Dan Snow's History Hit - Pertinax. Son of a Slave to Emperor of Rome.

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

The son of a former slave, Pertinax was the Roman Emperor who proved that no matter how lowly your birth, you could rise to the very top through hard work, grit and determination.This previously untold story brings a fascinating and important figure out of the shadows. A self made everyman, a man of principle and ambition, a role model respected by his contemporaries who styled himself on his philosophizing predecessor and sometime champion Marcus Aurelius, Pertinax's remarkable story offers a unique and panoramic insight into the late 2nd century AD Principate Empire.In this episode, Dan is joined by historian, archaeologist and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent Dr Simon Elliott to explore Pertinax's extraordinary biography.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. I've got Simon Elliott back on the podcast today. Simon Elliott has been on many times, he's a veteran of this podcast. He writes books like other people take breaths of air. I don't know how he does it, the books come flying off his pen, off his word processor. And this time he's written a book about the Emperor Pertinax, Emperor Pertinax, a remarkable figure in Roman history. He was the son of a former slave born in 126 AD. And he has just an extraordinary biography. He was a teacher, he was a soldier, he was a general, he was a proconsul, and then finally emperor. His career tells us a huge amount about Rome at the very height of the Principate. And Simon, of course, does it justice with his amazing enthusiasm and grasp of detail.

All this wonderful classical historians out there. We haven't done a classical history one for a while, so enjoy this. If you wish to go to History Hit TV, we've got some great documentaries on there. We're looking at the vexed history of Britain and Africa. We've got the new Stonehenge documentary out about the new revelations, things we've just learned about Stonehenge, out about the new revelations that we've just things we've just learned about Stonehenge where those stones have come from etc so those are all available History Hit TV if you use the code pod1 pod1 exclusive for podcast listeners you get a month for free and then you get a month just one pound euro or dollar so I would definitely do that if I

were you and if you go to historyhit.com slash shop, you can buy your face coverings, historical face coverings. They're selling out fast. We were having a big fight in the office about which historical figures should be on the face coverings. I said Tutankhamen is the dead sir. That will be the quickest selling face covering. It has not been. I don't like being wrong. Everyone in the office is laughing at me. Please, please please please don't let a hapsburg outsell king tut so please get in there and buy your toot and carmen face covering it's very odd and you will love it in the meantime though everyone here is simon elliott enjoy so i'm great to have you back on the podcast it's a total pleasure thank you very much glad to be back i love working with you guys well we've we've we've we've taken up with a lot we've taken

a lot of your time in these podcasts we're very grateful um let's talk pertinax just such a fascinating idea so i've i've i've read your book this this guy is has there ever been a social climb like it in the history of the world well that's the great thing about one of the great things about being a historian is just very very occasionally done you get the opportunity to retrieve one of these figures from history who in his own time and even through to the 18th century probably was a very well-known figure um who was known as a man of honor a man of honour, a man of true grit, a man of determination, a man who worked hard to achieve, ultimately, the greatest post in the

Roman Empire. He became the emperor, but he came from a very lowly background as well. Initially, his family did anyway. So it's just an astonishing story arc. Yeah, so his father, well, let's get, give us a period. When are we talking? Well, he was born in 1st of August, AD 126. So you're talking about the Principate phase of the Roman Empire. And he dies, as we discussed later, we'll discuss later in AD 193, the beginning of the year of the five emperors. So this is the Principate Empire at its height. So one of the other great things we can do telling his story is we can use him as an everyman to examine every aspect of society culture the economy politics the military of the roman empire when arguably it was at its absolute height so his father was a slave now what's that make him so if you look at roman society uh it's very structured, it's very formal. At the very bottom you have slaves who have no personal power at all, clearly.

