 1987 (в )j8) chs. 30, 32.

his relatives did not mean that he could trust them. His fear of assassination was extreme (up to the last years of his reign, everyone who entered his presence was searched for weapons). Historians have expressed doubt about the extent to which Claudius' third wife Messal- lina was responsible for the executions of these early years of his reign. But many of those who threatened her threatened him too, and Claudius publicly thanked her for warning him against at least some of those he had put to death. Soon after her return, Iulia Livilla was exiled again and then executed. Agrippina fared better; her son Domitius Ahenobarbus returned to her care, and his property, confiscated by Caligula, was restored to him. Agrippina looked for the support of a new husband; her first choice was Livia's protege, Galba, but Galba's mother-in-law pointed out to him that that would make his claim to the imperial office so strong that he could not expect to survive for long. (She also made a point of slapping Agrippina's face in public.) Instead, Agrippina married C. Sallustius Passienus Crispus, the adopted son of Augustus' closest associates (see above pp. 202). As a new member of the imperial family, and potential father of Caesarian children, Crispus had to be honoured with a second consulship in a.d. 44; but he died soon after — poisoned by Agrippina, according to Suetonius - so that Messallina allowed Agrip­pina to survive.41

Claudius and Messallina also looked for support through matrimonial alliances. In 42 Appius Iunius Silanus was recalled from the governor­ship of Tarraconensis to marry Messallina's mother Domitia Lepida, daughter of Augustus' niece the elder Antonia. Claudius' daughter by Aelia Paetina, Antonia, was married to Pompeius Magnus, son of Marcus Licinius Crassus Frugi (cos. a.d. 27); through his mother Scribonia, he was related to Augustus. Claudius' two-year-old daughter by Messallina, Octavia, was engaged to Augustus' great-great-grandson Lucius Iunius Torquatus Silanus (the youngest son of the consul of a.d. 19, proconsul of Africa under Caligula: not closely related to Appius Silanus), aged about sixteen. Silanus was identified as a suitable succes­sor, sufficiently young to pose no immediate threat: he was made a vigintivir and praefectus urbiferiarum Latinarum causa. But the preference shown to Silanus naturally weakened the chances of others interested in the imperial office.

By and large Claudius was initially unsuccessful, or unlucky, in his attempts to build up a wide enough network of dependants to whom he had distributed bcneficia. Supporters appointed to client kingships included Mithridates in Lesser Armenia, and Agrippa in Judaea (the latter's role in the events following Caligula's assassination is empha-

41 Opposition: McAlindon 19(6(0 573), 19(7(0 374); Baldwin 1964(0 330); Meise 1969(0 375); Wiseman 1982 (в 198). Agrippina and Galba: Suet. Galba. 5.

sized by Josephus in his Antiquities')-, although Agrippa died in 44 after just three years, he was able to persuade Claudius to grant considerable beneficia to Jewish communities at Alexandria and elsewhere in the empire. As a reward for not challenging Claudius' possessio of the domus Caesaris, Marcus Vinicius was to be consul ordinarius for the second time in 45, and Valerius Asiaticus given a second consulship in 46.

Just under a year after his accession, on 12 January 42, it was felt that Claudius had distributed honours and offices to enough members of the political class to warrant accepting the title ofpater patriae. (He also held a consulship, his second, for two months at the beginning of this year.) This merely masked his weakness. After Caligula's assassination, those powerful governors who happened not to be in Rome accepted Claudius' elevation as a fait accompli. But Claudius' political inexperience and lack of military virtus gave those who considered themselves more suitably qualified a temptation to act. Galba and Aulus Plautius remained loyal; Appius Silanus and Camillus Scribonianus did not. Appius Silanus may have judged that if Claudius were out of the way, he, as the husband of Octavia's grandmother Domitia Lepida, would be in a doubly strong position to gain recognition as Caesar. The weak point in his calculation was that there was no love lost between Messallina and her mother. Backed by the libertus Narcissus, Messallina informed Claudius of Silanus' ambitions, and Claudius tried and convicted Silanus, not in public but in his domestic court, the consilium of his amici.

The execution of Silanus was a sign of Claudius' insecurity as well as of his readiness to eliminate rivals. The legate of Dalmatia, Lucius Arruntius Furius Camillus Scribonianus (adopted son of Lucius Arrun- tius, one of those who, according to Tacitus, had been thought worthy of the Principate by Augustus), calculated that his chances of survival would be better if he made a bid for empire himself. Scribonianus commanded two legions, the Seventh and Eleventh, and his attempt was supported by a number of figures in Rome who had failed to respond positively to Claudius' acclamation in the previous year. They included Lucius Annius Vinicianus and the consul who had summoned the Senate, Quintus Pomponius Secundus. Our sources tell us that Claudius seriously discussed the advisability of surrendering his imperium to Scribonianus. Unfortunately for Scribonianus, he felt himself unable at this stage to declare himself emperor — either because he waited for confirmation from his supporters in the Senate, or because he was hoping for support from other provincial commanders such as Galba and Aulus Plaudus. These commanders had no interest in forsaking Claudius for another emperor; and after a few days, the two Dalmatian legions abandoned Scribonianus. It was claimed that the legionary standards had become stuck in the ground as a sign of divine anger at their disloyalty. Scribonianus killed himself, and those of his supporters at Rome who did not were executed.

Claudius' third consulship in a.d. 43 was again a sign of weakness rather than strength. During these first years of his reign, he had to make every effort to ensure that he was popular with the Roman plebs — apart from staging games and spectacles, he initiated some major building operations, some of them directly raising the living standards of the Roman population. They included the draining of the Fucine lake, to provide much-needed agricultural land in the vicinity of the capital, a new aqueduct, and the construction of a safe harbour at Ostia. A riot early in his reign made it clear to Claudius that, since the time of Iulius Caesar, the supervision of the corn supply was one of the ruler's principal functions. Another was the supervision of the judicial system; particu­larly during his tenure of consular office. Claudius made himself visibly available in the law-courts. Even hostile sources (who dwell on his tendency to ignore the law in favour of so-called 'equity') had to admit that he was serious in his desire to be seen to be a hard-working judge.

In terms of the qualities required of a Roman imperator, Claudius' major weakness, like that of Caligula when he had come to power, was that he had no military experience. This explains his almost obsessive need to advertise any military success achieved during his reign; Claudius chose to accept twenty-seven imperatorial acclamations, more than any other emperor. Even in his first year, coins showed off a triumphal arch with trophies won by his father Drusus 'from the Germans'. Soon there were genuine military successes. In Mauretania, Suetonius Paulinus dealt successfully with a war against nomad tribes that had arisen out of Caligula's removal of King Ptolemy and impo­sition of direct Roman rule (see chapter 13/ on Africa). Paulinus' successors completed the process of pacification; it gave Claudius the opportunity to honour Marcus Crassus Frugi, both a central figure of the old aristocracy and the father-in-law of Antonia. Crassus was now awarded triumphal ornamenta for finishing off the war effectively won by the novus homo Suetonius Paulinus.

Claudius reserved for himself the glory of conquering Britain. Ever since the time of Iulius Caesar, Britain, as an island in the Ocean, had had a symbolic importance for Romans: its conquest would indicate that not just the whole world, but even lands beyond the edge of the world, were subject to the dominion of the Roman people. The occupation of Britain would have the additional benefit of removing several legions from within striking distance of Rome: Caligula's new legions had raised the number in each of the German armies to five, and that made their commanders too powerful.

Claudius felt that he could trust the Pannonian governor, Aulus

Plautius, to undertake the actual military operation. Son of an officer of Claudius' father Drusus and brother Germanicus, Plautius had remained loyal during Scribonianus' rebellion, and he was a cousin of Claudius' first wife (although he had divorced Urgulanilla, Claudius is said to have remained on good terms with her). The other person Claudius trusted was Lucius Vitellius, the consul of 34, son of a mere eques but with two consular brothers. Loyal supporters of Germanicus, Vitellius and his brothers had returned to prominence during Tiberius' last years because of the support of Caligula's grandmother (and Claudius' mother) Antonia. Vitellius held a second consulship in 43, and Claudius entrusted the capital to his care for the duration of the expedition.

There were few others he trusted not to plot in his absence: a large number of senators had to accompany him. It was even said that Claudius put off the voyage to Britain by a few days because Galba claimed that he was too ill to travel. Galba was one consular Claudius could not afford to leave behind. Among others in the party were both Valerius Asiaticus and Marcus Vinicius. The Britons themselves pre­sented considerably fewer problems (see chapter 1 $e), and the resultant triumph enabled Claudius to distribute the ornamenta triumpbalia to all those consulars he brought with him, thus putting them under a stronger obligation to be loyal. For much of the rest of the reign, Claudius ensured that no one would forget the symbolic success of carrying the frontiers of the empire beyond the Ocean; coins advertised trophies won 'from the Britons'. An inscription dating to c. a.d. 51/2 and probably originating from his triumphal arch alludes to 'the surrender of eleven British kings without loss', and asserts that 'he was the first to subject to the rule of the Roman people barbarian tribes beyond the Ocean'. During his fourth consulship in a.d. 49, Claudius extended thepomerium of the city to demonstrate his success in extending the empire.42

But the integration of Mauretania, south-east Britain, and also Lycia- Pamphylia during these years did not imply a 'policy' of general expansion, in contrast to that initiated by Tiberius. Military adventures can be seen as a function of a weak emperor's need to buttress his gloria. There could be no question of allowing other commanders such military gloria. The imperial legate in Lower Germany, Cn. Domitius Corbulo (half-brother of Caligula's wife Caesonia), took action to suppress raids into Gaul by a Chaucian chieftain, Gannascus, in 47; Claudius had to restrain him from proceeding with operations along the Frisian coast.[422]

While the administrative measures of these years can be seen primarily as responses to Claudius' political weakness, the form they took suggests that Claudius was keen to represent himself as following in the footsteps of the Claudii of old, and - like Caligula - of Iulius Caesar. This lay behind the policy of extending Roman citizenship to the provinces, and looking after the interests of the army. Serving soldiers were granted the legalprivilegia maritorum. Claudius was also anxious to retain the support of the Roman plebs. When he released some of the quaestors from their archaic obligations as prefects of Ostia and 'Gaul' (possibly Senonian Gaul, the region south of Rimini), it was not so much as part of a 'policy of centralization', but rather — so Suetonius tells us — so that young men interested in a political career could pay more attention to providing the plebs with games. As far as the propertied classes were concerned, an emperor's chief function was to ensure that the law courts functioned swiftly and effectively. Service as 'jurors' ('lay judges' might be a better translation) was irksome, but essential for the peaceful ordering of citizen society; Claudius reduced the age at which equestrians were required to present themselves for such service from twenty-five to twenty-four. More courts required more presidents, and one of the reasons for the transfer in a.d.44 of responsibility for the aerarium Saturni from two of the praetors to a pair of titular quaestors, selected by the emperor himself for a term of three years, will have been to make these praetors available for court service. Certainly there is nothing sinister in the fact that the two new quaestors were the emperor's personal appointees: by this stage no magistrate was elected to office without the implicit support of the princeps, and an emperor who did not personally select the men who were to look after the state treasury would have been curiously negligent of his responsibilities. We need not ascribe any conscious policy of centralization to Claudius; centralization was impli­cit in the patronage system of the Principate.

The important role that ex-slaves were said to have played in Claudius' household is more interesting, and should not be dismissed entirely as hostile propaganda. Claudius had had little experience of politics, even during the reign of Caligula. He depended for advice on amici of his family like Aulus Plautius and Lucius Vitellius, and on freedmen such as Narcissus, the ab epistulis (secretary for correspondence), Pallas, the a rationibus (keeper of accounts), Callistus, the a libellis (petitions), and Polybius, the a studiis (perhaps a speech-writer). But it does not follow that Claudius was systematically creating departments of state, or using his own dependants instead of freeborn citizens as part of a conscious 'policy' of rationalizing or controlling everything that was going on. During the Julio-Claudian period, men of wealth and standing were not yet as prepared as they later were to serve the emperor in a subordinate capacity. Freedmen were not only obedient, but also expendable; it might be politic for a weak emperor to blame unpopular measures on his ex-slaves - or his wives. (For the imperial court, see chapter 7.)

