Dan Snow's History Hit - Gladiators: The Praetorian Guard

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

The true nexus of power in the Roman Empire wasn't in the Emperor's box but in the shadowy ranks of the Praetorian Guard. First established in 27 BCE by Caesar Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, they acted as his personal army and security escort. But it didn’t take long for their influence in Rome to become more insidious … they became kingmakers and power brokers with the ability to topple a dynasty at the drop of a hat. They were the ones who decided who lived and who died.Dan and Dr Simon Elliot, a leading voice in Roman History, walk the streets of Rome where Praetorian conspiracies and assassinations spilt imperial blood on the stones of the eternal city… This is episode 4 of 4 in our mini-series 'Gladiators'.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal PatmoreSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  

We tend to say the Roman emperors, the Caesars, ruled a great swathe of the known world, and that made them some of the most powerful men alive on the planet at the time. And that was certainly sometimes true, but often it wasn't. At times, the emperor was a cipher, a man who was bullied, bought, sold, and dispatched by an organisation that wielded the real power. On those occasions, the true locus of Roman might in Rome was not the human being sitting in the posh box at the Colosseum or relaxing up on the Palatine Hill. human being sitting in the posh box at the Colosseum or relaxing up on the Palatine Hill. At times like that, power in Rome was focused on the camp of the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorians were constituted really by the Emperor Augustus, the first emperor in around 27 BC, and they were

his bodyguard. They were his security escort. They take their name from the praetorium, the tent traditionally in which the commander of a legion or army slept. They had special privileges. They were allowed to bear arms in the city of Rome, unlike other soldiers. They had access to the corridors of power. And surprise, surprise, folks, they soon became a deeply insidious force in the politics at the heart of the empire. They became kingmakers. They were power brokers. They toppled emperors, even dynasties,

at the drop of a hat, or I should say at the drop of a wreath. This is Dan Snow's History. You're listening to our series that delves into the world of gladiators, of emperors, blood sports, power and conspiracy in ancient Rome. This is the rise and fall of the Praetorian Guard. In the movie Gladiates, you may remember right at the end of the movie, the Praetorians leave Commodus to his fate at the hands of Maximus.

They're ordered not to intervene by their prefect Quintus. Now, that obviously didn't happen. But it is true that the real Commodus was in fact assassinated in a conspiracy led by a senior member of the Praetorian Guard. The Guard then installed their preferred candidate on the throne, but he didn't bribe them enough and they killed him a few months later. On another occasion, they literally held an auction for the imperial title, while sometimes their commander cut out the middleman and simply took the job for himself. Now, to trace the rise of the Praetorian Guard from the emperor's bodyguards to something, something well far more powerful and complex, I met up with Dr Simon Elliot and we had this

conversation strolling through the streets of Rome with the heritage, the fabric of that mighty empire acting as a very appropriate backdrop. Hey Simon, good to see you man. Great see you, Dan. Thank you for having me on the pod. Well, it's nice to see you in the flesh. This time we're drinking April Spritz in Rome, in the beating heart of Rome itself. Absolutely. The imperial centre, the heart of the Roman Empire. We're in a really strange cafe. Lots of quite scary plaster casts of Roman rulers.

I can see your eyes darting around, looking to see if you recognise any of these emperors. Absolutely terrifying. It actually reminds me of a really scary episode of Doctor Who. It is a bit like that. There are statues all around us. What I really want to ask you about is the Praetorian Guard. On the one hand, we think of them as sort of elite force in this Roman army that people like to celebrate as one of the great fighting forces of all time. But on the other hand, they're unbelievably unreliable. They're a force for instability, for regime change, assassination. Let's start by going back to their beginnings.

