A Dark Plot by L.J. Trafford

Death of an Emperor

On the 18th of September in the year 96 CE, a young Imperial slave boy was attending to the shrine to the Lares, the gods of the household, that resided in the bedchamber of the emperor Domitian. Domitian paid very serious attention to religion and proper adherence to it. He favoured the god Jupiter and goddess Minerva, rebuilding the temple of the former after it had been burnt to the ground and holding a special festival at his Alban villa for the latter. Elsewhere in his now 15-year reign he had overseen the trial of a Vestal Virgin accused of breaking her sacred chastity. Found guilty he had her entombed alive as both the law and the gods insisted upon.

The Emperor Domitian. Getty Open Content.

 
As the boy went about his job, no doubt anxious that the notoriously short-tempered Domitian might find fault with his work, word was brought to the emperor that outside the chamber there was a man named Stephanus who sought an urgent audience with him. What could possibly be so urgent as to disturb the emperor in his private bedchamber? A conspiracy, Stephanus was claiming, a grievous conspiracy to murder the emperor and what’s more he had the proof of it.


That was all Domitian needed to hear, he told his guards to let Stephanus in. It was unlikely that the emperor recognised the man who now entered his most private of rooms. Although, an Imperial freedman, Stephanus was new to the palace. He’d previously worked as a steward in the household of Domitian’s niece, Domitilla but had been absorbed into the emperor’s own household after Domitilla had been banished by her uncle. He stood in front of the emperor with the scroll clasped in his right hand that he claimed named these conspirators. As he handed over the scroll to the eager emperor, perhaps Domitian noticed that Stephanus’ left arm was heavily bandaged. Perhaps he did not. The chance to remove yet more men wanting to murder him was of more importance than how some random slave’s injury came about.


As Domitian unfurled the scroll Stephanus ripped off his bandages and pulled out the dagger he’d concealed beneath them. Then he stabbed the emperor in the groin. Domitian getting to his feet yelled to the slave boy to fetch him his dagger that he always kept under his pillow. The slave boy diving onto the bed, lifted the pillow and found nothing underneath. As the emperor grappled with Stephanus, he shouted again for the boy to get help. Running to a door the boy found it to be locked, as were all the other doors to the emperor’s chamber.


Domitian continued to fight his assailant, lacerating his fingers trying to grab the dagger off the steward. Both hit the floor, with Domitian on top of Stephanus and attempting to gouge out his eyes. This was when the doors finally opened and in ran other members of the Imperial household: Clodianus, Maximus, Satur and an unnamed gladiator from the imperial training school.


However, these four were not there to help or at least not help Domitian, they were plan b and they set about their allocated task, unsheathing their own weapons and adding seven more blows to the ones Stephanus had already inflicted upon Domitian. Although he had made good work of fighting off Stephanus, Domitian could not fight off five of them. The emperor was dead. Every detail we know about the killing of Domitian comes from that one terrified slave boy. Although none of the historians who use his story ever bothers to give him a name.

The Aftermath

Domitian’s death had been a brutal, sustained attack, a noisy one too what with the emperor yelling for his dagger and for help. him and Stephanus rolling on the floor crashing into the furniture amd perhaps the little slave boy screaming in terror. Help came too late to save the emperor, but it was in time to catch the murderers bloody handed standing over their victim. We are told Stephanus was killed ‘when those who had not shared in the conspiracy made a concerted rush upon him’.Cassius Dio. I think we can assume that Clodianus, Maximus, Satur and that unnamed gladiator were also run down by the still loyal servants of the emperor.

The palace that Domitian built but was also murdered in. 
Photo by Scott Rowland

The emperor was dead, his assassins were also dead. However, this was potentially a combustible situation, for the childless Domitian had left no heir. In 41 CE after the Emperor Caligula had been brutally stabbed to death in a corridor there had been a clash of intentions as the Senate declared the restoration of the Republic at the exact same time the Praetorian Guard had found Caligula’s uncle Claudius cowering behind a curtain and proclaimed him emperor. The Guards being the ones with swords they easily won the argument that day.