One area in which Claudius was keen to demonstrate the 'democratic' tradition he had inherited both from the Claudii and from Iulius Caesar was the distribution of corn to the urban population. Responsibility was transferred from the aerarium to the fiscus; legal privileges were granted to importers of grain; there were changes in the system of distribution - to bring an end to the crush which had taken place once a month, eligible citizens were given tickets telling them on which day of the month to collect their allocation. The fact that it was the emperor, not the Roman state, who ensured that people did not starve, was symbolized by the fact that distributions were now undertaken by an imperial procurator (the de Minucid), though there is no positive evidence that the senatorialpraefecti frumenti dandt were formally abolished; the post had in any case largely been a sinecure. The personal role of the emperor and his family in looking after their dependent people by ensuring the proper functioning of the corn supply is shown by its use to publicize the succession. In 45, Octavia's betrothed, Lucius Silanus, represented Claudius at the distri­bution of largesse.

Coins and inscriptions confirm the emperor's personal interest in providing his people with 'Augustan grain' and fresh water. Apart from constructing the Aqua Claudia, Claudius instituted a second gang of slaves to look after Rome's aqueducts. He took equally seriously his patronal responsibilities to protect the people from fire and flood damage. An inscription shows that the canal he had dug in the lower reaches of the Tiber as part of the works associated with the construction of new harbour facilities at Ostia was not only intended to assist navigation, but also advertised as having the result that 'he freed the city from the danger of flooding'.44

Claudius was consul yet again in 47. Together with Vitellius, he also held the first formal census for over thirty years. This again was a way of honouring his supporters, and seeking the support of potential oppo­nents. A large number of new senators owed their position to Claudius; and many families which had played a political role for two or three generations were raised to patrician status. Of course, we should not exclude completely a genuine feeling for past tradition as one of Claudius' motives in wanting to hold the ancient office of censor, and ensuring that there were patricians to carry on archaic religious rituals.

That Claudius had genuine antiquarian interests is clear from the speech in which he defended his decision to allow Gallic aristocrats who were Roman citizens to stand for political office and join the Senate. The speech is summarized by Tacitus, and fragments survive from a copy set up at Lyons.45 When the census was completed in 48, the consul Lucius Vipstanus Poplicola duly suggested that Claudius should be granted the tide pater senatus-, that was rejected - it would have defined the relationship of dependence of all senators on the emperor too clearly for comfort.

In the same year, he arranged a series of magnificent spectacles associated with the ceremony of the ludi saeculares, the date of which he had himself re-calculated so as to coincide with the eighth centenary of the foundation of Rome. They included a performance of the 'Troy game'; it was noted that when Britannicus, aged six, and Claudius' grand-nephew, Agrippina's son the nine-year-old Domitius Ahenobar­bus, led the two groups, it was Domitius, as a descendant of Germanicus, who won most applause. But notwithstanding his descent, Domitius was still too young to be considered by Claudius a potential transitional ruler to fill the gap until Britannicus was old enough to succeed. One suitable candidate for this caretaker role was Antonia's husband Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus. The likeliest immediate successor to Claudius was still Lucius Silanus, who had been elected praetor peregrinus in this year (ten years or so before the normal age). The prominence of the Silani in these years can also be deduced from the fact that Lucius' brother Marcus Iunius Silanus had been consul ordinarius for the entire twelve months of the year 46.

The year 48 also saw the last major threat to Claudius' rule, an attempt by his wife Messallina to replace him. Responsibility for the removal of a number of potential rivals both inside and outside the imperial house­hold is ascribed to her by our sources: they include Germanicus' daughter lulia Livilla and C. Appius Iunius Silanus in 42; Tiberius' granddaughter lulia (wife or widow of Rubellius Blandus) in 43; powerful senators such as Catonius Iustus in 43; Marcus Vinicius in 46, and Valerius Asiaticus in 47. Also in 47, the husband of Claudius' daughter Antonia, Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus, was executed, together with the parents through whom he derived descent from Pompey and Crassus. Antonia was re-assigned to Faustus Sulla, a son of Domitia Lepida: as Messallina's half-brother, he was no threat to her. In at least some of these cases, the blame may be assigned to Messallina. She had a claim to Julian blood in her own right, and was building up a power base for herself and her two children. But her plans threatened not just Claudius' daughter Antonia, but also many of the servants of the domus « ILS 212 = GCN 369 = AN 570; cf. Griffin 1982 (в 237).

Caesaris. The freedmen Narcissus and Mnester organized the opposition to her; she was accused of planning - or perhaps actually carrying out — a divorce, followed by a remarriage to the patrician Gaius Silius, who would presumably rule Rome as her consort until Britannicus was old enough to take over. Claudius was convinced of the truth of these allegations, and Narcissus had Messallina executed.46

Although Messallina's plot was suppressed, it again underlined the weakness of Claudius' rule. Despite his promise to the praetorians never to have anything to do with women, another matrimonial alliance was essential to put an end to speculation about the succession. There were several possible candidates. Lollia Paulina, who had been married to Caligula, was supported by Callistus, who had served that emperor. Antonia's mother Aelia Paetina had been married to Claudius before, and was descended from an ancient republican family. Agrippina was the most direct descendant of Augustus. Her candidature was strongly opposed by the freedman Narcissus, who saw that it would be the end of Britannicus' chances of succeeding. Agrippina was selected, thanks to the support of Antonius Pallas, who had been the trusted procurator of Claudius' and Germanicus' mother Antonia. Vitellius was given the task of asking the Senate to set aside the legal objections to a marriage between uncle and niece, and the wedding was celebrated on i January 49.

The rise of Agrippina implied the fall of the man who had been nearest to being Claudius' successor during Britannicus' minority, Lucius Iunius Silanus. For several years, he had been engaged to Claudius' daughter Octavia, now aged ten. Again it was the loyal Vitellius who arranged what was necessary: he accused Silanus of incest with his sister Iunia Calvina, the wife of his own son Lucius. Four days before Claudius' wedding, Silanus was forced to give up the praetorship to which he had been appointed and was expelled from the Senate. His only option was to kill himself. The new dynastic relationships were demon­strated publicly during Claudius' fifth and last consulship in a.d. 50: on 2 5 February he adopted Agrippina's son Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus as Nero Claudius Caesar. Agrippina herself was given the title of Augusta, and her birthplace Cologne honoured with the title Claudia Ara Agrippinensis. After Nero came of age in a.d. 51, the Arval Brethren prayed for him in the same terms as for Claudius himself; he was appointed princeps iuventutis\ and Cassius Dio mentions an edict in which Claudius entrusted the cura of the empire to Nero. For the next ten years, those men against whom Agrippina bore a grudge - such as Galba and Vespasian — disappeared from public life.

Claudius' marriage to Agrippina greatly strengthened his position, and the last years of his reign were marred by far fewer executions and

44 Messallina: Meise 1969 (c 375) ch. 6; Ehrhardt 1978 (c 343).

plots than the first. The need to win military prestige was no longer so great, though much was made of the capture of the British king Caratacus, who was displayed at Rome. In the East, on the other hand, there were difficulties which continued at great financial expense into the next reign; the Parthian king Vologases I succeeded in imposing his brother Tiridates as king of Armenia. There continued to be food riots in the capital, but these were not now a serious threat.

The situation was stable because for the time being the succession was as clear as the imperial system could ever make it. Agrippina managed to have her own nominee Sextus Afranius Burrus appointed to command the praetorian cohorts; Burrus came from Narbonensis, where the Domitii Ahenobarbi had exercised patronage for generations. But Britannicus too had his supporters, including his grandmother, Domitia Lepida (also Nero's paternal aunt), and the ab epistulis Narcissus. Nero's position was strengthened by his marriage in 5 3 to Claudius' daughter Octavia (who formally had to be adopted into another domus to marry her father's adoptive son), and his appearance before the Senate on a number of occasions. Agrippina succeeded in having Domitia Lepida con­demned for failing to keep the herdsmen on her great ranching estates in the south of Italy under proper control.

But Britannicus would be fourteen on 12 February 5 5, and old enough to be introduced to public life; there were rumours that Claudius said that he wished to be succeeded by a 'real' Caesar. That would have been fitting for one who had emulated Julius Caesar in being the patron of the people and of the army, effecting the spread of citizenship in the provinces, and making Britain part of the empire. Suetonius reports him as telling Britannicus to 'grow up quickly, so that he [Claudius] could explain all his actions'.47 On 13 October 54, Claudius suddenly died after eating mushrooms. The suspicion that Agrippina poisoned her husband is shared by all ancient sources (only Josephus calls it a 'rumour'). His death was most opportune for Agrippina and her son, and the fact that Narcissus happened to be away from the court for a short time seems too convenient to have been fortuitous.

V. NERO[423]

At the moment of Claudius' death, there was no question of any other candidate for the imperial office but Nero; he was his predecessor's adopted son and the husband of his predecessor's daughter (herself descended from Augustus' sister); he had been designated to hold a consulship when he reached the age of twenty (for a.d. 5 8), and he had been granted proconsular powers in Italy extra urbem. In a.d. 5 2 he had been appointed to the symbolic magistracy of praefectus urbi feriarum hatinarum causa. Had Claudius died even a few months later, he might have made a public wish to leave the empire to his natural-born son Britannicus; but the removal of Britannicus' grandmother Domitia Lepida, and the temporary absence of Narcissus, left Agrippina supreme in the palace, and the transfer of power was as straightforward as it had been in a.d. 14 or 37. The news of Claudius' death was kept secret for several hours, and then Burrus accompanied Nero to the camp of the praetorian guard where he was enthusiastically acclaimed. The promise of a donative of 15,000 sesterces to each soldier will have helped. Although Tacitus pretends that some soldiers asked where Britannicus was, Britannicus could not have shared the imperial office. He was still a child, as Tiberius Gemellus had been at Caligula's accession.

Nero went on to a meeting of the Senate, where he was recognized with the full imperial powers; he turned down, for the time being, the title pater patriae, since it seemed inappropriate to a youth of sixteen. It was not considered necessary, or sensible, for Claudius' will to be read and either approved, or set aside (Tacitus perversely suggests that had the will been read, Britannicus' plight might have received some sympathy precisely because he was not named as Claudius' successor).

Nero's speech at Claudius' funeral, as well as his speech to the Senate accepting the imperial powers and outlining his approach to the office that had been bestowed upon him, were both composed for him by his rhetoric teacher Seneca. Like Caligula and Claudius at their accessions, Nero promised a new start, and a return to the principles of Augustus. There would be no more secret trials within the emperor's cubiculum, and the Senate would be respected. That respect was made manifest by the appearance of the letters 'EX S. C.' on aurei and denarii between a.d. 54 and 64, to show that the use of gold and silver from the aerarium had been authorized by the Senate.