Where did the Praetorians come from? So the Praetorian Guard was created by Augustus, the first emperor. Augustus, Octavian, the last man standing in the Roman civil wars in the first century BC, becomes the emperor in 27 BC. So he's got no competitors anymore. They're all dead, all gone. So in 27 BC, the Senate acknowledges him as being the first among equals, the emperor. So the Roman Empire is born. The Republic is gone. The Roman Empire is born. Before that, Roman leaders and generals did have bodyguards. So even later emperors had, for example, what were called German bodyguards, specific bodyguards for them. But the Praetorian Guard was created to specifically protect the new emperor. And it went through a variety of evolutions and iterations, different sizes at different periods, but largely the Praetorian Guard, as it lasted until it was abolished by

Constantine, was the creation of Augustus. Presumably he'd seen Caesar, he'd seen Pompey, he'd seen these, well, men who were almost emperors in all but name. Well, he'd seen them swept aside, assassinated, killed. He realised he needed to sort of institutionalise this force near Rome to protect him. In actual fact, there's a very specific reason why he did it, and it's a classic case of Roman smoke and mirrors. So everywhere you look in the Roman world, there's conceits.

And Augustus was the king of these conceits. What you see is not what you get. So in a Roman city or a town, it has a pomerian, which is a religious boundary. And in Rome, it had been fortified with the Servian wars, but that is the religious boundary of the city. Within those boundaries, you are not allowed to carry a weapon. Even soldiers are not allowed to carry a weapon. So the soldiers in Rome, when they gathered, they gathered in the field of Mars outside the walls,

because in the walls, they can't carry a weapon. So, very cleverly, Augustus, as you're doing various iterations, creating his new empire, created a new force, which legally was allowed to carry weapons when they were on the Palatine Hill defending him and his wife, Livia. That was a Praetorian guard. It was a creation to allow his soldiers to carry weapons when legally others weren't. And were they an elite or was it just patronage? Was it jobs for your mates? It depends who the emperor was. So the Praetorian Guard for the warrior emperors, we'll call Trajan as a great example,

Septimius Severus is a brilliant example. Their Praetorian Guards were the real deal. They were the elite soldiers. Severus, when he became the emperor, disbanded the guard because they'd killed his mentor Pertinax, the first emperor of the era of the five emperors, and then recreated it, twice the size, 10,000 men, with his Danubian veterans who'd got him in power

and had fought the Marcomannic Wars, celebrated on the column of Marcus Aurelius. So his Praetorian guard were the best soldiers in their known world, probably as good as any soldiers in their known world, probably as good as any soldiers in the entire world at the time. But for other emperors, they reflected them, so it wasn't. So for Commodus, for example, the Praetorian Guard became a laughingstock. And it's that Praetorian Guard, by the way, who then, for money, or rather not being given money, killed Pertinax at the beginning of the Year of the Five Emperors. Depends who the emperor is.

And tell me why the Praetorian Guard became such enormous players and such a potential source of instability within the early empire. Let's start with the Julia Claudians, that run of first emperors, your Caligulas and Tiberias and Claudius and things. Were they good at protecting the emperor or were they better at taking his life? Probably the latter, actually. If you think about it, very few Roman emperors died in their own beds. Most of them had very unfortunate ends.

Often the unfortunate ends were at the end of usually, not specifically the Praetorian Guard, but other Roman elites getting rid of them. Some of those elites are very often the Praetorian prefect in charge of the Praetorian Guard. So part of the Troika who led the assassination of Domitian was the Praetorian Prefect. Part of the Troika who led the assassination of Commodus was the Praetorian Prefect. The Praetorian Prefect clearly had a role in the assassination of Pertinax on the Palatine Hill. So in actual fact, it's not specifically usually the Praetorian Guard itself, it might be the Praetorian Prefect. But by inventing the Praetorians it seems that Augustus did introduce this very very dangerous element right into the heart of the Roman state. Which worked for him because he did die in his own bed. But then again he was a very powerful emperor. If you look at the

Roman world, to the Romans the most famous Roman of all was Augustus. Now, in our world, it's Caesar, Julius Caesar. To the Romans, it was Augustus. Caesar was famous, but Augustus was more famous. So it depends on the emperor. For the real deal emperors, exactly the same as whether they're good at fighting or not, they are the Praetorian god. For the not real deal emperors, Domitian, Commodus,

they fail because they reflect the emperor. Okay, so they keep Augustus safe. Tiberius, he dies in his bed. Caligula does not die in his bed. Assassinated. Praetorian Guard didn't keep him safe. No. But the Praetorian Guard put his successor on the throne, right?