In 68 CE when the similarly childless Nero had committed suicide a brutal civil war had been unleashed as four men: Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Domitian’s father, Vespasian battled each other to become emperor. People still remembered 69 CE, the year of those four emperors, and they feared a bloody sequel to it. But that didn’t happen. There was no clash of intentions between the different power brokers in Rome, there were no battles between competing would be emperors because by the end of the day, the very same day that Domitian was killed there was already a new emperor in place. His name was Nerva and he was the first of what Edward Gibbon, author of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, christened the Five Good Emperors.

Anyone who knows anything about the assassination of Roman emperors has probably just spat out a mouth of coffee and half a masticated hobnob across their lounge. Because the aftermath of Domitian’s death, the ease at which we move from one dynasty to another is quite unusual in the ancient Roman political sphere. I’d go as far as to say it is unprecedented.

The most violent act that follows Domitian’s assassination is dished out by the Senatorial class on the many images of the now dead emperor that littered the city. ‘It was our delight to dash those proud faces to the ground, to smite them with the sword and savage them with the axe as if blood and agony could follow from every blow. Our transports of joy – so long deferred – were unrestrained; all sought a form of vengeance in beholding those bodies mutilated, limbs hacked in pieces, and finally that baleful, fearsome visage cast into fire, to be melted down, so that from such menacing terror something for man’s use and enjoyment should rise out of the flames.’ So says a rather surprising vandal, the lawyer and prolific letter writer, Pliny the Younger.


There is a reason for this orderly transition of rule. There had been a plan. A well thought out plan that considered the before, the during and both the immediate aftermath and the longer-term implications of murdering the emperor.
Stephanus, Maximus, Clodianus, Satur and the gladiator may have undisputably stabbed Domitian to death, but they weren’t the ones who’d set in motion the plan.
The instigators of this most successful of plots, the hatchers of the conspiracy, the planners of the assassination were clever men who’d kept well out of the way of the bloody murder they’d set up, avoiding the fate of Stephanus and co. Their names were Entellus and Parthenius and they were a Chamberlain and Head of Petitions, the highest ranking, most trusted of all of Domitian’s staff.

The men who really killed Domitian

The lives of imperial slaves and ex-slaves are generally of no interest to Roman historians who all hail from the elite classes of Rome. Snobbery likely plays a part in this omission no doubt, a distaste for the stench of slavery on the now freed. But also jealousy probably played a part too. Imperial freedmen had unique access to the emperor far beyond any Senator had, they were thus first in line to receive the material benefits of the emperor’s pleasure and certainly many palace freedman became enormously wealthy as a result.

Freedmen could also control access to the emperor, which was bound to put Senatorial noses out of joint. The Senate had never disabused itself of the notion that it was the most important and wisest body of men in the whole empire and was so owed oodles of respect, even from the emperor. That many emperors chose to rely on slaves who lacked a family tree that went all the way back to Romulus was an eternal mystery to them.
That such powerful and influential men in their own time as Imperial freedmen go largely unrecognised and un-noted demonstrates just how deeply Roman class divisions went. However, we do know a little about the brains behind Domitian’s murder from an unlikely source: the poet Martial.

Martial is the author of what is my all-time favourite poem from ancient times. ‘You ask what I get out of my country place. The profit gross or net, is never seeing your face’
Glorious, isn’t it? Martial paints a unique portrait of Rome through his poems as crowded, smelly and overwhelmed with people he found grievously annoying.
However, Martial had a clear ambition to be more than a scribbler of scurrilous slander. He fancied being a court poet with all the fame and fortune that came with the post (if you were any good at it).

This wasn’t a job you could simply apply for, you needed a way in, a contact on the inside who could convince the emperor that he really very much needed another poet in his entourage. Martial’s contact on the inside was Parthenius, Domitian’s chamberlain.