Seneca's treatise De Clementia, composed in a.d. 55, gives us some idea of how this adviser of Nero's thought that a Roman emperor should exercise power. That Seneca makes much of both the absoluteness, and the arbitrariness, of imperial power, does not indicate a belief that Roman republican ideals should give way to those of hellenistic (let alone so-called 'oriental') kingship. Rather, it simply makes explicit the fact that since the Battle of Actium there was only one man in the Roman world who was ultimately responsible for any decision affecting public life, and many decisions affecting the private lives both of members of his own household and of others who wished to participate in the political process. Seneca pointed out to Nero that while the gods' gift to him of uncontrolled power and unrivalled wealth was glorious indeed, it also implied the responsibility to behave in accordance with virtus; and clemency - essentially, restraint in the justified application of the emperor's power to punish those who had offended him - was a major imperial virtue.49

The success of Seneca and Burrus in persuading contemporaries that they were guiding the young emperor along the path of virtue has had a considerable effect on the historical tradition. Our sources agree that Nero's reign began well, and that it was only in the last few years that Nero alienated the elite to the extent of provoking conspiracy and ultimately open rebellion. The propaganda levelled against him by the rebels in a.d. 68 made much of his personality and cultural interests, in particular his philhellenism and his un-Roman desire to appear publicly as a performer. Opponents in the 60s had to explain why these character- traits had not provoked hostility from the start; and since antiquity did not allow much scope for the concept of character development, it was argued that Nero directed his self-indulgence towards other ends during the years when Seneca and Burrus were in a position to advise him. Burrus died and Seneca retired in 62; while they are characterized in a generally favourable way in the historical tradition, Burrus' successor as prefect of the praetorian guard, Ofonius Tigellinus, is presented as a wicked contrast to Burrus, and even (unconvincingly) as Seneca's enemy. Partly at least this was so that Nero's last years could be painted even blacker.

One consequence appears to be the development of a myth of the quinquennium Neronis; the idea that there was a period of five years during Nero's reign when the empire was well governed, and the relationship between Senate and princeps was as harmonious as it could ever be. Historians in Late Antiquity who found references to such a quinquennium in their sources were puzzled (since Nero ended up as a typical tyrant figure). They assumed that since Nero could not have exhibited such 'virtue' in his relations with the Senate (or with his own family), such praise must either refer to his public building programme, or to the traditional field in which a Roman displays his virtus, military conquests. Nero's building programmes were in fact remarkable. Although the reconstruction of Rome after the great fire of 64 resulted in considerable opposition, both because of its cost and because of the amount of land in the city which Nero reserved for his reconstructed palace (including the Golden House), even hosdle writers had to accept that some of Nero's

49 Seneca and Agrippina: Griffin 1976 (в 71). Coins: GCN 107 = AN 240; Sutherland 1987 (в 358) chs. 35-6. Seneca and Nero: Leach 1989 (в 106).

buildings were in accordance with the best Roman traditions of public benefaction: 'What was worse than Nero? What is better than Nero's Baths?'50

The idea of Nero's quinquennium is unlikely to have been invented in order to explain the excellence of Nero's buildings, or the real (but marginal) military successes associated with Corbulo and other com­manders. It was perhaps rather an attempt to explain why so many senators who later reviled Nero as a monster were prepared to support him for so many years. 'Five years' from 5 4 take us up to a.d. 5 9, the year in which Nero killed his mother, and one senator who paraded his belief in libertas, Thrasea Paetus, walked out of the Senate; Paetus was later hailed as a Stoic martyr. Whether or not such Stoic propaganda was the source of the concept of a quinquennium Neronis, the idea itself shows there was unease about the fact that Nero had been a popular emperor until the last years of his reign.

It would be naive to believe that Nero's rule was perfect so long as he was under the control of Seneca and Burrus - and not only because Cassius Dio tells us how rich Seneca managed to become during his years as imperial adviser, to the extent that he was at least partly to blame for the exasperation of the Britons which led to Boudica's rebellion in a.d. 60. Political conflict did not cease because the emperor was being advised by a Stoic. Nero may have been the obvious candidate to succeed Claudius; but should he make any false move, there were a number of men who had survived Claudius' reign who might provide a focus of opposition - Domitia Lepida's grandson Britannicus, of course, but also her son (by a different marriage from that which produced Messallina), Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix, the husband of Claudius' daughter Antonia. And further candidates of Julian ancestry were available in the person of Rubellius Plautus (Tiberius' great-grandson), and the surviv­ing brothers and sisters of Lucius Iunius Silanus, who were grandchil­dren of Augustus' granddaughter Iulia. Nero's position needed streng­thening by fair means, and foul. Fair means included claims to military prestige; in a.d. 55, the administration made much of an imperial salutation for a temporary success in Armenia achieved by Domitius Corbulo. To buttress his gloria, Nero was awarded a statue in the temple of Mars Ultor and an ovation.

Nero's legitimacy as emperor also needed strengthening in dynastic terms. Immediately after Claudius' funeral, the Senate had voted the late emperor divine honours; although the unpopularity of Tiberius and Caligula at the time of their deaths had prevented them from being

50 Quinquennium: Aur. Vic. De Caes. v.2—4. Cf. Murray 1965 (c 380); Hind 1971 (c 3; j); Levick 1983 (c j68). Nero's baths: Mart, vii.34. The character of Tigellinus: Roper 1979 (c 389).

similarly acclaimed, some female members of the domus Caesaris had been deified (Livia, Antonia, Drusilla), and Nero and his advisers had little choice but to do this for Claudius.The problem was that while the new emperor could now describe himself as divij. (and did so on his coinage for the next year or so), Britannicus was equally a divijand Sulla the son-in-law of a divus. While they remained on the scene, they would be a constant threat. Just as the rift between Domitia Lepida and Messallina contributed to the latter's fall, so a rift between Nero and Agrippina might lead her to drop her son in favour of any one of the other descendants of Augustus who were her cousins. The immediate problem was Britannicus; Agrippina, after all, was formally Britannicus' mother as well as Nero's.

The death of Britannicus early in 5 5, whether or not Seneca and Burrus were personally responsible, certainly strengthened their position — and Nero's — against Agrippina. So did the removal of Agrippina's ally Pallas from his post as a rationibus\ he went on condition that no one should ask questions about the finances of the domus Caesaris under his stewardship. Although the removal of Pallas seems to have been directed against him personally — his brother Felix was allowed to remain procurator of Judaea until a.d. 60 — it was interpreted as an attack on Agrippina; Domitia Lepida and Iunia Silana (a sister of Caligula's first wife Iunia Claudilla) accused her of plotting to replace her son with Rubellius Plautus. His father-in-law Antistius Vetus was Nero's collea­gue as consul in this year; he went on to become legate of Upper Germany, but was replaced after a year. Although the charge was not believed, Agrippina's weakness as an emperor's mother, compared to her power as an emperor's wife, is demonstrated by the disappearance of her portrait from the coinage after 5 5.

During these years, Seneca and Burrus seem to have used their influence to appoint associates to positions of honour and power. The brother of Seneca's wife, Pompeius Paulinus from Aries, commanded the army of Lower Germany from 5 6 to 5 8; he was succeeded by Lucius Duvius Avitus, who came from Burrus' home town, Vasio, also in Narbonese Gaul. (Nero's supporters from this region had been inherited from his paternal ancestors, the Domitii Ahenobarbi, rather than from the Julio-Claudians.) Avitus had been consul in 56. Another provincial who may well have been associated with them, Lucius Pedanius Secundus from Barcelona, had been consul in 43 and was appointed praefectus urbi in 56. Secundus' murder at the hands of his own slaves in a.d. 61 was a major scandal, and provoked the veteran consular and famous jurist C. Cassius Longinus (consul in a.d. 30) to propose strong measures to control slaves. In accordance with the strict interpretation of the existing law, about 400 of Secundus' slaves (present in his palace when he was killed) were executed, in spite of demonstrations by the urban plebs, many of whom were themselves ex-slaves.

It has been argued that Longinus' interpretation of the law should be seen as evidence of a new direction in imperial policy, no longer under the influence of freedmen as it had been under Claudius. This raises the question whether the events of Nero's reign should be ascribed to the 'policies' of the emperor and his advisers rather than to his individual personality and temperament. During his first consulship, Nero realized that he vastly enjoyed being a public figure and at the centre of attention. He was delighted to accept the title of pater patriae when the Senate offered it to him a second time in 5 6, and he took repeated consulships (the second in 5 7, and the third in 5 8), although a proposal put forward by the Senate in 58, that he be consul perpetuus (something the Senate clearly thought he would enjoy) was turned down as being without precedent. The young man's desire to be seen and heard led him to intervene in senatorial debates, sometimes without proper briefing. On one occasion he suggested, apparently on his own initiative, that all customs dues (portoria) throughout the empire ought to be abolished, since they caused much resentment against unscrupulous tax-farmers. Having committed himself to this astonishing proposal, he could only be persuaded not to implement his promise with the utmost.difficulty. The incident is no evidence for any hypothetical imperial 'policy' towards the provinces, or towards trade (there was a time when scholars anachronis- tically suggested that it proved that Nero or his advisers favoured free market economics); but it does throw a great deal of light on Nero's desire to make spectacular public utterances. Examples of imperial beneficence, for instance settling veterans on Italian land, should not be confused with an economic or agricultural 'policy'. In 5 7, Nero founded formal veteran settlements at Capua and Nuceria, and in 60, Puteoli was raised to the status of a colony as Colonia Claudia Neronensis; that may have been less to provide for veterans than as a response to internal political difficulties which had led to major disturbances in the colony two years previously, necessitating the intervention of troops.

The desire to appear in public was not restricted to the political forum. Like other good emperors, Nero took seriously his duty to provide the Roman people with games. Unfortunately, he had an uncontrollable desire to be seen by the public as a performer himself, both on the stage and at the races. At first, Nero could be persuaded only to appear himself in contests held in the relative privacy of the imperial domus (for example, in the imperial hippodrome in the Vatican valley). The Juvenalia, held to celebrate Nero's achieving adulthood in a.d. 59, were still held in private, but senators and equestrians were expected to take part. In the quinquennial games which Nero held on Greek lines in a.d. 60 and 65, such inhibitions were laid aside; Nero thought that, like a Greek aristocrat, he would win fame and glory rather than opprobrium by performing in person on the lyre and in the hippodrome. In a Greek city, like Naples, he felt he was appreciated for his own personal qualities as a performer, rather than just for being emperor (though even here, he did not formally compete in public until a.d. 64).

Nero's personal tastes certainly affected the political scene when it came to his matrimonial affairs. Our sources suggest that his love for Poppaea Sabina (granddaughter of Tiberius' legate of Moesia) led to a complete rift with his mother. Later rumours suggested that Nero's relationship with Poppaea had existed several years before he divorced Octavia in order to marry her in 62. It was said that the emperor asked his friend Marcus Salvius Otho to marry Poppaea so that Nero could visit her secretly. Certainly there was a good political reason why Nero was unable to repudiate Octavia immediately: if he did so, then his claim to the loyalty of Claudius' supporters would be weakened in comparison with that of Antonia's husband Sulla Felix. This was seen by Agrippina, who is said to have advised her son against divorcing Octavia on the grounds that he would have to return her dowry — the empire. It is not inconceivable that the great crime for which Nero was to go down in history, the murder of his mother in a.d. 59, was the result of a personal conflict about whether or nor Octavia could be divorced; the fact that Seneca and Burrus seem not to have been involved in the initial plot to shipwreck a pleasure-boat on which Agrippina was returning home from dinner with her son suggests that this may not have been planned as an act of state. It may be that the original intention was not to kill Agrippina, but to frighten her so that she would not in future interfere with her son's wishes.

But in any case, once the shipwreck had been arranged by one of Nero's freedmen, Anicetus (who had been Nero's paedagogus), and Agrippina survived, Nero panicked; Agrippina threatened to publicize the incident, and that would have led to enormous unpopularity and perhaps Nero's replacement by another candidate who had Agrippina's support. The only answer now was a cover-up, and that meant the elimination of Agrippina. Nero consulted Seneca and Burrus, who apparently knew nothing of the plot. Burrus pointed out that the praetorian guard could not be expected to condone the killing of a member of the family they were sworn to protect. In the end they decided to claim that Agrippina had been detected conspiring to replace Nero - not an unlikely story - and she was executed.