And then above them you have freedmen who are people who had been slaves but who'd been freed either through earning money, which you could as a slave, and buying your freedom from your master or through a good deed or working hard. And then you have free men who had never been slaves and then so this is the artisan class and then above that you have the curial equestrian and senatorial classes of aristocrat so pertinax's father had been a slave we know no details about his father apart from his name which was helvius um successus and that's it but what we do know is that having been freed from being a slave and we don't know why but having been freed from being a slave he then made lots of money which you could as a freed

man um if you were to work hard you had the opportunity you could become a roman citizen you couldn't hold official posts but you could become a roman citizen and you could make lots of money and it seems as though pertinax's father made his money in the logging trade in the Po Valley and probably became the equivalent today of being a millionaire. So when Pertinax was born, he's born to his father, had been a slave but he already made some wealth. So Pertinax gets the classic tree gnomon of sort of a Roman wannabe aristocrat really. He's got, it's called Publius Helvius Pertinax so he's got the three names the interesting thing there though is the name Pertinax because Pertinax is almost a nickname really because actually it's based on the word pertinacity

which means grit and his father apparently used this name for his son Pertinax to reflect his own success fighting his way from the bottom to a position of at least wealth if not power and what about the sort of snobbery what what growing up what would pertinax have encountered would he have been accepted into elite circles because of the his dad's money bought him into that or would he have always been an outsider um well he was born a free man so he wasn't born into the aristocracy so at some stage a key part of this story is not just the manumission of his father to allow him to be freed as a slave but it's also patronage of the roman empire and in pertinax's story there are two

key patrons and these patrons effectively are the triggers as he progresses his life to allow him to jump from being a free man to then become an equestrian which is the second tier of the aristocracy to ultimately be adlected into the senate to become a senator and the the patrons are key to this story so at some stage in pertinax's story the patron in the initial patron would have played a key role. Now that role may almost certainly have been initially when Pertinax was a school boy because not only does he receive a formal education but he ends up being educated by one of the great educators of his day called Solpicius Apollinaris who's a very well known Roman author on education. So it's almost like the top level teacher in the Roman Empire

becomes his tutor and his teacher and this makes such a great impact on him that at this stage, Pertinax has no idea that he wants to become a soldier at all. What he actually chooses to do is to become a teacher, to follow the example of the fine teaching that he'd received by Polinaris. And he does this until he's 36. So remember that the average life expectancy in the Roman Empire, given the high mortality rates, is probably 35. So at 36, above the age of 35, he suddenly has this Damascene conversion and decides that he wants to join the military. Well, Simon, you know, late 30s, early 40s, prime of life.

I'm not surprised at all. I don't recognise that sort of strangeness. Okay, so no, that is very unusual so he joins the military and does he is he does he go in at what level does he go in at well he wants to become a centurion so basically it's the standard officer in charge of a century roman troops in the legion but his patron isn't able to swing that for him so what he gets is the um junior officer role within a unit of um gallic auxiliary cavalry based on the eastern front and all the way through from this point all the way through Pertinax's life he's lucky

so not only does he have this drive this grit this determination but he's also lucky and the luck here is because he arrives on the eastern front in about AD 161 probably only six months after being recruited into the military, at the beginning of the Rome-Parthian war from AD 161 to 165, which is one of the most more successful invasions of Parthia, which at this time is probably Iraq, that the Romans do. And he fully participates. And there's some really interesting anecdotal stories about him as well at this time. So, for example, he arrives in the presence of the governor in Antioch on the coast of Syria. And he presents him with his credentials. But to get there quickly, he's used the official posts, the post roads and the mantios on the way to enable him to speed to his role, his post.

But he doesn't have the paperwork. So he falls out with the governor and the governor makes him walk to his post, wherever it is, might be 100, maybe 200 miles, as a punishment. So he arrives, in actual fact, in disgrace. But quickly, from nowhere, turns out to be this most amazing military officer. So he thrives in the campaign on the eastern front. And remember, if you're in the roman empire if you want to make your name as a soldier the two places you can guarantee making your name are on the eastern front against the parthians later the persians or in britain because the far north is never conquered not by a grickler even though he tried very hard not by severus later

though they try very hard so pertinax is lucky, because then he's posted to Britain. And this is the first of three times he comes to Britain. So he's a key figure in the story of Roman Britain, in actual fact, that many people don't know, and hopefully will after my book's published. So he's posted to York, the second town city of Roman Britain, and he becomes a tribune, an officer in Legio VI Victrix, which is the crack legion holding the northern border so he's going