We see how Martial seeks his influence from his own work. There are several of his poems that feature Parthenius; a verse written for Parthenius’ son Burrus’ fifth birthday, a thank you for a snow-white toga gifted to the poet by the chamberlain ‘You surpass in whiteness the lily, the budding flower of the privet, and the ivory which glistens on the hill of Tivoli. The swan of Sparta and the doves of Paphos must yield to you; and even the pearl fished from the Indian seas.’ Gushes Martial.


This flattery in friendship has a point, as becomes apparent in later poems, Martial wants Parthenius to put his poems in front of the emperor.

The Senate House. Photo by Scott Rowland.

 
Whither, my book, whither are you going so much at your ease, clad in a holiday dress of fine linen? Is it to see Parthenius? certainly. Go, then, and return unopened; for he does not read books, but only memorials; nor has he time for the muses, or he would have time for his own.’

‘And if by chance (but for this we must scarcely hope) he shall have a moment to spare, beg him to present with his own hands our verses to the emperor; and to recommend this little book, so humble and so small, with merely four words: "This your Rome reads."

Evidently this nagging by poetry worked for Martial does end up praising the emperor and his many wonderful actions in verse form. Credit to Martial for managing to make a poem out the mundane subject of Domitian widening of the pavements and his anti-castration legislation.

To you, chaste prince, mighty conqueror of the Rhine, and father of the world, cities present their thanks: they will henceforth have population; it is now no longer a crime to bring infants into the world. The boy is no longer mutilated by the art of the greedy dealer, to mourn the loss of his manly rights.
Err quite.

As well as forming a useful connection in Parthenius, Martial was also buttering up or at the very least taking a paid commission from Parthenius’ fellow Imperial freedman, Entellus. Who it appeared had a very nice garden.
‘He who has seen the orchards of the king of Corcyra, will prefer the garden of your country-house, Entellus. That the malicious frost mar not nip the purple clusters, and the icy cold destroy the gifts of Bacchus, the vintage lives protected under transparent stone; carefully covered, yet not concealed. Thus does female beauty shine through silken folds; thus are pebbles visible in the pellucid waters. What is not nature willing to grant to genius? Barren winter is forced to produce the fruits of autumn.

So there we have it, two ex-Imperial slaves who have spent decades no doubt working their way up the palace staff lists to positions of such height and influence that poets are banging at their doors seeking their patronage. One man who once gifted the poet a beautiful toga and another who was so proud of his garden he sought to have it immoratlised in verse. And then they both involve themselves in a conspiracy to brutally murder their boss. Jarring doesn’t cover it. What on earth had happened to propel these two men to that point?

The Darkness

Cameo of Domitian by Josiah Wedgwood
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Reading any book about Domitian you will come across the fact that he fell out with the Senate big time and that his treatment of them veered towards the cruel. And although many scholars try to argue that Domitian’s reign of terror wasn’t nearly as terrible as the reigns of terror other emperors inflicted upon that class, it still wasn’t a great time to be a Senator. We know this because we have two eye witness accounts of what it was like to serve Domitian from lawyer and letter writer Pliny and the Roman historian, Tacitus.

‘The worst of our torments under Domitian was to see him with his eyes fixed upon us. Every sigh was registered against us; and when we all turned pale, he did not scruple to make us marked men by a glance of his savage countenance.’ So says Tacitus.
Pliny makes several references to Domitian’s rages ‘Domitian was besides himself with fury’ he says, ‘he was infuriated by the hatred he had incurred for his cruelty and injustice.’

Domitian was an intimidating boss. He knew it and he capitalised on it, most notably in the tale of the black banquet to which he invited the foremost senators and equestrians. This is what the party guests arrived to find: ‘He prepared a room that was pitch black on every side, ceiling, walls and floor, and had made ready bare couches of the same colour resting on the uncovered floor; then he invited in his guests alone at night without their attendants.  And first he set beside each of them a slab shaped like a gravestone, bearing the guest's name and also a small lamp, such as hang in tombs. Next comely naked boys, likewise painted black, entered like phantoms, and after encircling the guests in an awe-inspiring dance took up their stations at their feet.’