Agrippina's killing may have brought an end to the quinquennium Neronis, but it made little difference to Nero's popularity. While Thrasea

Paetus walked out of the Senate in disgust, other senators accepted the explanation given by Nero and Seneca. But in future Nero needed the legitimacy conferred by his marriage to Octavia more than ever; we should not be surprised that there was a three-year hiatus between Agrippina's death and Nero's divorce of Octavia. Before that could happen, Nero needed to remove Sulla Felix; and also Rubellius Plautus (who seems not to have had the slightest ambition to become emperor). Sulla had been required to withdraw to Marseilles in 5 8. A comet in a.d. 60 led to rumours that a new princeps was at hand; Nero utilized the occasion to require Rubellius Plautus to go into exile in Asia. In the same year Servius Sulpicius Galba was sent to Hispania Tarraconensis as imperial legate; the fact that Nero left him there for the rest of his reign suggests that this too, was intended as a mechanism for removing a potential rival, though one who was now perhaps too old to require execution.

The same year also saw continuing success by Corbulo in the campaign to maintain Armenia as part of the Roman sphere of influence. After the installation of a pro-Roman king, Tigranes V, Corbulo was transferred to the governorship of Syria. Tigranes made the mistake of invading the Parthian dependent state of Adiabene in the following year, which not surprisingly resulted in a Parthian military response. It seems that Corbulo had to remove Tigranes from his throne, and in the year after that (62) an attempt by the new legate of Cappadocia, Caesennius Paetus, to reimpose Roman control resulted in the humiliation of his army by the Parthians at Rhandeia. In a.d. 63, Corbulo was given an unusual grant of imperium maius over the eastern provinces, with an additional legion from the Danube army. Both Romans and Parthians saw that a compromise was to their mutual advantage (both were becoming aware of the danger posed by recent migrations by the Alani from central Asia), and Corbulo negotiated an agreement whereby Armenia was to be ruled by the Parthian candidate Tiridates - who would be able to maintain order in the kingdom - but Rome's right to treat Armenia as part of its imperium was recognized in that he was to be formally granted his diadem by Nero at Rome as a gift of the Roman people. (Tiridates' visit took place in 66.) Although these military operations brought long-term peace to the eastern frontier, and glory to Nero, they were expensive.

So was the rebellion in Britain, brought about - at least in part - by the calling-in of debts of 40 million sesterces by the philosophical Seneca's procurators. A commission of three consulars was appointed to investi­gate the tax-collecting system in 62. Part of the results of this investi­gation is revealed in an inscribed dossier found at Ephesus, containing the accumulated regulations regarding the farming of the portoria of

Asia. The leges governing such tax-collection had the dual aim of restraining extortion by collectors and ensuring that the public treasury received its due. How far they commanded the respect of collectors is another matter. It is only too probable that the emperor and Senate were more concerned to secure revenue, whose chief destination was army pay, than to see that publicans acted more fairly towards provincials. The emphasis on avoiding abuses in tax-collecdon which can be found in a document issued in a.d. 68 on Galba's behalf by the prefect of Egypt, Tiberius Iulius Alexander, reflects the discontent of provincials throughout the empire at the exacdons of Nero's tax-collectors.[424]

Nero's reign saw a considerable number of trials of ex-governors for extortion. Both extortion by provincial governors, and accusations lodged against them by their opponents after their term of office had come to an end, were constant factors in Roman political life, under the Principate as under the Republic. But concern that its subjects should be justly treated should not be denied out of hand. It is even possible that Stoic theory may have played a part: Thrasea Paetus was particularly keen to oversee provincial matters, and on one famous occasion drew the Senate's attention to the unacceptable influence of the leading man in Crete, Claudius Timarchus. In 57, Thrasea successfully prosecuted the son-in-law of Tigellinus, an associate of Seneca's who was to become Burrus' successor as praetorian prefect. But in general such trials reflect rivalry between senators, rather than a 'policy' on the part of the government.[425]

Some sources blame Nero for the death of Burrus in a.d. 62, suggesting that Nero (now aged twenty-four) wished to rid himself of the restraining influence of his advisers. Seneca retired in this year, too: but that does not mean that their 'party' lost influence, or was replaced by another supposedly centred on Tigellinus. Tigellinus owed his rise to Seneca, and the picture of him as an enemy of Seneca and Burrus is an attempt by those who loyally served Nero to draw a clear but artificial distincdon between Nero's good 'early' years and his wicked later years. The deaths of Britannicus and Agrippina, the exile of Sulla and Rubellius Plautus, and the uprising in Britain, all occurred while Seneca and Burrus were Nero's ministers. Seneca's retirement from public life at the age of sixty-five is not unexpected.

Tacitus' account makes much of the reintroduction of trials for maiestas in 62. Tacitus wants us to believe that such trials were a sign of a systematic policy on the part of an emperor to destroy opposition; that may have been the case under Domitian. But we have seen that under

Tiberius, дал/гх/лг-accusations flourished as a result of too little control of affairs by the emperor, and particularly his absence from Rome. Like charges of extortion, these accusations arose from conflicts between senators, and the opportunities they provided for able novi homines to acquire wealth, glory and the emperor's friendship. Perhaps Seneca's retirement made it easier for such men to exploit Nero's inexperience and gullibility. Earlier in his reign, he had rejected maiestas-zccub&iions on the grounds that nobody could possibly have reason to hate him. The first such trial that Tacitus reports was of Antistius Sosianus, accused of composing epigrams insulting the emperor. A senatorial debate took place, in which Thrasea Paetus objected to the consul designate's proposal that the death penalty be imposed. The consuls were unhappy to accept his milder proposal of exile, and referred the matter to Nero; Tacitus suggests that Nero was angry that the Senate had been lenient, but there is no reason to suspect that Nero was lying when he said that he would have preferred the milder punishment himself. Most of those accused of treason (when they did not commit suicide first) were exiled, not executed.

In general, those who suffered before a.d. 64 suffered because of their descent from the family of Augustus. Sulla Felix and Rubellius Plautus, exiled in 5 8 and 60, were both executed in 62; this made Nero feel secure enough to divorce Octavia (alleging barrenness) and exile her to Campania in order to marry Poppaea, which he did twelve days later. Her husband Otho had been sent to govern Lusitania shortly after Agrippina's death in 59. Public demonstrations in Octavia's favour by the urban plebs, who had perhaps not forgotten the benefits Claudius had bestowed upon it, made Nero realize that he had been wrong to discount her influence; he claimed that she was involved in a plot, and had her executed on 9 June. Although Poppaea gave birth to a daughter in January 63, the baby died after a few months. Her deification as Claudia Augusta was no consolation for the fact that Nero still had no direct heir. He was now frightened of anyone who might have a claim to be emperor. In 64, Decimus Iunius Silanus Torquatus, great-great- grandson of Augustus through the younger Iulia, had to commit suicide; the only child of the consul of a.d. 19 who had not been disgraced was now Iunia Lepida, wife of Gaius Cassius Longinus.

Nero's mistakes had hitherto affected mainly those whom he feared as rivals. But on the night of 18-19 July 64 there occurred a chance event which resulted in widespread dissatisfaction with Nero both in the city of Rome and throughout the empire. The fire of Rome and the subsequent programme of reconstruction were immensely costly, and contributed directly to Nero's loss of popularity among the wealthy throughout Italy and in certain other provinces. Later rumours ascribing responsibility for the fire to Nero himself, anecdotes about the pleasure he took in playing the lyre while Rome burnt, and the revulsion of writers normally hostile to the Christians at his attempt to mark them out as the incendiaries, illustrate the extent to which an emperor was seen as personally responsible for the disasters as well as the benefits experienced by those whom he ruled. In fact, Nero did what he could to prevent the fire from spreading by creating fire-breaks (only to be accused of pulling down buildings in areas he coveted for extensions to his own palace); and like the emperors before him, he assisted those made homeless and personally supervised the rebuilding programme.

But the reconstruction of large areas of the city was immensely expensive, and put additional strains on the finances of the domus Caesaris and of the empire as a whole. Nero's designs for a new palace were grandiose, and involved the wholesale expropriation of areas of Rome that had been the traditional habitation of the senatorial elite. Nero refused permission for the great families to rebuild their town houses on sites that he required for his domus transitorta. Here was a case of direct and unresolvable conflict of interest between an emperor and his senators.

Not only senators suffered. We are told that the free distribution of grain to the urban population had to be suspended for a time, and that some troops were not paid. Nero was now so desperate for additional sources of funding that - like a typical tyrant — he is said to have told magistrates to ensure that the maximum number of cases resulted in conviction, and confiscations. We are told that he confiscated 'half the province of Africa' (effectively the fertile Bagradas valley in northern Tunisia), executing six landowners to do so. Temple treasures were melted down; the need for precious metals resulted in considerable hostility in provinces both West and East, and contributed directly to the rebellions both of Vindex and of the Jews. In May 66, the procurator of Judaea, Gessius Florus, arrived in Jerusalem claiming that the Jews owed the imperial fiscus arrears of tax to the extent of 40 talents of gold. When the money was not forthcoming, he removed 17 talents from the Temple treasury; and it was this act which sparked off violent opposition to the Romans to an extent that the Jewish elite, including client kings, were unable to control. An attempt by Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, to suppress the rebellion with military might in November 66 failed (the reasons for his withdrawal were inexplicable to contemporar­ies as they are to us), and Nero had to embark on a regular war to restore Roman control over Judaea.

These fiscal problems were exacerbated by the great fire at Rome, but as Boudica's rebellion shows, they had already existed before. Through­out Nero's reign, the precious metal content of the coinage had been steadily declining. By a.d. 64, there had been a major reform of the currency: the number of aurei to the pound of gold was increased from 40 or 42 to 45, the number of denarii to the pound of silver from 84 to 96. The fact that Nero's new coins were beautifully designed could not disguise the fact that he was short of money.[426]

Nero's removal of the descendants of Augustus meant that the option to replace him was extended to others whose connexion with the Caesars was far more distant. Nero's unpopularity was exploited by a group of people who selected as their candidate C. Calpurnius Piso, the man whose marriage to Livia Orestilla had been barred by Caligula (see above, p.226); Claudius had recalled him from exile and gave him a consulship in 41. The members of the conspiracy were said to have included Faenius Rufus, co-prefect of the guard, who was afraid of the influence of Tigellinus, with three of the sixteen praetorian tribunes. The consul designate, Plautius Lateranus, was also involved, and many others were accused. To give legitimacy to the cause, Claudius' daughter Antonia was to be taken to the praetorian camp after Nero had been killed in the circus. There was nothing 'republican' about the plot.

The effect of the conspiracy was that Nero now became afraid of many who were not related to him; and he reacted by eliminating an extraordinary number of suspects. Seneca was one of those required to end their lives. Donatives were given to the praetorian guard, and other gifts to those Nero thought he could continue to trust: triumphal insignia to Tigellinus, Petronius Turpilianus, and the later emperor Cocceius Nerva. Nymphidius Sabinus, grandson of Caligula's freedman Callistus, was given insignia consularia, and appointed praetorian prefect in association with Tigellinus. Nero may have had doubts as to whether Tigellinus was as efficient a soldier as he had been a horse-breeder.

The death of Poppaea Sabina in a.d. 65 was a political as well as a personal disaster for Nero: she had not provided him with an heir.54 There were rumours of further plots, and executions. C. Cassius Longinus, husband of Iunia Lepida, was forbidden from attending meetings of the Senate; soon after Nero asked the Senate to exile him and his wife's nephew Lucius Iunius Silanus. Silanus, son of the Marcus reputedly poisoned by Agrippina in 54, was a descendant of Augustus; although the Pisonian conspirators had ignored his prior claim to the position of Caesar, Nero felt he had to execute him after a trial for incest. Cassius himself was able to return from exile in Sardinia under Galba. Another casualty of a distant relationship with the imperial family was

Antistius Vetus, Rubellius Plautius' father-in-law, and once a protege of Agrippina.