Claudius. They found him hiding behind a curtain or something hiding behind a curtain and then made claudius the most unlikely of roman emperors actually turned out to be one of the most successful roman emperors in actual fact to my mind and of course it's claudius who um initiated the roman invasion of britain which created britannia so it plays a very great role in british history as well claudius in actual fact creates more roman provinces than many other roman emperors, so in terms of foreign policy certainly he's a very successful emperor. Whether he died a natural

death or not is debatable. You then move on though to Nero, who took his own life, may as well have been assassinated. The Nero one's quite interesting because if you look back at, for example, the Praetorian Guard actually kind of doing their job, right? A rebel general in a province province is marching on rome right so the bloody praetorian guard go and sort them out it seems that they don't do that very often like there's very few examples of the praetorian guard actually like going into battle to protect the emperor and protect the regime right so so they do with nero do they the praetorian guard are in play from the beginning of the empire through the principate phase until the accession of diocletian and then for the beginning of the dominate phase through to constantine who then abolishes them because they're more trouble than they're worse as it proved for three centuries

right so it's a good point well made however in that period sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't work again going back to my point they really really reflected the emperor and remember we're talking about the roman military largely here of the principates so the first half of the roman empire and at that period the roman military aren't based within the empire they're based on the edges of the empire on the frontiers so it's not really normal for a roman emperor to deploy troops in his own empire. So the Praetorian Guard usually only leave Rome with the emperor when he's on campaign. They do spend a lot of time,

again, those first Julia Claudians, Augustus de Niro, they spend a lot of time playing politics in Rome, don't they? It's difficult not to though, isn't it? Because basically it is like Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. You've got this council around the emperor. One of the members of his close council is the Praetorian prefects, actually usually two Praetorian prefects, to diffuse the power of the Praetorians, or certainly the Praetorian prefects. But you're in the centre of imperial power in, to your mind, the most powerful entity politically and economically and socially on the planet,

the Roman Empire. And you're at the heart. You're in the middle. You've got the ear of the emperor, the most powerful man in your world. So it's difficult not to, isn't it? Let's take them at their best. Or what are they supposed to be doing? They're keeping public order. They're bolstering the regime. The Praetorian Guard are there for one reason, literally one reason, to protect the emperor. They're not there to keep law and order in Rome at all. The Rome that Romans would have known was vast. It's a million people, twice the size of any city, any city in the was vast. It's a million people, twice the size of any city, any city in the Roman world.

It's enormous. The experience to a Roman will be like you and I flying over central London into Heathrow when the scale of modern London hits you. Well, that's what would happen to a Roman going into Rome. It smacks you in the face. To keep law and order within a million people, the Romans use two

organisations. The first one is the urban cohorts, the cohorts urbane, who are like gendarmes. So they're like legionaries, but they don't have weapons. And they also have a second organisation who are called the vigils, who are the night watchmen. Their main job was firefighting, but they also doubled up doing law and order. Meanwhile, the Praetorians, a third of the Praetorian guard at any one time, were on the Palatine Hill protecting the emperor. The rest of them were in the Praetorian camp. Unless the emperor was on campaign,

in which case they'd go on campaign with him en masse. So when they're doing the job of keeping the emperor safe, there are some very celebrated examples of when they go wildly off-piste, aren't they? They go completely rogue. I mean, the reason why Constantine got rid of them is because time and again and time and again, instead of doing their job protecting the emperor, they're actually getting rid of the emperor. Or they can make an emperor and get rid of the emperor. You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about the Praetorian Guard.