Having made it home alive after such a terrifying evening, the party guests must have thanked the gods profusely, at least until there came a knock at the door and a messenger from the emperor was announced. The messenger had come with a gift from the emperor, but his real mission was to further mess with their minds. No wonder those senators smashed Domitian’s statues to pieces when he died.

Alongside a general mental terrorising of the Senatorial class, there were also arrests, trials and executions. At which point you may be wondering what indeed my point is. How does Domitian’s treatment of the Senate impact on the actions of Parthenius and Entellus? It doesn’t. But I think it raises a revealing point, if this was what the emperor was inflicting upon the elite class of Rome, men with means, money, influence and connections that might be of some use to them (Pliny and Tacitus make it through the entirety of Domitian’s reign mentally scarred, true but also higher in rank than they started it) what might he be inflicting on his household of slaves and ex-slaves who had nothing to protect them and no one to write down their tales of suffering. They were constantly at the emperor’s side, unlike the Senators who at least had homes to escape to and breathe a sigh of relief they weren’t for the chop that day.

If Domitian could create such an oppressive atmosphere during a standard meeting with his Senatorial advisors, what was the atmosphere like for those living at the palace with the increasingly paranoid emperor. ‘He used to say that the lot of princes was most unhappy, since when they discovered a conspiracy, no one believed them unless they had been killed.’ Suetonius.
In fear of the conspiracies he could not prove Domitian had the palace floor polished so that he could see any would be assassin reflected as he snuck up on him. He had executed Epaphroditus, a now elderly Imperial freedman, because twenty-five years previously Epaphroditus had been present with Nero when that emperor had committed suicide. In Domitian’s head Epaphroditus had allowed the death of his master, an emperor no less. Epaphroditus’ own death was to serve as a warning to Domitian’s own staff.

Coin depicting Emperor Nerva
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jupiter knows how many of the imperial slaves found themselves summarily executed for similar imagined crimes in the emperor’s head. How many found themselves, like Tacitus and Pliny, terrorised by the emperor’s rages. We shall never know. But it had to be darker than the black banquet up there at the palace. So dark that two freedmen who were friends to a poet, one of whom had a nice garden and the other a giver of snow-white togas saw no other way but to set up a conspiracy to murder the emperor that they had both prospered under.

They very nearly got away with it too. With Stephanus and the others slain there was no one to point the finger at Parthenius and Entellus as ever having been involved. Except there clearly was because nearly two years after Domitian’s death the palace was overrun with soldiers demanding that Nerva hand over the culprits. A sword pressed against his throat, Nerva felt he had no choice but to give into the guards’ demands. We know not what happened to Entellus. We do know what happened to Parthenius. The Guards sliced off his testicles and shoved them in his mouth, suffocating him.
Nerva, who owed his position to Parthenius, was allowed to die of natural causes a few months later.

L.J. Trafford is the author of several books on Ancient Rome including Ancient Rome's Worst Emperors

and Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome

The Petronius Maximus Guide to Plotting Your Way to Power Without Getting Your Sandals Bloody. By L.J. Trafford

Coin of Petronius Maximus. Credit; Wikicomms/ Classical Numismatic Group,

    I’ve spent the last year writing a book entitled Ancient Rome’s Worst Emperors. It has been quite an education in how rulers can comprehensively eff up the whole ruling thing and has given me comfort that the current politically tumultuous situation of the UK could be worse, a whole lot worse. Yes, we may be on our third Prime Minister of 2022 but of the previous two incumbents of the position neither has been forced into suicide nor decapitated in Parliament square, unlike Otho and Galba who were both (briefly) emperors in 69 CE, a year that became known as the year of the four emperors. No matter how confusing and chaotic the British political scene currently is, it is positively staid and boring compared to ancient Rome.