Nero's execution of those he feared continued into 66. Ostorius Scapula, son of an early governor of Britain, had consulted astrologers about how much longer Nero was likely to survive. P. Anteius, an ex- consul, was accused on the same charge; both killed themselves. The list of casualties included Seneca's two brothers, Annaeus Mela (father of Lucan, who had already killed himself on Nero's orders), and Gallio (who appears in the Acts of the Apostles as governor of Achaea); C. Petronius, Tigellinus' rival as Nero's boon companion; the ex- praetorian prefect Rufrius Crispinus; Anicius Cerealis, who had been consul in 65; and the two noted Stoics, Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. Stoicism may have given some of these the vocabulary and slogans to articulate their opposition to the way Nero was behaving, but those Roman families that now turned against Nero did not do so as a 'group' or 'party', nor, primarily, because of any philosophical beliefs they may have held about 'ideal kingship', let alone 'republicanism'.

To strengthen his own dynastic position, Nero proposed to marry Claudius' daughter Antonia; but she had no wish to oblige. Instead, Nero married Statilia Messallina, the widow of another of his victims, Vestinus Atticus. She counted amongst her ancestors Augustus' gener­als Statilius Taurus and Valerius Messalla Corvinus.

Nero also made every effort to re-establish his military prestige after 65. He made the most of the solution to the Armenian problem which had been achieved by Corbulo, and arranged some spectacular festivals on the occasion of King Tiridates' visit to Rome in 66 to receive his diadem from Nero's own hands. New issues of coins stressed 'Augustan Victory', the Altar of Peace, and the fact that 'he shut the temple of Janus after peace had been achieved by land and sea'. Nero honoured generals like Vespasian and Suetonius Paulinus (who was granted a second consulship), perhaps to counter any threat from the virtus demonstrated by Corbulo. And he planned to gain military prestige himself by leading a major expedition in the East during these years; it was a period when both the Romans (on the lower Danube) and the Parthians felt that they were coming under increasing pressure from tribes originating further east (the legate of Moesia between a.d. 60 and 67, Tiberius Plautius Silvanus, had already been involved in fighting). The good relations between Nero (and later Vespasian) and the Parthians suggest that in the context of the solution to the Armenian conflict, the two states had come to an agreement about the need for military co-operation. Nero advertised an expedition against the 'Caspian Gates' at the eastern end of the Caucasus, and astrologers predicted that he would be enthroned in glory at Jerusalem. In preparation for the campaign, the Fourteenth Legion was withdrawn from Britain; it had distinguished itself in the repression of Boudica, and was granted the title Martia Victrix. Turpilianus (one man Nero trusted) was put in charge of raising a new legion in Italy. The annexation of Pontus as a province in a.d. 64 may also have been connected with Nero's eastern plans. The coins struck during his last years reveal an increasing interest in military matters.55 But Nero's prime concern apparently continued to be the glory he could achieve as a public performer. Only the Greeks, he was heard to say, appreciated real virtue. He may originally have wanted to visit Greece in a.d. 6 5, to be able to compete at the regular Olympic games. In the event, certain quadrennial games had to be rescheduled in order to allow him to participate, and carry off the prizes. It is clear that his visit made him genuinely popular in Greece. At Corinth, he dramatically re- enacted the 'liberation' of Greece from direct Roman administration, as played out by Flamininus in 196 b.c. 56

During Nero's journey to Greece with his entourage, a further conspiracy was uncovered at Beneventum (details are sparse, and it is not clear whether Nero was present when the conspiracy was brought to light). The leading figure was Annius Vinicianus, who was executed. Nor is it clear what this man's relationship was to the Annius Vinicianus who was involved in Camillus Scribonianus' rebellion against Claudius: his brother may have been the Annius Pollio implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy in the previous year. What is known is that he was Corbulo's principal supporter. He had been legatus of the Fifth Legion in Corbulo's Armenian campaign of c. a.d. 58, and was the husband of one of Corbulo's two daughters (the other was later to become Domitian's wife). In the previous year, Annius had been sent by Corbulo to accompany Tiridates on his journey to Rome; Cassius Dio says that this was as much to put a hostage of his good faith into Nero's hands as anything else. Tiridates had commented to Nero 'What a good slave he had in Corbulo'. The conspiracy at Beneventum - whether real or imagined - meant that Nero knew that he could now no longer rely on Corbulo's support. The implication was clear, and Corbulo was sum­moned to meet Nero in Greece, where he was ordered to kill himself. A little later (and presumably in connexion with the same conspiracy) the legates of the upper and lower Rhine armies were also summoned to Nero in Greece, and forced to suicide. They were the brothers Publius Sulpicius Scribonius Proculus and Scribonius Rufus, sons of a senator

» Nero as imperator. 1LS 233 (Luna) = GCN 149 = AN 287. PACE P. R. TERRA MARIQUE PARTA IANUM CLUSIT: Sutherland 1987 (в 358) ch. 39.

56 Liberation of Greece: ILS 8794 = GCN 64 = AN 127.

executed (in the very Senate-house, according to our sources) by Caligula in a.d. 40.

On his arrival in Greece Nero heard of the failure of Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria, to restore Roman control over Jerusalem in November 66. Gallus seems to have died soon after, and it was imperative for someone to be appointed quickly to take command in the full-scale war which needed to be fought for control over Judaea. In February 67 Nero appointed two men to replace Gallus, Mucianus as legate of Syria, and Vespasian to take command of the war itself; it is not surprising that the administrative problems involved in separating what had been a single provincial administration into two different commands should have caused friction between the two generals, and we do not have to suppose that there was any deep ill-feeling between the two. Their disagreements did not prevent Vespasian from pursuing the pacification of Galilee with general success during the years a.d. 67 and 68, as described in ch. 14b of this volume. By the time of Nero's death, when Vespasian ceased major operations in Palestine, there was little left for the Roman army to do apart from the recovery (and destruction) of Jerusalem itself and of a number of other forts whose reduction was more a matter of demonstrating Rome's might than of removing a serious threat.

By the winter of a.d. 67/8, it had become clear to Helius and the other members of the household who were looking after affairs in the capital that Nero's artistic victories in Greece had weakened, not strengthened, his position with the Roman elite. In January, Helius went to Greece in person (in spite of the dangerous winter weather) to persuade Nero that a return to Rome was imperative. As he travelled back to Rome via Naples, Nero's first concern was to be honoured as a Greek Olympic victor by driving his chariot through specially constructed gaps in the walls of the cities he passed on his journey to Rome via Naples. He showed much less concern when he heard that Gaius Iulius Vindex, legate of Gallia Lugdunensis, had thrown off his allegiance - news which reached him at Naples on the anniversary of his mother's murder.

CHAPTER 6 FROM NERO TO VESPASIAN

Т. E. J. WIEDEMANN

I. A.D. 68

In January 68, Nero had been persuaded by his freedman Helius to break off his successful and popular tour of Greece and return to Italy immediately. The fact that Helius braved the winter storms to cross the Adriatic confirms that he was deeply concerned about the possibility not just of a conspiracy among members of the Senate at Rome, but of a rising by one or more provincial governors with their armies. The evidence for this was a series of letters calling for Nero's overthrow circulated to other governors by C. Iulius Vindex, probably the legate of Gallia Lugdunensis. Some of the recipients passed the letters they received from Vindex on to Rome via local imperial procurators. But those who were administering the government on Nero's behalf cannot have been certain which governors if any were still to be trusted.

Imperial procurators in Tarraconensis, for instance, will have realized that the legate, Servius Sulpicius Galba, was taking no action to punish those who were circulating verses hostile to Nero. No one could tell whether Galba might not be similarly tolerant of those - perhaps the same people — who were plotting armed disloyalty.

The only direct evidence we have for assessing Vindex's reasons for rebelling, and his objectives, are the anti-Neronian writings he circu­lated, and the inscriptions on the coins he minted to pay his followers. Suetonius tells us that Vindex referred to Nero as 'Ahenobarbus', emphasizing that he had not been born a member of the domus Caesaris, and condemned him for his philhellenism: he was a charioteer and lyre- player with a weak voice. The coinage issues confirm that Vindex sought to represent himself as asserting traditional Roman values, protecting the Roman community against a tyrant. Legends on coins refer to the 'Salvation of the Human Race', showing the oak wreath bestowed on a Roman soldier for saving a fellow-citizen's life, together with the letters SPQR. There is an aureus with Mars the avenging war-god, and a pair of military standards described as belonging to the Roman people. There are denarii depicting 'Rome restored (to freedom)', and Hercules and Jupiter as liberators. Very similar coins were minted by Galba in Spain

z56

after he had thrown off his allegiance to Nero. The Spanish denarii refer to the 'Freedom' and to the 'Life-force of the Roman People', with images of Mars the avenger and a liberty-cap. Perhaps the most interesting issue shows personifications of Spain and Gaul with a Victory between them, and the legend 'Harmony of the Spanish and Gallic Provinces'; the reverse represents the 'Victory of the Roman People' driving in a two-horse chariot. The similarity between Vindex's issues and those of Galba indicates collusion between the two legates after they had withdrawn support from Nero, but it cannot prove that Galba was actively involved in Vindex's conspiracy from the beginning. Nor does the fact that both legates minted coins with inscriptions asserting republican virtues and referring to the 'Roman People' mean that Vindex or Galba rebelled against Nero in order to re-activate a form of republican constitution. That was not what 'The Liberty of the Roman People' meant to Vindex, whose ancestors had not even been citizens at the time of the Republic. He will have wanted to replace a failed princeps by a better one, and will have been well aware that he himself had no chance of attaining that position. On the other hand that does not mean that an assertion of loyalty to the SPJ2R was simply a cover for treason against the legitimate emperor; for there was a sense in which the SP^R were sovereign. They could not of course make one man more or less powerful than another; but they could recognise which man, and which group of supporters, had the most power and authority. What Vindex recognized was the right of the Senate and people to decide who it was who was actually in control — hoping, of course, that it would not be Nero, but someone else who had a claim to inherit the property and powers of the Caesars. An obvious candidate was Galba in Spain, whose name had already been mentioned as a claimant in a.d. 41.[427]

Vindex was not just a legate of Caesar; he was also a powerful man in Gaul in his own right. We are told that his ancestors had been 'kings' amongst the Aquitanians (ethnically, Basques, although the root *vent- is Celtic). We should not be surprised that Vindex made use of his local connexions; and we hear of Basque fighters volunteering to join Galba. Rivalry between different Gallic tribes, as well as between Gauls and communities of Italian settler origin with their traditional loyalty to the Ahenobarbi, will have played a role in determining who joined and who opposed Vindex. But there is no basis for the theory, popular earlier in this century, that Vindex's revolt was essentially a 'native' uprising against Roman rule. Tacitus follows the official Flavian interpretation of events in coupling Vindex with Civilis as though both were primarily native chieftains seeking to set up their own separate (but Romanized) states in north-west Europe. Like Civilis, Vindex will have exploited what opposition there was to Roman rule, aggravated by Nero's fiscal requirements; but it would be anachronistic to see him as a nationalist freedom-fighter rather than as a Roman senator reacting against Nero's 'tyranny'.

While the numismatic evidence demonstrates that those who rose against Nero agreed in recognizing the ultimate authority of the 'Roman Senate and People', the literary sources suggest that it was not clear from the start that Vindex would win the support of Galba, or of anyone else. Although Galba kept back evidence of Vindex's intentions from Nero's procurators, he was sceptical of Vindex's chances of success. It was Titus Vinius Rufinus, the commander of the Sixth Legion (currently the only legion stationed in Spain), who pointed out that if Nero's opponents did not all rally round Vindex now, the frightened and angry emperor would subsequently find it easy to deal with them one by one.

