The Rest Is History - 12 Days: Nero's succession and the fall of the Byzantine Empire

Episode Date: January 1, 2022

In a distinctly Roman start to 2022, Tom sets the scene for Rome's "Year of the four Emperors", while Dominic recounts a battle which was the beginning of the end for the Byzantine Empire. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory Is History and Happy New Year. We have finally reached 2022 and we've finally reached the 1st of January in our 12 or 13 days of Christmas. So Tom, Tom Holland, to bring in the new year, what jolly, upbeat, laugh-a-minute story have you chosen for us?

Well, it's a Roman story, and I think that's appropriate because we celebrate the 1st of January as the new year because of the Romans. Was it the first day of the year for them? Was that March, I thought? Yes, it was, but it was the first day of the civil year. So it's when the consuls, who are the two magistrates who in during the republican period um served as the

kind of preeminent magistrates in the republic it's when they took office um and um from the second century bc onwards and increasingly under the caesars it comes to be enshrined as the start of the of the more generally as well. So I think we talked about that, didn't we? We talked on an episode about New Year and about Janus, the twost of January is not only the day in which the consuls head up onto the capital, which is the sacred hill with the great shrine of Jupiter and sacrifices made there and the auguries are taken and people look to the future.

But it's also a day in which offerings are kind of made, sacrifices are made to the good of Caesar. Right. And in AD 68, that is the year, it's the last year of Nero's life. And he goes up there. And notoriously what happens on that day is, first of all, they can't find the keys to the temple. That's ominous. So that's ominous.

That's ominous so that's literally ominous that's ominous but the other the other ominous thing that happens is that um sporus who um friend of the show the uh the poor boy who has been castrated and turned into the spitting image of nero's dead wife papaya sabina um as a gift gives nero um a ring on which Persephone is shown being raped by Hades, the king of the underworld, and taken down into the depths of the kingdom of the dead. It's quite a strong present, I would say. Well, yes, all kinds of subliminal messages. Especially what's been going on with sporus yes exactly so it's it's a kind of it's a it's remembered subsequently as a somber moment uh where nero's downfall which happens um

over the course of the following months uh is set in train um and it's set in train by a a gallo roman aristocrat called julius vindex who declares that you know that Nero's, he's beyond the pale, he's gone too far. He's raising the banner of rebellion. And this serves to trigger a rebellion in Spain and encourages an old school kind of figure of Republican aristocratic virtue called Galba, who is the governor of one of the provinces in Spain to declare himself emperor.

Nero is toppled, commits suicide, and the Senate accept Galba as emperor. And Galba crosses from Spain through Gaul down through Italy and enters Rome. And so on the 1st of January, 69 AD, he is the emperor. So he is going through the rituals that the year before Nero had done now these rituals do not just take place in Rome they take place in cities across the empire and most significantly they take place in legionary bases and these legionary bases are dotted mainly around the frontiers, not exclusively, but mainly. And the largest concentration of these legionary bases are along the Rhine, because the Rhine obviously is adjacent to Germany that the Romans had attempted to conquer. They then lost three legions to Varus in AD 9.

Varus's three legions had been lost to Arminius in AD 9. Teutoburg Forest. Teutoburg Forest. And the Romans kind of, they inflict devastating punishment on the Germans for it. And they essentially decided the Germans don't deserve to be conquered. That's their attitude. So they build these line of bases along the Rhine.

And that means that there's a huge concentration of manpower there. Now, these Rhine legions, they had marched against Julius Vindex in the summer, not because they were loyal to Nero, but because they saw Julius Vindex not as a Roman, but as a Gallic rebel. And there'd been attempts to negotiate, but basically between the commander of the Rhine legions and Julius Vindex. But the legions wanted to have a punch up. They want, basically they wanted, you know, they wanted a chance to wipe out Julius Vindex's men who were all Gauls. Right.