to be deployed a number of times up to hadrian's wall or north probably covering the withdrawal of the roman military from the antonine wall which takes place around this time and he serves there for a year or two gets another promotion and gets put in charge so remember four years earlier he's only a junior officer in a cavalry regiment he's now put in charge of a unit of auxiliaries based in Halsted's fort on Hadrian's Wall which we think is either one or two Tungurums. Now the Tungurums are interesting because they're Belgae so remember when Caesar conquered Gaul the Belgae the fearsome Belgae were the the most dangerous opponents he faced so this is an auxiliary unit of fierce warriors he gets put in charge of. And he again campaigns in the north of Britain, maybe the far north of Britain,

so he gets to know the province very well at this stage in his career. And so he's learning his trade. I mean, he's a soldier's soldier by this time. Absolutely. That's a really great way of describing him. I like to think of him as an everyman, a soldier's soldier. That a really great way of describing him you know i like to think of him as an everyman a soldier soldier that's a fantastic way of describing him he's always i'd like to think he's leading from the front you look at the later busts of him and he's this gruff individual but we're very lucky at this point because uh again another major conflict breaks out so we've had deployment to um the east with the reign of parthian war we've had him fighting the britains in the far north of britain but now another major conflict breaks out so we've had deployment to um the east with the reign parthian war we've

had him fighting the britains in the far north of britain but now another major conflict breaks out which are the markham manic wars these are the conflicts featured in the movie gladiator of course um where you have by now the empress lucis ferris and marx aurelius um campaigning against the markham arnie and other germanic and gothic tribes along the Danube and the Iazegi's psalmations as well and Pertinax gets deployed to the trouble spot again so he's like an imperial troubleshooter by this point and he first gets deployed to the eastern Danube front so in Moesia either superior or inferior so you're looking at modern Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and he's a captain by this time in charge of either a squadron of ships on the regional fleet on the Danube that part of the Danube or he's a captain in charge

of more auxiliary cavalry and again he thrives and we're very lucky at this point because there is an inscription called the Brun inscription which he almost certainly set up a few years later which record the posts he held throughout his military career and civilian career. And that's enabled us to track where he's going and then look through the classical references to cross-reference everything, the archaeological reference to tie everything together. So you have this individual again making his name as the troubleshooting commander and quickly he's promoted again.

Very briefly, he becomes the senior official on the Cursus Honorum, career path for a Roman aristocrat, in Rome in charge of the grain supply. Only about six months, I think, but then goes straight back to the front line. This time he's got a big posting. He now becomes the perfectus classis,

the admiral of the rhine fleet so he's on the rhine now based in cologne so he's holding the eastern sorry the western flank of the roman engagement with the marcomanni on the danube and almost certainly he's um leading marines north into unconquered germany etc and again continues to make his name and at this point you'll get to the sort of most sanguineous part of the marcomannic wars where the marcomanni and their germanic and psalmation allies start winning so they end up sort of penetrating deep within to north eastern italy it's the first time since the cimbrian wars at the end of the second century bc that north eastern italy's been penetrated by

enemies so this is a serious thing so Pertinax now becomes the legate in charge of general Proboligio on Italica and he continues to make his name as a fighting general by now he's almost like Caesar a great commander but also fights from the front when he needs to is usually victorious but also fights from the front when he needs to is usually victorious and there's a very famous scene depicted on the column of marcus aurelius which actually references his legion which is called the miracle of the rain and you get this amazing image of the rain god with almost wings of rain saving a parched legion which is being besieged by germans and on the point of surrender although pertinax clearly wants to surrender on the point of surrender, although Pertinax clearly wouldn't have surrendered, on the point of surrender it is alleged this this rain event

took place, the legion was saved, a lightning strike hit the Germans, all there recorded on the column of Marcus Aurelius. What does it say about the Roman Empire in this period that someone with his background and his ability was able to be promoted? Does that imply it's quite meritocratic? Is it lucky? Do they have the right patrons? Was he a politician? What does it tell us about the empire and the army?

It's a very good question. Thanks, Simon. Especially in the world we live in today, because clearly if you're at the bottom of society, it wasn't meritocratic at all, but you could get your way out through various means, buying, working hard, to become a freed man. And from that point, effectively, you could start achieving things.