Galba was acclaimed as 'Caesar' by his troops at the regular guberna­torial assizes held at New Carthage on 2 or 3 April. He immediately rejected the imperial title, which soldiers had no right to bestow, but called himself'Legate of the Roman Senate and People'. There was some opposition: the proconsul of Baetica, Obultronius Sabinus, and his legate, Cornelius Marcellus, had to be executed. Apart from Titus Vinius, Galba was sure of the support of the quaestor Caecina Alienus, who took over the government of Baetica, and in particular the legate of Lusitania, Marcus Salvius Otho. Between them, the three governors controlled most of the empire's resources of precious metals. Otho had for many years been an associate of the young Nero. Almost nine years before, Nero had sent him to Lusitania as governor in order to facilitate his own access to Otho's wife Poppaea. Poppaea was now dead; Otho had nothing to lose from Nero's overthrow, and much to gain. Galba would be seventy in December, and had no son to succeed him in the imperial office, while Otho was thirty-seven, and available as Galba's supporter and successor.

Nero had heard of Vindex's rebellion at Naples. He was not unduly concerned at news of unrest in Gaul, but Galba would have some chance of winning recognition as Caesar; his defection changed the picture completely. It confirmed that no governors could be trusted any longer.

Petronius Turpilianus, who had proved so loyal in the suppression of Piso's conspiracy, was sent to northern Italy to assemble an army, to include the Fourteenth Legion and a new one raised from the marines at Misenum. As a deterrent to others, Galba's estates in Italy were confiscated; Galba retaliated by auctioning off the property of the domus Caesaris in Spain, using the proceeds to raise a second legion from Roman citizens in Spain, the Seventh Galbiana. Its legionary eagle was formally presented on 10 June. Galba appointed as its commander a man from Tolosa, Antonius Primus; he had been expelled from the Senate in a.d. 6i for helping to forge a will, probably before reaching the praetorship, and exiled to Marseilles. As one of Nero's exiles — and almost certainly an acquaintance of Vindex - he had immediately given his support to Galba.

Primus, Otho, Vinius and Alienus had made it clear that they were deserting Nero in favour of Galba. Others who played an important part in Nero's overthrow did not make their intentions so clear, either to contemporaries or to us. At some point in a.d. 68, the legate of the Third Legion in north Africa, Clodius Macer, threw off the authority of the government in Rome, deposed the proconsul of Africa, and raised an additional legion, which he called I Macriarta Liberatrix. A denarius, probably from Carthage, describes him not as emperor but simply as 'Propraetor of Africa' (it also carries the letters S[enatus] C[onsu/toJ). Galba had to use force to suppress Macer. We are told that members of Nero's household went to Macer in Africa and urged him to resist Galba; that may have been before or after Nero's death and Galba's recognition by the Senate in June. But Rome experienced a considerable shortfall of grain well before Nero's death; and that suggests that Macer had rejected Nero's authority, and prevented corn-ships from leaving Carthage for Italy, soon after he heard of Vindex's rebellion. Macer may have thought that by starving Rome, he could persuade the Senate to recognize that it was he, not Galba, who had the power to be Nero's successor.2

The actions of the legate commanding the upper Rhine army, Verginius Rufus, are even more difficult to interpret. We must assume that Rufus, like his colleagues, had been approached by Vindex. When Vindex offered Galba the support of Gaul, he claimed to have 100,000 soldiers to put at his disposal; since Vindex's own provincial levies only came to 20,000 men, this can only mean that he thought that some at least of the Rhine legions, and their commanders, would support his coup. On the other hand, it is also possible that Rufus stayed loyal to Nero. Tacitus says explicitly that the Rhine legions stood by Nero and the Caesars longer than other armies did.

Rufus mobilized his legions and marched south west through the 2 Macer coins: Sutherland 1987 (в 558) ch. 4a; GCN 73; cf. MW 24.

Franche Comte in the direction of central Gaul. When he heard of Rufus' march, Vindex was attempting unsuccessfully to reduce Lyons, which remained loyal to Nero out of gratitude for recent favours; he broke off the siege, marched towards Rufus, and met him at Vesontio, probably towards the end of May. There followed a battle in which Vindex's levies were defeated by the Rhine legions, superior in numbers, weapons and training; the only option left to Vindex was suicide. Soon (but not necessarily immediately) after the battle, Rufus was acclaimed emperor; he rejected the offer (or several such offers). Many years later, the epitaph on his tomb stated that 'after Vindex's defeat, he laid claim to the imperial power not on his own behalf but on that of the fatherland'.

Since the 1950s, the consensus amongst scholars - following the account given by Cassius Dio — has been that the Battle of Vesontio was a mistake. Vindex and Rufus were co-conspirators who had arranged to combine their forces and then to march on Italy together in support of Galba. Unfortunately, when Vindex's largely Gaulish levies met the legionaries from the Rhine, the resentment which the two groups felt for one another resulted in unexpected violence which the respective commanders could not contain. Similar uncontrolled violence by Roman troops during the campaigns of the following year suggests that this is not impossible. On this interpretation, the Rhine legions may have hated the Gauls and their upstart leader, but that does not mean that they were loyal to Nero; indeed, having flexed their muscles at Vesontio, they offered to put their own commander in Nero's place.

If Vindex was indeed certain of Rufus' support for himself and Galba, it is curious that he should have marched north to meet Rufus at Vesontio instead of waiting for his army at Lyons or Vienne. It is more likely that Vindex feared that Rufus and the Rhine army would stand by Nero. As for Rufus, he may well have destroyed Vindex on Nero's behalf; but very soon after the battle news reached Gaul that Nero had lost his nerve and killed himself. It was now essential for Rufus to hide the fact that he and his soldiers had supported Nero and destroyed Galba's allies, artd it was perhaps only then that the Rhine legions acclaimed Rufus as an imperial candidate - not as an alternative to Nero, but as an alternative to Galba, who would not (and did not) look kindly upon what they had done to Vindex.3

Rufus was certainly not acting in association with Galba; Galba later separated him from his army in order to give him the 'honour' of accompanying him on his journey to Rome. The immediate effect of the news of Rufus' destruction of Vindex was to make Galba withdraw to his base at Clunia, where he is said to have contemplated suicide himself. It was later asserted that he erroneously thought that Rufus had betrayed him; he may rather have feared that the Rhine legions would impose their own candidate, or that their victory would allow Nero to re­establish his authority.

Rufus' victory at Vesontio turned out to be irrelevant to the final issue, since early in June Nero had lost his nerve and effectively abandoned the administration of affairs. We do not know enough about the exact chronology of events that year to be able to say whether he had heard of Vindex's defeat, or of the Rhine army's attempt to acclaim Rufus. He may have suspected the loyalty of Turpilianus' army in northern Italy. A plan to flee to Egypt led Nymphidius Sabinus, who in Tigellinus' continued illness commanded the praetorian guard, to promise them a donative of 30,000 sesterces each if they broke their oath of loyalty to Nero, on the grounds that their emperor had already abandoned them. The Senate's role was to confirm that Nero no longer had the authority to govern, and to decide who in fact had that authority. On 9 June (or possibly 11) it declared Nero an enemy of the Roman people, recognized Galba as Caesar, acclaimed him as Augustus, and voted him imperial powers. Nero, realizing that the only support he had left was that of certain members of his household staff (and, perhaps, of the Roman plebs), committed suicide; his last words — 'what a creative artist I have been' - show how much more interested he was in his public image than in governing. Galba's freedman Icelus was released from custody and travelled to Clunia in a mere seven days to inform the new emperor of the events in the capital.

Each new emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty had faced consider­able but quite different problems in establishing himself. Galba had to face most of them together. At Tiberius' accession, there had been no previous transfer of power from one emperor to another; but Tiberius, Caligula and Nero had been the legitimate heirs of their predecessors. Galba's links with the Julio-Claudians were so tenuous as to be worthless in terms of loyalty. He made what he could of these links: an official document from Egypt calls him 'Lucius Livius Galba', and Livia's head appears on his coins.4 But like Claudius, Galba was an 'outsider' taking over possessio of the domus Caesaris after the death of its previous paterfamilias, and in the absence of direct heirs. As in a.d. 41, there were others who put forward their own claims and who either had to be eliminated (like Clodius Macer in Africa), or whose support had to

4 Galba is called 'Livius' in the Edict of Tiberius lulius Alexander: MW )iS = AN 600 (see above, p. 249). DIVA AVGVSTA coin: MW 75.

be won, at least until they could be made safe, like Verginius Rufus. Galba had to ensure that all these groups would come to be as dependent upon him as they had been on earlier Caesars; under the circumstances, we should not be too surprised at his lack of success.

The nature of the Principate naturally gave any new emperor the advantage of having patronage to bestow, and being able to remove from positions of authority men upon whose loyalty he had no claims, to replace them with others who would be ipso facto in the new emperor's debt. While Verginius Rufus was beholden to no one, his successor Hordeonius Flaccus was indebted for his office to Galba. At the start of a new reign, individuals competed to win the favour of a man who brought few supporters with him from Spain. Thus although the legions on the lower Rhine, under the command of Fonteius Capito, had not been involved in the events at Vesontio, individual officers were keen to show exceptional loyalty to Galba. At Bonn, the legionary commander Fabius Valens (who claimed to have been a supporter of Rufus, and therefore, perhaps, an opponent of Nero) was quick to administer the oath of loyalty to Galba. Later on in the year he again tried to demonstrate his loyalty by executing his commander, Fonteius Capito, on the grounds that he was plotting against Galba. Valens will have assumed that he deserved a reward for his efforts, perhaps in the shape of the Rhine army command. Galba did not reward him, and instead appointed Aulus Vitellius to command the army on the lower Rhine in December. It was Otho who had to pay the price for Galba's ingratitude.

With the exception of Africa under Macer - whom Galba soon destroyed, possibly after a naval campaign - there was now no province which failed to recognize the new emperor. But not all those who held military power owed their authority to Galba. Galba's authority might be seen as stemming from the decision by the praetorian prefect Nymphidius Sabinus to abandon Nero. It was Sabinus who was in effective control of Rome. He allowed sections of the urban mob, those who thought that they had suffered under Nero, to indulge in attacks of physical violence on some of Nero's freedmen. He also removed the invalid Ofonius Tigellinus from his position as co-commander of the guard, claiming that Tigellinus had been particularly involved in all the evil aspects of Nero's administration (a myth which those who had loyally served Nero for many years were happy to accept). The removal of Tigellinus concentrated power in Sabinus' hands; and Sabinus soon came to think of himself as potentially more than a kingmaker. To justify a bid for control of the imperial household, rumours were circulated that he was in fact an illegitimate son of Caligula, whose freedman his grandfather had been.

Galba's insistence that, since he was a member of a republican family

a.d. 68

that could be traced back for several centuries, his authority stemmed from his own domus as well as, and as much as, that of the Caesars, is not likely to have endeared him to those who belonged to the imperial household. Like other emperors, Galba depended on the help of trusted freedmen — but his own freedmen, Asiaticus and Icelus (to whom he granted equestrian privileges), were naturally a threat to those who had served the Julio-Claudians. Otho was later to win considerable success by representing himself as Nero's successor as head of that domus. Anecdotes were told of how Galba's idea of distributing largesse was to give people dny amounts of money, but stress that they came from his private purse, and not that of the Caesars. He had at first rejected the dtle of 'Caesar' altogether; although he accepted it from the senatorial delegation which met him at Narbo on his journey from Spain to Rome, the senators noted that they were entertained off Galba's family dinner- service, and not off that of the Caesars which had been specially sent out to him. Titus Vinius had to make it clear to Galba that this snobbery would not help him to gain legitimacy.