More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions,

and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Now we're on the mean streets of Rome. Let's mark the Praetorian, right? So they set up by Augustus. He dies in his bed. So the Praetorian, roughly speaking, fulfill the ambition that Augustus has for them. Yes.

Okay, good. Right, that's clear. Tiberius, what's going on there? They look after him. The thing about Tiberius clear Tiberius what's going on there they look after him the thing about Tiberius is Tiberius is a very successful general so he's very popular with the military and the Praetorian guard also worked for him as well he dies in his bed yes now his goodness knows the relationship I can never remember a great nephew step twice removed Caligula that was when it all starts to go wrong we start to get that kind of the Praetorian as a a wrecking force within the empire yeah so with

Caligula the Roman military had been used to having a strongman now through two rulers with Augustus and Tiberius Caligula was definitely not a military strongman very troubled Roman emperor to say the very least and ultimately the Praetorian Guard with him don't do their job. They aren't behind his assassination but they could have stopped it and they didn't. And then am I right in thinking once it happens that's the first time we see the Praetorian kind of picking emperors, I mean so central now to the succession. It is although it's worth remembering of, with the Praetorians, they haven't been around for a long time. So we think

of the Praetorian Guard today through modern culture, etc., as being intrinsically part of the Roman world. But they weren't. They were invented by Augustus. They'd not been around for that long. They'd come across one bad emperor and there they chose to fail. But did they raise

Claudius up after Caligula? Dan, they found him hiding behind a curtain and they made the most unlikely of Roman aristocrats, Claudius, emperor, who actually, despite the fact he was very ill-favoured, if one is to believe the primary sources, proved to be one of the great Roman emperors. Did he know the Praetorians were a very,

well, potentially a dangerous force within the upper echelons of the Roman roman emperors did he know the praetorians were a very well potentially a dangerous force within the upper echelons of the roman empire at this time or did he owe his position to them did he have to look after them i think for two reasons yes so firstly uh within the religious boundary of rome so within the walls of rome in actual fact the servian walls only the praetorian guards could carry weapons so intrinsically they are dangerous because nobody else can carry weapons apart from the praetorians who can and also the praetorian guard secondly are in the palace all the time the praetorian prefect is one of the most important counsellors of any roman emperor so

they're armed and they're there all the time so by definition they're going to be dangerous claudius did he die of natural causes or not what What do we think? 50-50. May have done, may not have done. No evidence the Praetorian Guard were involved there at all, actively or not. Nero succeeded. So Nero took his own life, may as well have been assassinated. Again, the Praetorian Guard could have saved him and didn't. Yeah, when there was a rebel general approaching Italy, the Praetorian Guard threw their hands up and said, we're not fighting for Nero. Yeah, and the thing to remember here is there's a pattern already developing.

We're still on the Julio-Claudians, the first dynasty of Roman emperors. And the pattern is, if the emperor is good and militaristic, the Praetorian Guard are fine. If they're not, Caligula, Nero, they're not. So a rubbish emperor, he won't command the loyalty of the Praetorians. Indeed, they might sniff a little vacuum and seek to move into it.

Absolutely. And also, remember, the Praetorians are soldiers. You know, they're carrying a gladius hispania, you know, the chosen killing weapon of the Roman legionary. They're armed in a similar fashion to elite Roman legionaries, especially when they're on campaign with the emperor. They're armed soldiers. Soldiers respond to strong leaders.

If you don't have a strong leader, they'll react to it negatively. As you're saying this, it really strikes me that Rome is a military dictatorship. Unlike some of the celebrated empires we read about through history, the Roman emperor can really only be confident when he's a proven veteran military experience. It's got to be a winner. Everybody loves a winner, and people don't like people who lose. And if you lose regularly regularly or if you don't

rule well regularly you're going to suffer we're walking through the streets of rome here would there have been young patroian officers from aristocratic families out like a guards officer in britain and france in the 18th century dan all of those things okay so they're paid more than other roman soldiers ultimately twice as much as other roman soldiers they have favorable positions across roman across Roman society, especially if you're an officer. It's a great position to be if you're a senator's son or an equestrian's son being in the Praetorian Guard. But crucially, again going back to the fact they're soldiers, you're carrying a weapon. So you're walking as a Praetorian officer through the streets of Rome and you're the only people who are allowed to carry a weapon, which actually gives you a huge psychological advantage.