Look at Pertinax's father as a freedman became a millionaire, I would argue, and able to buy a fine education which set him on course to become emperor. When you get to Pertinax's level as a freedman, and any level from that upwards, you can do anything you want within the Roman Empire. You know, Dan, we've spoken about my research about how roman london was built from the the ragstone quarries around me in the medway valley the stone masons who worked there were free men and the stone masons who worked here were from spain they were from the balkans they were from north africa they were from gaul they were from italy so you could travel in the roman

empire if you were free certainly if you're a free man upwards and there's a level of meritocracy here which you can see through pertinax's career rise although i would argue and i do in the book dan that um one of pertinax's keys to success is that he almost flew below the radar until he was almost at the very top and then only then did people start paying attention to him so if you look at what happened to him after this point, which will elegantly bring us on to the really interesting part of his life at the very end, he continues to succeed as a great warrior. When Marx Aurelius dies,

Marx Aurelius clearly realises that his son, the mad and bad Commodus, who turns out definitely to be mad and bad, the lunatic Commodus, is going to suffer as the emperor if he's not guided. So he makes quite a few individuals, mentors for Commodus,

and one of them is Pertinax. Pertinax is so clever at playing the system that by the time Commodus dies in AD 193, the only one of them alive, and there were probably about 50, is Pertinax. So he knows how to play the system. He's a survivor. And again, you can imagine him flying below the radar at this stage. So he's a legate in charge of more legions. He gets adlected to the Senate. So that means a shortcut to becoming a senator so he's moved from free man to equestrian to a senator he's got a patron now called pompeianus

who's one of the great statesmen of the day in actual fact and this is the guy that is there all the way through pertinax's sort of career now in the background helping him until pertinax's assassination he then becomes the troubleshooting governor in the most difficult provinces. So at the end of the Marcomannic Wars, as the frontiers are being rebuilt, he gets Moesia Inferior and Superior, he gets Dacia.

He then goes to Syria, which is the first time where he meets the man he mentors, who we've spoken about before, Septimius Severus. So this book is almost septimius severus the prequel because pertinac is his mentor and when he's the governor of syria severus becomes the legate in charge of the legion one of the legions based there that's how they get to know

each other he then moves to um uh africa pro consularis which is the fabulously wealthy province in north africa this is a very wealthy province and ultimately ends up as the governor latterly in Britain. And the British story is very important in actual fact, because when he's made the governor of Britain in 185 by Commodus, the three British legions have rebelled. And we've spoken before then about how the British legions are sort of quite, they're always fighting the fighting the north they're a long way from rome they have a reputation for for having opinions shall we say and the legions rebel about 184 and kick out the british governor they seek out the only senator left in britain remember we're a long way from rome we know no senators who came from britain this man says no i don't want the job i don't want the job so commodus goes to his troubleshooter the tough

guy the soldier soldier pertinax says you're the man to sort out legions in britain so he goes to britain in 185 and he's tasked with bringing the three recalcitrant legions to to fold and he thinks he has but one of them i think it's legio to augusta and calion one of them, I think it's Legio to Augusta and Caelion, one of them rebels against him as well. And they ambush him and his bodyguard and kill his bodyguard and leave him for dead. And he only just survives and he recovers. And we think what happens then is that with this legion, it carries out a decimation against them. So nine in ten of the legionaries have to kill by clubbing and stones the 10th

legionary brings the legions into order goes back to rome is then suffected as a consul so he becomes a consul for a short space of time and having served his time as consul probably happy to retire to his family home and you know live on the money that they're still making in the po valley but he becomes the the city prefect in rome so the mayor of rome bear in mind it's the city of a million people the biggest city in the known then world to the romans of course uh and he's a city prefect and as a city prefect uh he's in charge of the grain supply again but everything else the games the water provision law, but everything else, the games, the water provision, law and order, everything. He's the prefect, the mayor in charge of Rome. And it's at this time we come to this dramatic moment