    Of all the emperors I have spent the past year researching and writing about there is one who really stands out for me, a man whose story interested me more than any other. It’s an emperor you’ve likely never heard of, which is not surprising given he was only emperor for two months in the year 455 CE. During this short rule he displayed none of the sexual excesses, megalomania and all out bonkers behaviour that many of the other emperors I cover in my book do. Yes, Caligula and Commodus I do mean you. But his story is fascinating because it stands as a case study, nay a warning for all those that seek power. 

    Prepare yourself for one hell of a tale. Enter Pertonius Maximus



The Man Who Had Everything

    A good five years after Petronius Maximus had briefly been emperor of Rome, a man named Sidonius Apollinaris received a letter that annoyed him no end. It was from his friend Senanus, (although after Apollinaris’ reply that friendship may well be at an end) who had written a very long letter the contents of which Sidonius Apollinaris hotly disputed:

‘The consecrated words of greeting over, you give all the rest of your space, no trifling amount, to laudation of Petronius Maximus, your imperial patron. With more persistence (or shall I call it amiability?) than truth and justice, you style him 'the most fortunate', because, after holding all the most honourable offices of state, he at last attained the diadem.’

    As the youth of today would say (probably, I'm far too middle aged to know), burn! I have some sympathy for Senanus whose roasting by Sidonius has been preserved for two thousand years, but not a lot. Because like Sidonius before me I find it jaw dropping that Senanus could look at the story of Petronius Maximus and conclude he was ‘most fortunate’. As Sidonius writes back to Senanus:

 ‘Personally, I shall always refuse to call that man fortunate who is poised on the precipitous and slippery peak of office.’

Enter the Master of Plots  


    Petronius Maximus was a very successful man.

‘He had scaled with intrepidity the prefectorian, the patrician, the consular citadels; with an unsated appetite for office, he took for a second term posts which he had already held.’ 

Sidonius Apollinaris

He was enormously wealthy but also cultured: 

'With his conspicuous way of life, his banquets, his lavish expense, his retinues, his literary pursuits, his official rank, his estates, his extensive patronage.’ 

Sidonisus Apollinaris

He was, in short the full package of Roman manhood. 

    But for Petronius Maximus having it all was not enough. He wanted more. He wanted a dollop of caviar added to his full monty breakfast. He wanted to be emperor. ‘His head swam beneath the diadem at sight of that enormous power.’ as Sidonius puts it.

    Petronius Maximus might have been the full package of Roman manhood but there were two other Roman packages in the way of him achieving what he thought was his right, the job of emperor. The first was the emperor himself, Valentinian III who at 36 years old didn’t look like he was going to conveniently drop dead anytime soon and free up the position. The second was Flavius Aetius.

    Aetius was a man whose package was so much bigger than Petronius Maximus’ that it required an extra line of postage stamps. Aetius was Rome’s most successful general, one who had repelled no less a foe than Attila the Hun, alongside the numerous other barbarian types who were continually harassing the empire in this era. This is well and truly a time when you needed good generals and Aetius was the best there was. He was so good that Imperial favour was lavished all over him and his son was betrothed to the emperor’s daughter. He was a formidable man, one who would uncover any plot forged against the emperor quicker than you can say Gaiseric King of the Vandals (on whom more later).

    But Petronius Maximus was a clever man, and he went about removing the two impediments to his ambitions; Aetius and Valentinian III in a very clever way.



Removing the General
    First up on his hit list: Aetius. The assassination of Flavius Aetius, the most successful Roman general of his era, is unique. It’s unique because it’s not carried out by Petronius Maximus nor any henchman paid by Petronius Maximus, Flavius Aetius was killed by Emperor Valentinian III himself.