And also probably far less of a risk of taking an axe in the back of the neck in the middle of the night in some German forest. You're not doing a stint on Hadrian's Wall. Well, I can tell you now there were very few Praetorians who actually did stints on Hadrian's Wall. If the Emperor is on campaign, then the Praetorian Guard en masse go with him. The Praetorian Guard's Aquila Eagle standard goes with him. And they're there to do the one job they have,

which is to protect him. Are they a bit like Napoleon's Imperial Guard? Are they not just guarding the Emperor? Are they occasionally used on the battlefields as an elite force to break the will of the enemy? Dan, that's a fantastic analogy, so I often think the Praetorian Guard in battle when they're good Praetorian Guard not bad Praetorian Guard has been like Napoleon's old guard, so they're the ultimate ultimate elite

reserve, they're there to be deployed when a situation needs saving on the battlefield or the battle's about to be won and you need to push things over the edge. So they're there to be deployed as the elite, elite reserve. And the interesting thing with the old guard with Napoleon, it will be exactly the same with the Praetorian Guard with the Roman emperors, is when they failed the first time at Waterloo, the guard reculed, it was a big deal. It was the end.

It was the end. It was a really, really big deal. It's an event which still resonates culturally across Europe and in France today, the failure of Napoleon's old guard. So that's a great analogy. That's exactly what the Praetorian Guard were like. So the officers love it. Lots of social, political, sexual opportunities in Rome, no doubt.

They're loving life. What about the men themselves? They're getting paid more. And there's a bonus, isn't there? They get bribed, basically, with the new emperor. So a Praetorian Guardsman gets paid more than other rem soldiers probably about twice as much for most of the period of their existence they get far more perks they're living in the imperial center they're on duty in the imperial palace on the palatine hill the word palace comes

from palatine hill right so they're at the center of palatial life in rome but also they get given effectively bribes, donatives whenever the emperor wants to do something. So when an emperor comes to power, he gives the Praetorian guard loads of money to keep him in power. If he thinks he's in danger, he might give them loads of money to protect him.

And often you find Roman emperors who don't do that come to sticky ends. Strange, that. Speaking of sticky ends, right, we got to Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, one emperor after another. Did the Praetorian guard have a hand in that? Speaking of sticky ends, right, we got to Nero, Galba Otho Vitellius, one emperor after another. Did Praetorian Guard have a hand in that? Sort of on and off. So again, they had favoured candidates in the year of the Four Emperors, but ultimately the thing about Vespasian was he was a highly, highly, highly successful soldier.

Probably the most experienced, highly successful decorated soldier of his generation. Famously took part in many military campaigns, including the... Conquer the isle of wight what a legend absolutely and the southwest and ultimately soldiers like successful soldiers so ultimately the praetorians eventually side with vespasian and so is born the flavian dynasty right so on to the second great dynasty of imperial rome praetorians their calming influence or their wreckers here as well? For two, yes. For one, not. And the pattern's exactly the same, Dan. So for Vespasian, yes, dies a natural death. Titus, yes, allegedly dies a natural death. Although interestingly, within two years of becoming emperor, but Domitian, another real favoured emperor, who in my opinion

was a very poor emperor, the praetorian guard could have saved him but he is assassinated so they again choose not to save him how does that then the transition work are they quite key in the successor absolutely yeah so the senate and the praetorians go from nerva there's an elder statesman so he's the safest pair of hands they can have actually after the chaos of the end of domitian's reign and then of course you end up with one of the greatest roman soldier emperors of all, Trajan. Praetorian God loved Trajan. Dan, the pattern is exactly the same

to this point, and it continues. If you're a successful military emperor or a warrior, the Praetorians love you. If you're not, you're in danger. You either bribe your way out of difficulty, or you're dead. Okay. And then we get that famous celebrated run of emperors, including Hadrian and Thomas Pius. Towards the end of that, though, we get that famous celebrated run of emperors, including Hadrian and Thomas Pius.