in AD 192, 193, New Year's Eve, when Commodus is assassinated. Obviously, it's an inside job, is it? And is Pertinac's end to do with that by any chance? Well, it's really interesting because you could make the case he is but not centrally so let's look at the narrative about what happens how it all sort of comes together you have um you have the praetorian prefect in charge of the praetorian guard you have eclectus who's the court chamberlain and you have commodus as uh mistress marcia so uh with the three of them they decide that by this point this is new easy uh 192 193 commodus has become a lunatic he's

literally thinks he's hercules he's styling himself hercules he's named all the months of the year after himself he's renamed rome after himself he's named the months of the year after himself he's renamed rome after himself he's named the months of the year after himself he's named the legions it's almost like call and call and response after himself he's a lunatic so he's got to go and there's been a few attempts before that have failed and by the way the people who attempted them and failed didn't meet good ends so for the court chamber and the praetorian prefect and his mistress to make the power play is a bold move indeed and around I would estimate 11 o'clock on New Year's Eve AD 192 Marcia tries to poison Commodus with poisoned sweetmeats but Commodus has been boozing all day and he's having a hot bath classic Roman

bath and he's drunk and he's having a bath so the poison only halfs affects him and so he's sick but doesn't die but fortunately this is a very well planned plot because the guys have got a wrestler on hand who knew and the wrestler is brought in and said right kill the emperor so the wrestler strangles the emperor by the way the wrestler doesn't meet a good end himself because later he's fed to the beasts in the arena this being Rome um so therefore commodus is dead the mad bad commodus is dead so the court chamberlain and the city the court chamberlain and the praetorian prefect go to the city prefect's house pertinax's house and knock on the door come on can wake up and the bailiff opens the door and everyone's terrified because they think they've come to kill pertinax because

obviously um anybody uh who's raised the head above the parapet in his reign is at risk of being executed for whatever reason. And they actually offer him the job. And there's this beautiful cameo you get at this time, which the prime resources talk about, where Pertinax says, kill me. I've been waiting for it.

I've lived a good life. And he accepts his fate. And the guys say no no no no you're the emperor we want you to be the emperor because i don't want it clearly a literary device and they say no you've got to have it you're the man for the job flown below the radar loved by the populace uh respected by the fellow senators even though he's he's not as wealthy as most of them uh and he accepts and then he calls the senators together sends messages out and this is midnight-ish to come and meet him in the senate he wants to

open up the senate for them to accept him and he walks alone it is alleged apart from with his bailiff and his own personal bodyguard but certainly no senators he walks alone finds the senate house doors locked so he can't get in the senate house to open the senate meeting and he's there alone but apart from his bailiffs etc so he sits alone on the steps of the temple of concord this is between say one two three four in the morning waiting until someone can find some keys to open the doors so there's this gruff old man who's in his mid-sixes by this time sitting there thinking what's going on you know probably reflecting on the fact that he was born the son of a former slave who made his money

sort of in the wood trade in the Po Valley. And there he is sitting in the Forum Romanum on the Temple of Concord steps, waiting for them to open the doors of the Senate Curia to make him the emperor. It's a beautiful story. Land a Viking longship on island shores. scramble over the dunes of ancient egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in renaissance florence each week on echoes of history we uncover the epic stories

that inspire assassin's creed we're stepping into feudal japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week.

And so they do make him emperor, but then his luck appears to sort of run out. This is what I find so amazing about the story, okay? If you were to choose one weakness of Pertinax, it was that he chose, even in the face of evident great adversity and he knew what was coming to stick to his guns he wouldn't bend to sort of the real politic of the day so so he's taken from the senate up to the camp of the praetorian guard which is just outside the serving walls of rome and um they only just agree to make him the emperor despite the

fact the Praetorian prefect their boss has said this is your new emperor there's a show of hands because Pertinax apparently has a he fumbles his words when he's talking to them and he talks too much like the military man by this time remember the Praetorian guard aren't the sort of fine sort of frontline troops they're probably lesser warriors than the frontline battle-hardened legionaries that Perseus has been leading almost certainly under Commodus given his own predilections they've been living a fine life in Rome and so they probably are quite wary of this warrior with this great name as a military leader and then he talks to them as a military man and he probably makes them feel inferior so they there has to be a show of hands and they only just make him um the emperor and from this point until his death three months later