And that would then license them to plunder Gaul. I was about to say, there must be some reason they're just fighting. There must be booty. They would have a big punch to plunder Gaul. I was about to say, there must be some reason other than just fighting. There must be booty. Yeah, they would have a big punch and they want booty. Yeah. And they're not allowed to do this. And basically it's Galba who stops them from doing it.

And Galba sends them packing back to the Rhine bases. So they're really, really cross about this. And they're further, they dislike Galba because Galba had been in command on the Rhine frontier and he was a tremendous kind of martinet. He was, you know, an old school stickler

and they didn't like it. He was, he was kind of, legionaries were perfectly capable of respecting stern disciplinarians, but they had to be charismatic as well.

In this kind of football manager, you know, Dominic, all that stuff that you were doing when you should have been. You're comparing Galba's administration

of the ryan legions to my managerial career in the late 1990s there are managers who can be incredible sticklers for discipline and who nobody likes and then there are managers who yeah absolutely the players absolutely adore them and will do anything for them exactly galba was was was a stickler without charisma so he's not he's not alex ferguson basically he's not alex ferguson no so they don't like him um and that means that when the first of january comes and the time comes for them to go to um the principia which is the kind of the central great hall the great shrine in the middle of each legionary base to pay their respects to the standards, the eagles, that is the symbol for each legion, but also the statues of the emperor. And it's a way basically of kind of renewing,

you know, it's a public affirmation of loyalty to the serving emperor. And this is incredibly important this year of all years because Galba, unlike the previous lines of emperors, you know, he has no claim to be a part of the family of Augustus, who was the founder of this imperial dynasty. So for the first time, someone is ruling a Caesar who does not belong to the family of the Caesars. So you have all these all these bases. You have bases in what are called Lower Germany, which is the kind of the upper Rhine, the Rhine nearest the North Sea.

And then you have Upper Germany, which is going further towards the source. The legions of Lower Germany, with no great enthusiasm, are persuaded to basically kind of swear loyalty, swear their sacramentum, their kind of oath of loyalty to Galba. In Upper Germany, it's different. There, there is a massive troublemaker by the name of Aulus Caicina. And Caicina actually had been a colleague in Spain of Galba's. Oh, so he hates him? No, had actually kind of swung round behind him.

Oh, okay. Together with a man called Otho. He would be a friend of Nero. So Otho, Caicina. You love him. You love Otho. Otho, Caicina and Vitalius. So Otho, Caicina and Galba, between them,

had kind of mustered the forces of Spain that had then enabled Galba to become emperor. Otho had gone with Galba to Rome, but by Caecina, who was very young, had been given command of the senior legion in a double legionary base at a place called Magontiarchum, which today is Mainz. Okay. And this is a huge promotion. He's been promoted massively above his age qualifications. So Caicino should be happy with this, but he's not because he's a man in a hurry.

And he's stuck out in the snow and drizzle of the Rhine while Otho is back in Rome, whooping it up. And of course, as it turns out, plotting. And Caecina basically decides that he wants to expedite his career even faster. And so over the course of 69, he's been engaging in all kinds of corrupt practices and he's been caught red handed and Galba wants to bring him to trial trial and so this threatens the total ruin of his career so Caetino decides on the 1st of January he's got nothing to lose and so he stirs up a mutiny and the legion he's in command of and then the other legion that's sharing this camp

they all smash the statues of of Galba they they reject his claim to be a legitimate caesar they uh swear an oath of loyalty um not to any individual candidate because there isn't an available one but to the senate and people of rome but of course they are immediately looking around for someone else who might be able to you know know, take Galba's place. So even Caetino recognises that he can't do that. He's too young. He's too junior. He lacks the prestige to be a credible Caesar. So basically it needs to be either the governor of Upper Germany