Towards the end of that, though, we get Commodus, infamous old Commodus. Commodus and his successors, the Praetorians, are playing a huge role in who's on the throne and who's next. So the interesting thing here is look at the period of history we're talking about. We're talking about the accession of Hadrian in 117 to the assassination of Commodus in 193. And then you get the sequence of Hadrian, successful emperor. Not a warrior emperor, really, but a successful emperor. Antoninus Pius, highly successful emperor. Not a warrior emperor, but highly successful.

Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, latterly, Marcus Aurelius. Again, highly successful emperors. We're recording, standing next to the column of Marcus Aurelius, who is one of the great Roman emperors. Throughout their reigns, the Praetorian Guard does its job because they're great emperors. But then you come to Commodus and the pattern repeats. A poor emperor and the Praetorian prefect, the head of the Praetorian Guard, is one of the Troika

who lead the assassination of Commodus. OK, how about the Severance? So we're going to go to the assassination on New Year's Eve 192 and 193 of Commodus, involving the Praetorian prefect. And then we have the Year of the Five Emperors, beginning with Pertinax. And that's a great story about the assassination of an emperor by the guard itself. So Pertinax is only emperor for three months. Stars himself would be Marcus Aurelius.

At the end of January, the Praetorians go to him and say, can you give me some money? And he says, no, because naturally the treasury's bust and i'm being a worthy emperor i say all right the end of february they go to him and say can i have some money or we'll kill you and he says no so at the end of march they kill him right so he's assassinated by the praetorian guard it's a very big deal which resonates all the way through roman history from that point because 500 of them march and the description is in coenus so in a formation like a boar's head a military formation through the center of rome from the praetorian camp outside the servian walls through to the palatine hill and the killing it's a big deal so by describing them in a boar's head they're armed fully armed pushing their way through the crowd who may have been trying to save the emperor,

and then they kill the emperor. It's a big deal. Is that the one where they held an auction after that? They did, absolutely, at the Praetorian camp. Right. At the Praetorian camp. And anyone who fights for the emperor, it goes to the highest bidder. And the last two bidders were Didius Julianus, who's the leading senator who won, and Pertinax's father-in-law, who lost.

So Pertinax's own father-in-law was bidding to replace him, his own son-in-law, who'd been assassinated. Very Roman. Very pragmatic, the Romans. So then you go through to Severus. Now, Severus has mentored Pertinax, and Severus gets to Rome with three, four, five legions, parks them in the Forum Romanum, goes into the Senate House, draws his sources, arm the emperor, the citizens say, absolutely.

And then he gathers the Praetorians in the Forum Romanum, surrounded by his own legions, and he disbands them. He orders them to live 100 miles away from Rome for the rest of their lives. He cashiers them. He recreates the Praetorians to twice the strength with his own Danubian veterans, and the Praetorian Guard is rebuilt as a really properly elite Roman military formation. And finally, you have this cascade of emperors in the Severan period through to the beginning of the crisis of the third century, where it all starts going wrong again. Caracalla, not assassinated by the Praetorians,

but he was assassinated and they didn't save him. Then you get the Praetorian prefect himself, Macrinus, becoming the emperor very briefly. It feels to me like the logical next step, doesn't it? Praetorians don't know anything. They've killed emperors, they've auctioned it. Finally, they literally put one of their own on the throne. He puts himself on the throne.