Galba's arrival in Rome would mean changes in the distribution of power there; he was bringing his own supporters with him, Icelus and Asiaticus to help him in the domus, and Titus Vinius and Otho in the government. These men were bound to replace not just the leading administrators within the domus, but also public officials appointed by Nero — for instance, the praefectus urbi, Flavius Sabinus. Rumours that Galba might appoint the commander of his legionary guard, Cornelius Laco, to the praetorian prefectship, implied that Nymphidius Sabinus would either have to accept a much less prominent role than that which as 'Benefactor of the Senate and People' he had been playing since Nero's death, or seize power before Galba and his supporters reached Rome. In addition, Macer's interruption of corn supplies from Africa was one of the factors that undermined Galba's popularity at Rome. We do not have enough evidence to be entirely certain whether Nymphidius Sabinus did in fact plan a conspiracy, or whether he and his friends were 'framed' either by those at Rome who wished to curry Galba's favour, or those accompanying Galba on his journey who had no wish to tolerate potential rivals. We are told that one night in late summer, Sabinus attempted to enter the praetorian camp; his way was blocked by one of the tribunes, Antonius Honoratus, who had him killed. It was claimed that Sabinus held in his hands a speech, composed by the senator Cingonius Varro, appealing for the support of the troops.

2б5

Whatever the threat Sabinus may have represented, Galba's reaction was harsh. He ordered the execution of Varro, and took the opportunity to kill other friends of Sabinus and of Nero, such as the exiled king Mithridates of Pontus (who had said some unpleasant things about

Galba's appearance). Petronius Turpilianus was ordered to commit suicide. These deaths did not bode well for those who hoped that dementia would be one of Galba's imperial virtues. As Galba's entourage approached Rome, the marines whom Nero had constituted into a regular legion during his last months appealed to be allowed the same privileges as the new Seventh Legion which was accompanying him from Spain. Galba rejected their pleas; several of them lost their lives in the violence that followed.

Galba was rapidly losing much of the goodwill with which he had set out. It was not just his parsimonious personal regime which led to resentment. He realized that Nero had been unpopular during his last years because of the need to raise funds in the provinces in order to pay for new buildings and spectacles in the capital. Galba's solution was to cut expenditure. He even went so far as to set up a commission of thirty senators to try to get back money which Nero had bestowed on his favourites. Needless to say they claimed to be able to recover only one tenth of what Nero had disbursed.

There were other aspects of Galba's administration that undermined support for him. On Nero's death, those exiled by the tyrant during the last few years returned to Rome, and some opened legal proceedings against those who had accused them; a praetor-elect, Helvidius Priscus, was particularly keen to begin a vendetta against all those who had supported Nero. When Galba arrived, he made it clear that the past should best be forgotten. As expected, he, or Icelus, arranged for the execution of some of the principal freedmen of the domus Caesaris: Helius, Polyclitus, Petinus and Patrobius. On the other hand many (including Helvidius Priscus) took it amiss that Vinius, a notorious womanizer, saved Tigellinus because he was interested in his widowed daughter. We are left with the impression that Galba was not displeased by rumours hostile to Vinius: Vinius' role as Galba's closest adviser - symbolized by his designation to the consulship for a.d. 69 as the emperor's colleague - gave him more power than was safe.

Historians once thought that one of Galba's strengths as an imperial candidate had been that he had no obvious successor. In fact there was a grand-nephew, Publius Dolabella, and the Caesars' personal bodyguard of German soldiers assumed that he would be Galba's heir. This displeased Galba: the history of earlier emperors had indicated that when the succession was clear, those who wished to prosper transferred their loyalty from the setting to the rising sun. A plurality of potential successors could be as much to an emperor's advantage as a source of instability for the empire (see above, ch.5 n.4). The fact that Galba should have thought that the adoption of a son and successor would be a solution to his present difficulties therefore requires explanation. Even more surprising is the identity of the man he adopted: Lucius Calpurnius

Piso Frugi Licinianus. This Piso was the youngest son of the consul of a.d. 27, destroyed by Messallina in a.d. 47. Although he had been exiled under Nero as a member of a family who seem consistently to have represented a threat to the Julio-Claudians, Piso had no political ambitions (we do not even know whether he had ever been a senator). The choice of Piso was not made because Galba needed the support of Piso's relatives. Galba claimed that he was choosing Piso on entirely personal grounds; many years before, as a private citizen, he had decided to make Piso his own heir, and now that Galba had become a Caesar, he asserted that there was no reason to take any other factors into account (in fact Piso was a brother of the Cn. Pompeius Magnus who married Claudius' daughter Antonia and related to the Julians through Seribo- nia: see Stemma III, p. 992). But if Galba's decision was determined by private factors, why did he pass over his own nephew, Dolabella?

One explanation for the adoption of as unspectacular a successor as Piso may be that there already was an obvious successor: Otho. Otho was associated with Nero's 'good', early years; he was popular with the praetorians, and had considerable support within the domus Caesaris. His influence may be detected in the fact that Galba appointed, or retained, Poppaea's brother Scipio Asiaticus as suffect consul for the last months of 68. Otho also had the support of Titus Vinius. He had undertaken to marry Vinius' daughter if Vinius persuaded Galba to adopt him. Thus Vinius would ultimately, if all went well, end up as the grandfather of Otho's son and successor. The moment Otho was formally recognized as the emperor's successor, Galba's own role would have been played out.

11 a. d. 69—70

Our knowledge of the calendar year 69 is much better than of 68, since Tacitus' description of the events of this 'long' year in his Histories happens to survive. Tacitus' account naturally has its limitations. It depends upon pro-Flavian traditions and was written with hindsight, with the problems of the reigns of Nerva and Trajan in mind. It also suffers from the limitations of ancient historiography as a literary form — in particular, its overemphasis on warfare. Certainly Roman armies won and lost two great battles in a.d. 69; but the success or failure of candidates for the imperial office depended on whether they could win the loyalty of very much wider groups of people than merely the particular soldiers who fought on the battlefields of northern Italy.5

By replacing Verginius Rufus with Hordeonius Flaccus, Galba had

5 The events of a.d. 69 are covered by Tacitus in books i-iii of the Historitr. Heubner 1965-82 (в 84); Wellesley 1972 (в i95);Chilver 1979 (в 27). We also have Plutarch's Galba and Otho, Suetonius, Dio lxiii and lxiv, and a summary by Josephus (BJ iv.iof).

The readable modern narrative accounts by Wellesley 1975 (c 412) and Greenhalgh 1975 (c 551) put more stress on the military action than on analysis of the political manoeuvring.

removed a potential rival for the imperial office, and Titus Vinius a personal enemy; they had not won the allegiance of the three legions of the upper Rhine army. The appointment of one of his earliest supporters, Caecina Alienus, as legate of the two legions encamped at Mainz is an indication of Galba's anxieties about them. It is not particularly surprising that on i January a.d. 69, Hordeonius Flaccus was unable to persuade the legions at Mainz to take the annual military oath to Galba; as in the previous year, an oath of loyalty to the 'Roman Senate and People' cloaked treason to the emperor. Such disrespect would only become a serious threat if the troops found an alternative candidate for the imperial office, more willing to risk civil war than Rufus had been. Flaccus was old and lame, and not a potential emperor.

Just a month or so previously, however, the lower Rhine army had received Aulus Vitellius as its commander in place of the executed Fonteius Capito. Vitellius, born on 7 September a.d. 12, and consul ordinarius in a.d. 48, was an illustrious figure; his father had been Claudius' foremost supporter (see above, p. 236), and he himself had been trusted by Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. The suggestion that Vitellius should be offered the imperial office apparently came from Caecina Alienus. Our sources ascribe his readiness to abandon Galba to his fear of an impending prosecution for corruption committed as governor of Baetica; such a prosecution may cover a desire on the part of Vinius and Otho, Galba's two other early supporters, to have him out of the way. The revolt had been carefully prepared, possibly even before Vitellius' appointment. On the same evening the news from Mainz was brought to Vitellius in Cologne, presumably via Bonn. The legate of the legion stationed at Bonn was Fabius Valens, the man who had engin­eered Capito's execution. Valens was disappointed that Galba had insufficiently rewarded him for having removed Capito. He took the lead in persuading Vitellius to risk a bid for the imperial office, despite the dangers - quite apart from the military question, Vitellius' wife and children were in Rome. Although Vitellius had no reason to be dissatisfied with Galba, he had nothing to hope for from the coming regime of Titus Vinius and his prospective son-in-law Otho. When Valens appeared at the legate's palace at Cologne (the remains of which can still be seen underneath the present town hall) and saluted Vitellius as his imperator, Vitellius was prepared to accept. The legions further downriver at Neuss and Xanten joined Valens on the same day, and on the following day the upper Rhine army at Mainz took the oath to him as well.6

Galba's procurator for Belgic Gaul, Pompeius Propinquus, had immediately informed the government of the trouble at Mainz on 1

6 Vitellius'proclamation: Murison 1979(0 378).

January. Galba may well have thought that the animosity of Verginius Rufus' old army was directed not so much against himself, as against Vinius and Otho; 1 January was the day when Galba and Vinius entered upon their joint consulship, and many had assumed (Plutarch tells us) that on that day Otho would be publicly acclaimed as Galba's adoptive son and successor. Even if he had known that the Rhine armies had already gone so far as to proclaim a rival emperor, Galba will still have thought that his chances of regaining the loyalty of these armies would be improved if he showed that there was an alternadve to Vinius and Otho. If he rejected making his nephew Publius Cornelius Dolabella his heir, then it was because he was too fond of him to force him into the position of being a foil to Otho. But Piso mattered less; Galba was willing to put his life at risk. On 10 January he announced his decision to his consilium of amici, and then presented Piso to the praetorians and to the Senate as the new Lucius Sulpicius Galba Caesar.

The adoption of Piso was not so much a matter of indicating who was to be the next emperor, as indicating who was not: Otho. Otho moved swiftly to recover the prize that had as good as been his. Vinius had let him down in the imperial consilium-, Otho had no need of his support now, and Vinius seems not to have been aware of Otho's plans. Galba had alienated the domus Caesaris by executing its freedmen and replacing them with his own; he had alienated certain praetorian tribunes as a result of the coup ascribed to Nymphidius Sabinus, and the rank and file by refusing to pay out the donative of 30,000 sesterces per man promised them by Sabinus in June. (Strictly speaking, a donative had hitherto been a legacy paid out of a deceased Caesar's will as a reward for past loyalty, and Galba had no need to make such a payment on Nero's behalf. But the insulting quip that 'he levied his soldiers, and did not buy them' will have done his popularity little good.) Otho, perhaps with Vinius' backing, had no difficulty in finding supporters amongst the praetorians, the vigiles and the urban cohorts. Early in January Galba himself was frightened enough of the extent of that support to retire several tribunes. They and their friends were easily persuaded to back Otho's coup.

On the advice of his astrologer, Otho finally chose 15 January for his enterprise. He accompanied Galba to a public sacrifice at the temple of Apollo on the Palatine; at the appropriate moment his freedman Onomastus gave the agreed message - that 'the building surveyors are waiting for you at home' - and Otho slipped away to be saluted as emperor by just twenty-three soldiers of the bodyguard. When this small group of supporters reached the praetorian camp, there was no oppo­sition from the officers. Galba's associates — including Vinius, apparently still unaware of Otho's plans - sent to the other troops present in Rome for military support, but without success. A false rumour that Otho had been killed by guards loyal to himself induced Galba to leave the palace in order to give thanks to the gods on the Capitol. As he and his entourage crossed the Forum, it became clear that their hopes were in vain. A small number of praetorians — considerably fewer than those who subsequently claimed the credit — attacked the party. Galba was killed in the Forum by a soldier from one of the Rhine legions. Piso died outside the temple of Vesta, where he had taken refuge. Titus Vinius failed to persuade the man who killed him that he was actually involved in Otho's conspiracy.