at the end of march uh ad193 um pertinax has never taken they never take pertinax to heart um because he's almost certainly putting them to shame with his own military record and also he finds this is by the way the beginning of the year of the five emperors which ends with severus as the ultimate emperor he's beginning to find the imperial he finds the imperial treasury almost bankrupt the fiscus because commodus has been spending money on lavish entertaining his lifestyle games in the arena pretending to be hercules renaming everything in his own name so pertinax has to have a fire sale a yard sale if you like of all of the finery of commodus to try and raise some money sells all commodus as slaves probably probably releases most

of his freed men um sells all his clothes sells amazing an amazing array of um carriages which commodus had built for him which apparently had seats in which you sat and they could track the sun so you're always in the sun if you're in the in this particular carriage etc so all that sold and when an emperor becomes the emperor around this period obviously what you want to do is make a donative to the praetorian guard your guard and it seems as though pertinax could only pay half of what they expected because pertinax had to raise some money to pay everything else in the empire including the rest of the military so more bad blood so sequentially effectively what you have is the praetorian

guard tapping on his door at the end of month one, saying, look, can you pay some money? And he says, I'll pay you next month. Because he wants to stick to his guns as being this great sort of philosopher emperor. His role model was Marcus Aurelius. And so he wants to do the right thing. They come to town and he begins a series of land reforms to help the Roman populace.

He begins a sort of a general reform of the roman military to make sure that the troops are looked after properly he looks as though he's doing really doing the trying to do the right thing i call him almost a jfk of his day in actual fact sometimes because when he became the emperor certainly the populace expected great things to drag the roman empire away from the horror of commodus back to a time of greatness which you have with antoninus pious marx aurelius um and at the end of month two they come to him and they say look you need to pay us some more you paid us half but you need to pay us some more or we'll kill you and again he sticks to his guns he doesn't read what's going on he sticks to his guns so they come so so you

get to the end of month three the end of of March, and the broad narrative is this. He's the day before been to Ostia, now Ostiantica, just to make sure the grain supply to Rome is being looked at properly. Gets word back that the Praetorian Guard are kicking off, so he goes back to Rome, sends his father-in-law, Sorpicianus, who's now the city prefect, to the Praetorian camp to find out what's going on. At some stage in the daytime, the day gets back, it's the end of March, he gets back to

Rome. 300 Praetorians and it's described very specifically that they're in a wedge formation, which is a very specific Roman military formation. It's called a coenus, which is what they use to break an enemy battle line. So it indicates they're in battle array, which they're not meant to be when you're in Rome. So they're in, let's say, they're in the Lorica segmentata banded iron armour. They've got the scutum shields,

probably carrying a spear rather than a pillum, certainly with a gladus hispaniensis, certainly with a pugio dagger, helmet, huge plumes. This is a Praetorian guard. They're in battle array and they're coming in a wedge probably to push their way through the civilian populace all the way from the Praetorian camp through to the Imperial Palace on the top of the Palatine Hill and they arrived there and it's such a shock and surprise that they managed to get their

way into the Imperial presence, nobody stops them. Now the Praetorian Prefect remember who had backed pertinax to become the emperor is nowhere to be seen so clearly he's involved in some kind of plot however eclectus the court chamberlain does stand with pertinax he stands with with with pertinax this is important because um he could have fled as well and clearly he thought pertinax could talk his way out of it and guess what so did pertinax so it seems as though he confronted them the bluff old warrior at the end of his life he'd become the emperor the son of a slave um probably thought he'd achieved as everything he could have achieved in life um and clearly thought he could talk his way out of it

because he doesn't he doesn't call it his own personal close guard doesn't call the imperial guard cavalry just stands there in front of them allegedly and talks them out of it except one guy having seen his colleagues being talked out of it lunges forward with a spear and at that point everybody weighs in so it's almost like caesar's assassination everybody and it might be a literary device in that that that that uh in that regard everybody nervous and everything but one guy's clearly been queued up maybe by the praetorian prefect you've got to finish the job whatever happens now you've got to finish the job we've gone too far you've got to finish the job so that's it he's dead beheaded quick burial um in a family mausoleum etc and then you get this astonishing scene and we'll come back to pertinax there's astonishing scene that night where you have this bidding war