So Macrinus actually had engineered the assassination of Caracalla but not using his own guard on mass just engineered a situation where caracalla was stabbed while he was having a pee against the tree with his back turned stabbed in the back and they're so macrinus macronus doesn't meet a happy end then you get elia gabulous who's very confused and finally you end with severus Alexander who again is assassinated by Maximianus Thrax his successor the guard could have saved him but didn't right so the pattern is the same all the way through if you're a successful warrior emperor the guard tend to be militaristic and support you and will keep you in power if you're not you need to bribe them if you don't you're dead so Macron so finally it's almost it just feels like the logical end state.

They've intervened in politics. They've put their candidate on the throne. They finally put one of their own. They put the Praetorian boss. They cut the middleman out and just make him emperor directly. Yeah, but even he doesn't survive. So even the Praetorian prefect, the boss of the Praetorians, doesn't get saved by his own Praetorians.

Ultimately, he makes a sticky end as well. The thing with Macronists is it's a very good way of shedding light on how powerful Praetorian prefects could be. So usually there are two Praetorian prefects to dilute their power, but both could be on the political make all the time and looking for an opportunity to make or break an emperor or make themselves emperor in the case of Macronists. And remember the Praetorian prefect is part of the emperor's inner circle.

He's always there. He's always got the emperor's ear. He's always got access to the emperor's inner circle. He's always there. He's always got the emperor's ear. He's always got access to the emperor. And remember, the emperor is being told only usually what he wants to hear because you don't want to make a Roman emperor cross because you could end up in the Colosseum. So this is a ruler who's living on the edge all the time,

largely because he's only been told half the story. And one of the people telling him half the story is the Praetorian prefect. Is there a big critique of the Praetorian? I mean, do you see this in the Roman authors? Are they regarded as a very dangerous, unstable force within Rome? Absolutely. Ultimately, of course, the great Constantine becomes the emperor in the Western Empire in 306 in York. Then by 312 he's defeated his opponents and he's now in Rome. And he's the one who disbands the Praetorian Guard because he knows he can't trust them. Because they supported his opposing candidates and he can't trust them.

He gets rid of them. From that point on actually the Roman emperors create their own guard units and they're fairly successful. So this big block of political power based around the Praetorian prefects and the Praetorian Guard, because they're the only ones who can carry weapons in Rome, has gone. So Constantine gets rid of the Praetorians. It turns out that didn't harm the prince, but it didn't harm the emperor.

I mean, it was the best thing to do. So with Constantine, he made a very wise decision, but context is important here. So we've got to the end of the Severans. We enter the crisis of the third century. And one of the manifestations of this period when the roman empire nearly implodes is successive successive successive usurpations so emperor after emperor after emperor so in that context the praetorians are made and broken made and broken made and broken made and broken an emperor or could have saved an emperor and didn't or did or didn't or

did and so on so there's this endless cycle. It's only the great Diocletian, in actual fact, who saves the Roman Empire from disappearing completely hundreds of years before it actually did. And that's because he reformed the whole Roman state. Intriguingly, even he didn't get rid of the Praetorian Guard. It was ultimately Constantine who did so, but in the context of the fact of decades of misuse of their own power so i'm gonna have to keep you talking for way too long let's find a little i'm gonna buy a drink i'm in

well that's it folks thank you very much to simon and all my guests over the past few episodes i hope this gladiator series has answered some of the questions you might have had if you've been to see the new gladiator movie or if you've been to Rome to see the Colosseum and wondered what it was like in ancient times. So join me on Wednesday for more true history behind the movies. I do a deep dive on the subject of Steve McQueen's new film Blitz. I'm talking to the best-selling historian Joshua Levine about the warfare and the tactics, the Luftwaffe, and what really went on in London when the lights were out.

A lot of stiff upper lip and camaraderie, yes, but also a lot of crime and looting and an environment where people explored new ideas and sexuality in a way they hadn't before. So make sure to look out for that. And if you want some more true history behind the movies or even more ancient Rome, whatever you like, in fact, send us an email with your suggestions to ds.hh at historyhit.com.