or Lower Germany. The governor of Upper Germany has one of the more amusingly, one of the more amusing Roman names. I mean, he's called Hordonius flaccus which i mean this kind of sounds like something out of viz yeah and he he's a hopeless figure he never does he is a flaccid figure he he's he's not a hard-on um he he basically he's he's not going to be a good caesar right so they look at the guy who is you know up the rhine who's the governor there and it's a guy called vitellius very fat now

if i tell you as you say he's very very fat that's the thing isn't there something about suetonius says about him that when he was marching he'd often like stop and like eat a pie and stuff and then he loves his pies he loves his pies yeah he loves his pies or something yeah but he's a man of uh he has kind of distinguished pedigree um he's actually despite the fact that Suetonius and Tacitus both kind of blacken his name because he ends up you know he's a bit of a loser um he has you know he has a distinguished record he's perfectly serviceable as a candidate um and one of the things that's actually rather impressive about him is that he he knows his own inadequacies and so when um a messenger is sent by um uh karchina galloping all the way up to what's now cologne where vitalius has his headquarters and bursting in and of course

vitalius is at dinner which causes his amusement he's always at dinner um vitalius kind of you know says we you should become caesar vitalius hesitates uh and then the next day um one of the commanders um from his his stretch of the rhine a man called fabius valens comes rushing in from the legionary camp at bonn and likewise says you know yes you must become caesar so vitalius then faces a huge problem which is he doesn't really want to be Caesar he knows he won't be a good Caesar um his mum had been told with so the story goes when he born that if he ever had a military command it would all end up disastrously and so he's always

been conscious of this and so he's worried that you know it's this this has all been foretold that it's going to end terribly but he's got this huge problem because if he's not going to accept the leadership of the mutinous legions as their emperor then he's going to have to repress the mutiny and he doesn't have any troops so he has to go along with it yeah he's essentially stuck um and then the news comes through from Rome that Galba has been assassinated and replaced by Otho. So you have the situation in by the end of January where in Rome you have Otho on the Rhine frontier. You have Vitellius and you have troops. So both Caecina and Valens are already leading their troops southwards towards the alps uh and and italy and we are all set fair

for a year that comes to be known as the year of the four emperors i think we should we should revisit this tom well we should because i've actually just been writing about it in the book yes i am currently in the process of so your book just to give uh listeners a sneak preview your book is about so you've done one on the Julio Claudians. So I've done Rubicon, which is about the fall of the Roman Republic. I've done Dynasty, which is about the Julio Claudians ending with Nero. And this is called Pax. So the peace, the Roman peace.

And it begins with Nero's death. We go through the year of the four emperors. So you have Galba gets murdered by Otho, who gets defeated in battle by Vitellius, who gets defeated and horribly killed by the supporters of Vespasian, who by the end of the year has become emperor. And he then establishes the Flavian dynasty, followed by Titus, who is emperor when Pompey gets destroyed, when the Colosseum is inaugurated, Domitian gets assassinated. And then you have Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian. And it's bookended by the two events that perhaps in the long run have the most seismic impact in this period,

which is the two Jewish revolts, the first of which culminates in the destruction of the temple. The second one culminates effectively in the destruction of the Judean quality of what gets renamed Palestine. So it's a really thrilling, important, fascinating period. A nice bit of early promotion for your book. Happy New Year.

When is it out? When's it out? Next this year? 2022? No, next year. 2023. So what are we in now? 2022.

Yeah, 2023. Okay. Jolly good. That 2022? No, next year. 2023. So what are we in now? 2022. Yeah, 2023. Okay, jolly good. That's something to look forward to. Right, and what we've also got to look forward to after the break is my choice for the 1st of January. Which is also on a Roman theme, isn't it? Yeah, Roman-ish. I think we can say Roman-ish.

Yeah, we shall return after the break. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works.