taking place for the imperial throne so now we're well into the year of the five of five emperors the bidding war for the imperial throne takes place between a leading senator called Didius Julianus and the city prefect and apparently the city prefect is outside sorry inside Didius Julianus is outside the walls of the camp and messages go backwards and forwards between the two of them and the praetorian guard saying I bid this I bid this I bid this and ultimately Julianus bids the most and suddenly you have the second Emperor of the year of the five emperors, Dilius Julianus, the senator, buying his way to the throne over the corpse of his predecessor and possible friend, Pertinax. And one point to make here before I take

a break Dan, Cassius Dio is a key witness here for us, because not only is he, by primary source standards, a good historian, but he's a direct contemporary. So he's a senator himself who knew Pertinax and knows Julianus. Wow. So unlike his stuff on Boudicca, it's a little bit sketchy. This is much more reliable. I mean, so many questions. One of them is just like, the praetorian guard was just the most unbelievably destabilizing force at the heart of the roman

empire did why did no one try and get rid of them i think um remember you've gone through the the very long peaceful reign of antoninus pious and then you've gone through the very worthy although more sanguineous reigns of lucius verus and then you've gone through the very worthy although more sanguinal reigns of Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius so so the guard then would have been I think in those reigns fairly stable I think the destabilizing event takes place depending on the emperor and certainly Commodus was mad and bad and he just basically almost changed the nature of the guard in terms of their relationship with the rest of the Roman populace and it's interesting later when Severus becomes the emperor which is three months hence

the first thing he does is disband the guard and replace it with to double the size with his own Danubian veterans so you go from this rather a fake, the way that it's described by the primary sources, through to the Severan Praetorian Guard, which goes back to being the real deal at twice the strength. And it's probably a really elegant point, actually, to look at what happens between Julianus becoming emperor and Severus. So at this point, the three players who aren't in play yet are Clodius Albinus, who's the governor of Britain, are Paschenius Niger, who's the governor in Syria. Remember, these are the two parts of the Roman Empire where you can almost guarantee having a punch-up. But crucially, the nearest one is Severus. Severus is in charge of his legion. He's the governor of Pannonia Superior,

which is effectively the province on the Danube which controls the access to the northeast of Italy. which is effectively the province on the Danube which controls the access to the northeast of Italy. So he's in charge of cracked legions of battle-hardened legionaries who've just won the Marcomannic Wars. He gets word in his legionary fortress that Pertinax, his mentor, has been assassinated and he goes ballistic. So he's declared emperor almost immediately by his own legion and then he launches this blitzkrieg lightning strike all the way down from the Danube frontier, probably arriving about a month later in Rome. And he's very clever how he does it as well.

He does it in a very overt way. This is another nod to Caesar, actually. He deliberately makes a power play of crossing the Rubicon. And then when he arrives in Rome, he stays outside the Servian walls with his legion makes it known that he's got two of the legions behind him remember there are no legions based within the Roman Empire apart from one or two but certainly not in Italy at this point the most are based around the frontiers so there's no legion in Rome

the only troops that Julianus can gather are to get the marines from the regional fleet the Classis Misenis in the Bay of Naples who turn out to be not very good and he arms gladiators and apparently he tries to create a corps of war elephants by trying to get the elephants who are destined for the circus to wear towers on their backs think Hannibal etc and it doesn't go very well by the way so effectively Severus is almost sitting outside the walls laughing at Julianus making the laughing stock of himself and ultimately the senate think oh well actually you know we may have made the wrong move here so Julianus is slaughtered and he's he's quickly buried and hidden away and then Severus

makes his entrance and he's very clever the way he does it uh he does it as a sort of a formal parade he first deals with the praetorians in the camp and then goes onto the capitoline hill where all the key temples are and he pays tribute to all the temples etc to make sure he's got the backing of the religious community then drops down into the forum romanum then doesn't go in the senate he goes into the imperial palace on the palatine and waits for the senate to ask him to come and see them because they know what's coming because his legions there in the Forum Romanum eventually say well actually we better invite him in so he