The Senate formally recognized Otho as the man who controlled the imperial household and the empire at a meeting held on the same evening. Otho was the first emperor to have seized power as a result of open bloodshed (Claudius had executed his predecessor's assassins). He also soon realized that he was faced with the candidature of a rival emperor on the Rhine. There was an exchange of correspondence with the usurper, and Otho suggested that Vitellius take Vinius' place as his prospective father-in-law. A senatorial embassy was sent to persuade Vitellius to abandon his claim, but it soon became clear that he was not a free agent, and that the Rhine armies would not countenance a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Nevertheless Otho's regime was popular. He already had the support of the praetorians, and of their officers. For all that he had virtually been Galba's expected successor, he publicly dissociated himself from that unpopular emperor, and instead emphasized his association with Nero: Galba's freedman Icelus and his appointee as praetorian prefect, Corne­lius Laco, were both executed. Statues of Nero and Poppaea were restored, and the emperor was acclaimed by the urban plebs as 'Nero Otho'. Any negative features of Nero's last years (when Otho was in Spain) were blamed on the unfortunate Tigellinus, whom Otho now executed. The disappearance of Vinius was a bonus; not only could unpopular decisions taken by Galba be ascribed to him, but Otho was freed from his promise to marry Vinius' daughter. Instead, he proposed to strengthen his claim to be the legitimate paterfamilias of the imperial household by marrying Nero's widow, Statilia Messallina. By represent­ing himself as Nero's successor, and copying his liberality, Otho won the support of the urban population; and he did his best to win supporters among the Senate, not just by inviting senators to dinner at the palace (much to their discomfort when on one occasion the praetorians suspected them of plotting against their emperor), but also by appoint­ing several additional suffect consuls, including Verginius Rufus. Marius Celsus, designated to a suffect consulship for the second half of the year by Galba, was confirmed in it by Otho. Otho himself was formally elected consul, together with his elder brother, Lucius, on 26 January.

Vespasian's elder brother, Flavius Sabinus, was re-appointed to the urban prefecture he had held under Nero.

Like other emperors, Otho made the most of news of military success. The defeat of a Sarmatian raiding party by the legate of Moesia, M. Aponius Saturninus, in February not only gave Otho some of the military prestige which he had hitherto lacked, but also enabled him to tie both the governor and one of his legionary legates, Aurelius Fulvus (grandfather of the emperor Antoninus Pius), to him by bestowing military honours. The governor of Pannonia, L. Tampius Flavianus, was honoured by being given Galba's place among the Arval Brethren; although related to Vitellius, he was to remain loyal to Otho. In any case, most provincial governors had no qualms about recognizing Galba's murderer. Even the governor of Tarraconensis, Cluvius Rufus, at first recognized Otho as emperor. So did the eastern armies: Antioch in Syria minted coins with his image and title. The gold coins issued in Otho's name and proclaiming 'peace throughout the world' were perhaps optimistic, but not absurdly so.7 Only the German and British legions refused to take the oath. (The situation in Britain was confused; the governor Trebellius Maximus seems to have lost control, and fled to Vitellius; but the legionary legates also provided Vitellius with vexilla- tiones of 8,000 men.)

Otho's coup was irrelevant to the plans of Vitellius, Valens and Caecina. Their rebellion had been as much against Galba's intimates as against Galba himself. For Vitellius to be a legitimate emperor — and he made no claim to be Augustus until he had won the approval of the Senate and people — those who ruled in Rome had to be removed, and the Rhine legions had the power to do this. The historical narrative of the year 69 gives the impression that it was the support of the armies that gave legitimacy to a candidate for imperial office; but that was not the whole story. Otho's failure shows that an emperor had to have control over his armies; but Vitellius' failure shows that military power alone was not enough to maintain control over the empire. While Caecina and Valens prepared to march on Italy with the greater part of the upper and lower Rhine armies, Vitellius proved to be markedly unsuccessful in winning support outside the western provinces. More pardcularly, there is little evidence that he was ever accepted by the client kings, freedmen and procurators of the domus Caesaris.

The two Rhine armies had probably not heard of Otho's accession when they set off to cross into Italy as soon as the Alpine passes were clear of snow, Caecina through Switzerland and across the Great St Bernard, Valens through central Gaul and then across the Mont

7 Otho's coin issues: PAX ORBIS TERRARVM, MW 32; Otho recognized at Antioch, MW 77. For Sabinus: Wallace 1987 (c 407).

Genevre. Later historians following pro-Flavian sources give a highly coloured account of the havoc the two armies caused along their route. In January, the Twenty-first Legion, based at Vindonissa, was involved in a regular battle against the civitas of the Helvetii, who had apparently arrested one of Vitellius' messengers on his way to the Danube to seek support from L. Tampius Flavianus. The Helvetians surrendered to Caecina when he arrived before their capital of Aventicum in early February. Tacitus' account of the progress of Valens' army through Gaul is similarly coloured by anti-Vitellian propaganda, and stresses the violence of the troops against the Gallic population - particularly the destruction of Vienne, for having supported Vindex — and against each other. And if we are to believe our sources, when Vitellius left the Rhineland in March with a third army, he did nothing but feast for the whole length of his journey.

Otho acted immediately and, as far as one can judge, rationally. It was not to be expected that an army would be able to cross the Alps until March or April (he could not predict the unusually early spring that year). Loyal legions from the Balkans could be marshalled in northern Italy well before Vitellius' main armies arrived, so long as the area was kept under the government's control. In winter, the only weak point on Italy's north-western border was the Via Domitia, the coastal road between the Ligurian Alps and the sea. A number of units commanded by officers who had backed Otho's coup (but who quarrelled amongst themselves) reached this sector by early February. The government was assisted by its command of the sea; when the governor of Corsica, Decimus Picarius, came out prematurely on Vitellius' side, he was soon killed. The legate of the Maritime Alps, Marius Maturus, also joined Vitellius before Valens' army was near enough to protect his province from the Othonians (among those who lost their lives at the hands of plundering Othonian soldiers was Agricola's mother). A cavalry force (including a unit of Treverans under Iulius Classicus, the later rebel leader) was sent south, but failed to dislodge Otho's troops.

The success of Otho's soldiers in Liguria prevented a quick dash by Valens' cavalry towards Rome along the Etrurian coast. What Otho cannot have foreseen was that Caecina would be able to take advantage of an early warm spell to cross the Great St Bernard with a force of about 18,000 troops, and establish himself in north-western Italy by the beginning of March. He advanced as far as Cremona without encounter­ing significant opposition.

The fact that a rebel army had been allowed to enter Italy before the arrival of the loyal legions from the Danube was to mean that Otho had already lost. Nevertheless the officers he had sent to hold northern Italy managed to inflict a series of reverses on Caecina. A force based at

Verona under Annius Gallus, largely made up of three praetorian cohorts, and one based at Placentia under Vestricius Spurinna, consist­ing of Nero's legio I Adiutrix and two praetorian cohorts, forced Caecina back to Cremona. On 14 March Otho himself left Rome with all available forces (and with all those senators whom he could not trust; they were billeted in Mutina (Modena) for the duration of the campaign, where he could keep an eye on them). His troops (perhaps 15,000 men) were still outnumbered by Caecina. Early in April, Caecina, having heard that Valens' army had now also reached Italy, decided to try to deal with the Othonians before his colleague and competitor could assist, and share the glory. An attempt to lure the imperial army, under the command of Suetonius Paulinus and Marius Celsus, into an ambush at a place called Ad Castores about twelve Roman miles east of Cremona on the Via Postumia, resulted in another defeat for Caecina.

With Valens' arrival at Cremona, the advantage held by the Vitellian forces was, for the moment, overwhelming. But the emperor was already beginning to receive the reinforcements he had summoned from Pannonia; it would be another month before the Moesian legions were there in strength, but the main force of one of the Pannonian legions (the Twelfth) reached the Othonians a few days after Ad Castores, and the two others (the Seventh Galbiana and the Fourteenth) had already crossed into Italy. From a purely military perspective, it would have been in Otho's interest to put off a battle for a couple of weeks; that was what Suetonius Paulinus, Marius Celsus and Annius Gallus are reported as having proposed to the emperor's consilium. But the uldmate decision was the emperor's, and it had to be taken on political as well as military grounds. Because of their numerical superiority, the Vitellians had the option of detaching part of their army to cross the Po and march on the capital. Otho had no other troops between the Apennines and Rome. All Vitellius' supporters had to be prevented from moving south, and the only way to do that was to fight a battle immediately.

The battle, known as the 'First Battle of Cremona' or 'Bedriacum', took place on 14 April. The imperial army had the advantage of surprise, and gained some initial successes; but they were tired out by a 20- kilometre march to the batdefield, and the terrain - thick with vineyards and watercourses — was not to the advantage of the attackers. The Vitellians' greater military experience, as well as their numerical super­iority, decided the batde. Needless to say, the emperor's troops believed that they had been betrayed by some, or most, of their officers. Suetonius Paulinus immediately decamped to beg pardon from Vitellius at Lyons. On the day after the batde, Marius Celsus, Salvius Titianus and the other officers surrendered on behalf of their troops.

Otho had awaited the outcome of the battle at Brixellum, 20 km away on the south bank of the Po. He had the option of holding off the Vitellian army for a few more days, in the hope that the two other Pannonian legions would reach him, and that they would fight for him. That was unlikely: their colleagues in the Twelfth Legion were part of the army that had been defeated, and the emperor had to assume that the war was over. After making those arrangements that antiquity expected of a good monarch to protect his supporters from the vengeance of Vitellius — including kind words for his nephew, Salvius Cocceianus, whose relationship to Otho was not to prove fatal until the reign of Domitian — he killed himself on the morning of 16 April. He was not able to foresee that his death only freed Rome from the horrors of further bloodshed for some months; it was applauded as a brave act, then and later.

After the battle, Caecina and Valens both returned to Vitellius at Lyons. There the usurper received and pardoned a number of Otho's officers, and heard that the Senate had bestowed imperial powers on him on 19 April. Vitellius accepted the grant of imperium, but did not see himself as a 'Caesar', and for the time being even rejected the title 'Augustus'. A formal senatorial delegation met him at Pavia in mid-May. Vitellius spent some time in northern Italy visiting the battlefield at Cremona and attending gladiatorial games celebrating the establishment of the new order given by Caecina at Cremona and Valens at Bologna. In June, Vitellius and his considerable army — perhaps 60,000 soldiers — entered Rome, to the great inconvenience of its residents.

Despite the military victory of his armies and his formal recognition by the Senate, Vitellius' position was weaker than any emperor's had been on his accession. He had ensured that the legions which had remained loyal to the government of Otho were dispersed as widely as possible: the Fourteenth was returned to Britain, Nero's First Adiutrix was sent to Spain, the Seventh, Eleventh and Twelfth were sent back to Pannonia, Dalmatia and Moesia, and the Thirteenth was kept in northern Italy in the insulting position of helping build the amphi­theatres required for Valens' and Caecina's shows. These legions were not reconciled to the usurper. They would be ready to support any candidate who presented himself instead of Vitellius. Suetonius states that he was told, presumably by his father (who took part in these events), that some soldiers of the Seventh Claudia were already canvass­ing Vespasian's candidacy. A more likely candidate would have been Galba's nephew Cornelius Dolabella, who unwisely returned to Rome after Otho's death in a vain attempt to rally Vitellius' opponents. He was arrested and executed by the urban prefect, Vespasian's brother Flavius Sabinus.

Vitellius' coins show his awareness of the deep split between those soldiers who supported and those who opposed him. A Spanish as proclaims the 'Unity of the Armies' (in the plural). A denarius that may have been minted for the Rhine armies before Vitellius was recognized by the Senate asserts that both the armies (obverse) and the praetorians (reverse) were loyal; both sides of the coin show a ceremonial pair of hands, clasped in friendship. The praetorians had loyally supported their emperor, and Vitellius thought it wise to discharge considerable numbers (those who were provided with plots of land in the Maritime Alps and near Aquileia were swift to join the Flavian cause in the autumn) and replace them with soldiers from the Rhine legions. He tried to advertise the support of other armies, e.g. with coins celebrating Vespasian's subjugation of Judaea.

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