We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome back to our 1st of January, 12 Days of Christmas special. In the first half, we had a very, very Roman theme. We were looking at the mutiny on the Rhineine in ad 69 the year of the four emperors

um and dominic your choice is also you know it's roman it is roman yeah it is roman so as you know tom i have a long-running sort of hobby i have a long-running passion for byzantine history which i started when i was an undergraduate and um have always been fascinated by frankly would have done if i'd had the languages but i didn't i didn't you couldn't do latin or i'd lost all my latin never really done any greek um so i couldn't do anything on it um so i ended up going to american and then british history instead but deep down i'd always like to have done the age of iconoclasm or something like that so anyway we are in we've been going all Christianity. Yeah, God, how awful that would have been. Yeah, imagine that.

There's an alternate reality. Maybe I'd have been a very iconoclastic historian and I'd have claimed Christianity. You said it was all about sociology. Yeah, exactly. It was all about pots. The pots, I couldn't get... I could never get on with the pots, to be brutally honest.

So you don't like pots and you don't like Christianity. Yeah. But you love to do history. I think you were much better better i just like eunuchs blinding icons all those kinds of palaces right so we are in the 11th century uh we are on the 1st of january 1068 and this is the day that a fellow called romanus the fourth becomes what we would now call the Emperor of Byzantium. But of course, they didn't grow that. Emperor of the Romans, right. Emperor of Rome.

I mean, this is one of the strange things, I think, we've never really done an episode on the Byzantine Empire. But one of the interesting things about it is that it's known by name that none of the people who lived in it were Byzantians. Well, there are so many that we should do. I mean, we should do a kind of framing episode, shouldn't we? We should. We should, but then we should. I mean, we should do a kind of framing episode, shouldn't we? We should. We should, but then we should...

I mean, I've mentioned iconoclasm. I love the subject of iconoclasm because there's so little known about it. It's so mysterious. Anyway, we're kind of getting sidetracked. So in the 11th century, the Empire of the Romans has become... You know, it's waxed and waned, but it has by and large been reduced to the southern Balkans and what is now largely Turkey.

So basically Asia Minor, Anatolia. But the 11th century, I mean, so it had gone through a terrible stage. So we did Charlemagne's Coronation. Yeah. And it was really on its uppers then. Yeah. But over the course of the 10th century

into the 11th century, it comes back. It has come back, yes. It's had tremendous comebacks. Yeah. But it's sort of... The brilliant 10th century into the 11th century, it comes back. It has come back. Yes. It's a tremendous comebacks. Yeah. But it's the brilliant 10th century emperor, Nick, Nick, effortless forecast.

Yeah. He's the fellow. Is he now, does he lose his head or does he sever somebody else's? I can never remember. He gets assassinated in the palace, but he's an awful Saracen fighter. There are,

there are, I mean, there's all these tremendous characters, Basil, the Bulgar slayer. And so, so, so, so actually. I mean, there's all these tremendous characters, Basil the Bulgar Slayer and so on. So actually, I mean, the thing is that when Romanus IV becomes emperor, the Byzantine Empire is a massive superpower. Yeah, it's not doing that badly.

I mean, as I say, it's not the Roman Empire of Italy, North Africa, Spain and so on. It's in the eastern Mediterranean. But you're right. It's rich. It's powerful. It's a very sophisticated place. And if you think at the same time,

this is what, two years after the Battle of Hastings? I mean, the Romans, the people who live in Constantinople, are living lives of kind of gilded splendor, really, compared with their sort of northern rivals. Anyway, so this fellow, he's called Romanus Diogenes, and he's the son of a guy called Constantine Diogenes. And the Diogonoi, the family, they come from what's now Turkey, so from Anatolia.