arrives talled up fully armed with a bodyguard and they say yeah you're the emperor that's how Severus becomes the emperor remember when he later builds his monumental arch in the Forum Romanum he builds it at the top of the Forum Romanum next to the Senate Curia on top of the foundations of the Senate Curia because he remembers how he became the Emperor and he's telling them building that I'm the boss if you misbehave you know what's coming and then very cannily buys off later buys off Clodagh Salvinus in Britain um defeats niger in the east campaigns in the east defeats claudius albinus at the battle of lugdenum in 197 then there are no players but that all gets

set in play in the year ad193 and the final point i'd make about this amazing narrative about how we have this transition from pertinax to severus is the burial that Pertinax then gets given. So Severus has Pertinax, who's already been buried, deified. And then he has a week-long formal celebration of his life and a funerary parade all the way through the center of Rome. All the senators sitting on seats overlooking, watching the military on parade so that would be three legions on parade and ultimately the final point of this deification is

the burning of Pertinax's body, the cremation which is on top of a giant funeral pyre in the Forum Romanum on top of which you have the coffin with Pertinax in, on top of which you have an eagle in a cage. Just as the flames begin to lick the coffin, the eagle's released, flies to the heavens,

and that's Pertinax going to the heavens, except one curveball, because Pertinax's body's been putrefying for God knows how long, months. So actually, the body that's burned is a lifelike wax effigy. I love it. So that's good. He goes from the son of a former slave to being a god that's not a bad that's not a bad life good career path um well simon that was uh that was remarkable a question um can you think of an

example i'm fascinated the praetorian guard did they ever take the field i mean i remember when nero's reign collapses did the praetorian Guard ever line up in the field of battle and ever fight anyone at all? Useless buggers. The Severan ones did. The Severan ones, remember, are battle-hardened crap troops who've been promoted from the Danube Legion. So Severus certainly takes his Praetorian Guard, which is

maybe up to 10,000 men, by the way, to campaign in Britain for the 2M920 campaigns in Britain. And if you remember the narrative severus um leads them into fife and then into the upper midland valley so certainly they fought probably with distinction in the severing campaigns in britain but they become again a force for destabilization particularly in the crisis of the third century so this this this is an interesting story art we have here not just for pertinax but for the roman empire because you could make the case that the empire is at its

height sort of around the time of pertinax and severus well let's say antoninus pyrus through to severus apart from probably commodus but from that period it's at its height but the severan dynasty is a downward spiral so Caracalla is his psychotic he doesn't last very long he's already killed Gita his brother initially they were co-emperors um you have the the the lunatic Helio and Helio Gabulus and then lastly you have the mummy's boy um Severus Alexander and then he's assassinated by Maximilus Thrax which kicks in the crisis of the third century which is such a shocking event in the Roman Empire massive incursions into into the western empire by Goths and Germans the Sassanid Persians arrive as a symmetrical

enemy for the first time in the east the plague of Cyprian very relevant for the world in which we live today which lasted 15 years and two roman emperors died from that an economic crash attempts to to to to restart the roman currency and it's only the emperor diocletian who becomes emperor in 284 that drags the empire kicking and screaming out of this and we we have a different name for the roman empire then it's called the dominate empire because diocletian has had to change it to rescue it from the crisis so in actual fact you're looking at pertinax and severus has been around at the height of the empire itself then the principate empire it's all downhill from there it sure is it's amazing the roman

empire survived the crisis of third century i always think so rather than everyone banging on about why did the roman empire fall it's amazing it lasts so long um simon uh we're going to be talking to you again soon all of your stuff's on history hit tv the book is called pertinax the son of a slave who became roman emperor i'll say that i'll say that and say that in a gruff voice pertinax the son of a slave who became roman emperor there you go man you got it thanks simon thank you so much to come on the podcast pleasure and i'd love to talk to you again i feel the hand of history upon our shoulders all this tradition of ours our school history our songs this part of the history of our country all were gone and finished and liquidated one child one teacher one book and one pen can change the world.

He tells us what is possible, not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well. I have faith in you.