    It occurred on the 21st September 454 CE during what Aetius had assumed was a standard planning meeting and it was until the any other business section when:

 The emperor suddenly jumped up and declared that he, ‘could no longer bear being the victim of so many drunken depravities’. 

John of Antioch. 

    Given that immediately prior to this Aetius had been explaining the projected tax revenues, I think we can all agree Aetius was fully entitled to be stunned and just a bit terrified. However, Aetius had faced off Attila the Hun so he’s made of sterner stuff than you or I, instead his reaction was to marvel, ‘at this unexpected outburst.’

An image thought to be Flavius Aetius. Credit: Wikicomms/Tataryn

Unfortunately, Aetius didn’t have much time to marvel because, 

‘Valentinian drew his sword from his scabbard, and together with Heraclius, who was carrying a cleaver under his cloak…for he was head chamberlain, fell upon him. They both rained down blows on his head and killed him, a man who had performed so many brave actions against enemies both internal and external.’John of Antioch

    Jeepers, is all I can say, and much like Flavius Aetius briefly thought before being stabbed to death by his boss, what the hell is going on? What drunken depravities? And no doubt something around the tax revenues not being that bad.

    Behind this extraordinary event there was our pal Petronius Maximus. He was in league with Heraclius, the eunuch who’d handily been standing by with that cleaver under his cloak to help the emperor in his murdering.

Impediment number 1 had been disposed of. Next up the Emperor himself.



Murdering the Boss

    Valentinian III’s murder of the very popular Flavius Aetius meant that Petronius Maximus didn’t have to try very hard to find two new people to do his dirty work for him again. Their names were Optelas and Thraustelas who, as pals to Aetius, were easily persuaded that the emperor’s brutal killing of their friend determined retribution:

‘They would reap the greatest rewards, he said, if with justice they exacted revenge when the opportunity arouse.’ John of Antioch. 

    Note again, as with Aetius’ death, that Petronius Maximus is playing no part in the gruesome bit of the plot, he’s staying well away from any blood splatter to his, no doubt expensive, sandals.

    A few days later the emperor set off on an outing to the Field of Ares accompanied by Optelas and Thraustelas.

‘When he dismounted from his horse and was walking off to practice archery, Optelas and his followers made for him and, drawing the swords at their sides, attacked him. Optelas struck Valentinian across the side of his head and, when he turned to see who struck him, felled him with a second blow to the face’

John of Antioch

    Ouch. After Valentinian was well and truly dead, ‘a swarm of bees appeared and drew up the blood flowing from his body into the earth. They sucked up all of it.

Which I’m mentioning for no other reason than it’s a bit weird.

    So that’s the empire’s greatest general and the emperor out of the way, and standing ready in the wings is the man who has engineered the entire situation, Petronius Maximus. God he’s good, isn’t he? He’s removed the two most powerful people in the empire without getting his hands bloody at all. This is genius level of plotting.

    Petronius Maximus sat in the palace that night. ‘rue-ing his own success.’as well he might. He had schemed his way to obtaining the one title missing from his CV, that of emperor.



Being Emperor

So there was Petronius Maximus, he had achieved the ultimate; he was emperor. But being emperor was a bigger step up than the endlessly successful Maximus had imagined. 

‘He soon discovered that the business of empire and a senatorial ease are inconsistent with each other’. Sidonius Apollinaris

He’d led such a charmed life, one that he’d been so effortlessly successful at that he just assumed he’d be a successful emperor. He wasn’t. 

 ‘His rule of it was from the first tempestuous, with popular tumults, tumults of soldiery, tumults of allies.’ Sidonius Apollinairs

It was pretty much on day one of Petronius Maximus’ reign as emperor that he made the decision that would bring his rule crashing down. He announced his intention to marry Valentinian III’s widow, Eudoxia. You can sort of see why he thought this was a good idea, it would link him to the previous dynasty strengthening his right to be emperor. What he hadn’t factored into this clever piece of politicking was how Eudoxia might feel about this. Very unhappy is the answer,

The Empress Eudoxia. Credit: Wikicomms/Otto Nickl

Something else that Petronius hadn’t thought about during his path to the top job was how the deaths of Aetius and Valentintian III might be seen in the rest of the empire. Why would he when he was so consumed with his own success and so sure of his own abilities?