They're a very sort of rich, well-connected, kind of military aristocratic family clan. And he has, you know, you talk about people serving on the frontier, the Rhine frontier. So the equivalent in the sort of 11th century is the Danubian frontier. So that's where they, the Romans of the day, have their troops. And he has served in that army. And he, it's, there are some interesting parallels between the first story

and this story because Romanus is a very popular and successful general. The emperor Constantine X has died in 1067. His wife, who is called Eudokia, has taken over as regent for his sons who were basically too young to assume the throne themselves. And Romanus clearly thinks, as is very common with um byzantian generals in this era he clearly thinks well you know i could kind of take over myself and clearly lots of soldiers think this um but basically any plan that he has for a coup goes wrong and he is taken to constantinople and taken before Eudokia,

who is the regent, who is the widow. And he awaits punishment. Now, in these days, obviously, you could be executed. You could be blinded. You could be forced into a monastery. And the sources aren't great, but you can kind of imagine him there waiting to find out what his sentence is. And she says, actually, you know what?

You seem quite an impressive impressive fellow i think i might marry you and you can become emperor i mean that's the best isn't it so it's basically the range of options you have yeah that's better you take that that is that you definitely take that i mean you know it's tremendous well i mean given what happens uh maybe he would think that he'd do him better off in a monastery who knows anyway he he takes he becomes emperor and actually what's interesting about him is not that this event on the first of january but what happens afterwards because as you know tom he is emperor for the next sort of three years and then he leads the roman the byzantine army, into this tremendous battle at a place called Manzikert in 1071,

where he's up against a group of people called the Turks. So obviously the Turks have come from Central Asia and they've swept into or swept or seeped. I mean, it's been quite gradual into kind of Asia Minor, into Anatolia. And they are the, they are the big new players, the Seljuk Turks. But they're, they're,

they're intimidated by the Romulus army. They know they're desperate to make terms. Yeah. I can just crush them. And, but no, because the battle of Manzikert, it all goes wrong for him.

Doesn't it? Don't some of the, some of his, half the army runs away. And he split his forces, hasn't he? Yeah. So it's a classic. He's withdrawing and they, yeah, terrible.

It's all a shambles. He's captured. The Seljuk Sultan is a man called Alp Arslan. And he can't believe, Byzantine historians say he can't believe it when this guy is dragged before him and they say, this is the Roman emperor. This is the heir of Augustus and constantine and diocletian and all the justinian all these great figures and this shambolic looking man covered in dust battered and um alp arslan puts his foot on romana they push romanistan in the dust and alp arslan puts his foot on romanus

his neck as a sort of symbol but then actually he treats him with what our Turkish listeners will be pleased to hear, traditional Turkish hospitality. He raises him to his – he takes him to his tent and gives him fine wines and they eat, you know, kebabs or whatever and have a splendid time. Treats him very well. Never said a cruel word to him in the eight days that romanus spent in the in the camp so basically he then releases romanus and says you'll give us a treaty and you'll pay a massive ransom romanus says oh yes absolutely then he goes back and the

the imperial family have basically launched a kind of coup against him and they they do cast family um so then there's a whole series of sort of strange feuds and battles and um romanus is he's basically holed up in adana in the south of turkey what's now turkey and uh he's surrounded and he has to surrender and he's given assurances of sort of safety and so on so he surrenders so this is the end of 1071 and um they've told him, the people who've toppled him from the sort of imperial family, they say, well, you know, we'll let you go. You can go into a monastery and stuff. But they completely break that promise, Tom. Very, very poor form.

Very Byzantine. They break that promise. And do you know what happens to him? Remind me. Well, he is led away ple pleading for mercy, to be blinded, this is what the source says, by an inexperienced Jew who requires three attempts to blind him while the emperor bellowed like a bull. Yeah. Very sad scene. When he arose, his eyes were drenched with blood, a pathetic and pitiable sight that made everyone who saw it cry uncontrollably.

And then he's sent off to exile in the Sea of Marmara, near what's now Istanbul, and his eyes get infected. He dies very quickly, doesn't he? He dies soon after. Not unsurprisingly. And the last thing that happens to him before his death is a Byzantine historian called Michael Psellus, whose book you can get in Penguin Classics. He sends him a letter.

He hates Romanus, and he sends him a letter. He says, congratulations on the loss of your eyes. Sort of, basically, kind of mocking eyes. So basically I'm mocking, it's all about kicking a man when he's down. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the end of Romanus. And that's why I think back on New Year's day, 1068 or whenever it was,

when he went in to see the Empress. It'd have been better. He'd been a monk. He'd have been much better being a monk from the beginning. Yeah. None of this would have happened. Manzikert, losing to the Turks.

As of course would Byzantine empire. Yeah. Yeah. You're would have happened. Manzikert, losing to the Turks. As, of course, would Byzantine Empire. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Because really, Manzikert is, you know, it's a kind of death knell in the long run. It's a landmark, isn't it? In sort of the long history of the Roman Empire. Because it's not actually the battle itself. It's the civil war that follows.

Yeah, it sort of tears it apart. And the Turks are able to kind of start infiltrating in. Yeah, and from that point onwards. I mean, that said, said tom they last for another 400 years but they do they do but it's um you know it's it's not great is it but they never recapture anatolia the whole no they don't it's their old heartland where they used to raise all their troops from and stuff um but even so you know i sometimes think with the strange thing with byzantine history is people sort of say after man Manzikert, it was all downhill. You kind of think, yeah, but that's kind of twice as long

as the United States has existed. That's a hell of a long time. It's on life support for quite a long time. So Manzikert and the capture of Constantinople in 1204 by the Crusaders. That's very poor, isn't it? That's an amazing story, but also kind of one of the most shameful stories in European history.

It's so depressing. I can never quite bring myself to read about it. Do you think the Venetians should give back those horses? I don't. I think those days are gone. Yeah. Who would they give them back to? Exactly.

That's the thing. Exactly. Right. That's a very doubtful. Tom, you look so crushed by that. Well, I do. I find it so depressing that I love Byzantine history up until Manzika, and then after that, I can't really bear to read about it. Do you think the world would be a better place if that empire had survived?

Of course it would. It would be amazing. The Roman Empire. Roman Empire surviving in the 21st century. I think, as you know, I mourn the – I think the Austro-Hungarian Empire should still exist I think that'd be a great thing

I'd much rather a proper line of emperors descended from Augustus right yeah Sophia's still a cathedral it'd be amazing you could go and

be a kind of civil servant or something at that court well I'd have to be a eunuch but you know sacrifices have to be made I suppose do you not think

they'd have done away with that by now? I'd be nervous about the blindings. Yeah, I think you would. You would. But you'd be a great, you know, you'd be a great kind of, you'd be a great bishop, wouldn't you? Bishop of Antioch or something. I can absolutely see you as that.

That'd be a very exciting option. Going to kind of, you know, councils and debating the nature of Christ. You'd love all that. But sadly, not a career option. No, you're just doing podcasts. That career avenue's been closed off and I'm reduced to doing podcasts. On which note,

we should finish, shouldn't we? We have, we've just degenerated. We so often do this. And I'm sure people have better things to do on new year's day than to listen to mad insane fantasies of what we'd do in a byzantine empire that had never fallen what would you do you'd be what general or oh tom that's so kind of you thank you um no i'd be doing something really tedious and some i thought i'd maybe i'd be a holy man on a pillar i'd be stylite i'd be stylite how about you'd be. Stylite. I'd be a stylite.

How about that? You'd be a terrible stylite. No, I wouldn't be a stylite. You'd get bored. I think I'd be a hard-nosed general. I think you would. Like on the Danubian frontier. Yeah, I think you would.

Yeah. And your troops would raise you to emperor and then you'd come to a horrible end. I would. I would. And I would glide away. I would glide away smiling. You would.

Like Peter Bale I'd be Vitellius basically, I think that's what you're trying to say isn't it? stopping for a snack on my way to the decisive showdown okay, we're going to let you get on with your new year happy new year and we shall see you again tomorrow

bye bye Bye-bye.