Whilst Petronius Maximus had been living his best life, Aetius and Valentinian III had been negotiating a peace deal with Gaiseric, the ruler of the fearsome Vandals. It was a peace deal that had been cemented with an engagement between Valentinian III’s daughter Eudocia to Gaiseric’s son, Huneric. The murder of Valentinian III was therefore for Gaiseric a family matter, or at the very least a useful pretext for having a go at those Romans again, as is neatly summarised by John of Antioch, 

‘Gaiseric the ruler of the Vandals learned of the murders of Aetius and Valentinian and decided it was time to attack Italy seeing the peace was void now those who had made the treaty were dead and the man coming into power did not have a noteworthy force.’ 

 Because the man coming to power had murdered the general who had created a noteworthy force to rival the Vandals.

A further incentive for rampaging was handed to Gaiseric by Euxodia who it was said begged him to invade Rome and rescue her from being forced to marry Petronius Maximus. Gaiseric set his Vandals on the road to Rome.

Facing Down the Threat 
Starting a war with an enemy of Rome that had been subdued after decades of war and careful negotiations was not a great start to the reign of Petronius Maximus. But he’s an experienced politician and as we’ve previously established, a very clever man, no doubt he has a heap of ideas and schemes and plans to deal with this unexpected turn of events.

‘When Maximus learned that Gaiseric’s army was positioned at Azestos (this was a place near Rome) he became very fearful. He mounted his horse and fled. The Imperial bodyguard and the freedmen who he used to trust the most deserted him; when they saw him riding away, they mocked and berated his cowardice. Just as he was about to leave the city, someone threw at stone at the side of his head and killed him.’ John of Antioch.

I don’t know about you but I’m proper disappointed in Petronius Maximus, as disappointed as those imperial bodyguards and freedmen were. Facing his first real test as emperor he completely loses his nerve and does a runner. It makes us look back at those assassinations he was behind with new eyes; perhaps it wasn’t him being clever getting other people doing his dirty work, perhaps Petronius Maximus’ was a cringing coward reliant on others to do what he himself did not dare to do.

Coin of Valentinian III. Credit Wikicomms/Classical Numismatic Group

 

Coward or not, Petronius Maximus quickly learnt that being emperor was very different to how he imagined it would be. ‘

The future did not deceive his sad forebodings; it was no help to him to have traversed all other offices of the court in the fairest of fair weather.’ Sidonius Apollonaris. 

Petronius had steered his Imperial ship straight into a tsunami as the realities of being emperor were starkly revealed to him; it was making decisions that you alone would face the consequences of.
Sidonius has a neat analogy for this discovery of Petronius Maximus:

 ‘Behold a bare sword, swinging from the ceiling right over his purple-mantled shoulders, as if every instant it must fall and pierce his throat.’

Petronius Maximus had uncovered the secret, that to be emperor did not necessarily make you happy, it was far more likely to make you unhappy. Not least because of the target it painted on your forehead for your poor decision making or because of a foolish notion that another would make a better emperor. As Sidonius put it better, that bare sword swinging from the ceiling above your head at all times (and also in your face should you be Valentinian III.)


Consequences
Petronius Maximus’ tale is one of hubris, of a man so confident of his abilities that he believed it was perfectly acceptable to murder his way to the job he felt should be his. It was that very confidence, that assurance of his own brilliance that brought Petronius Maximus crashing down and exposed him for what he truly was; a man not up to the job. Perhaps it was this crushing realisation that led to that attempted flight from the folly of his own ambition.

But his legacy is even worse than as a woeful example of misplaced confidence and pride because Geiseric didn’t turn around his Vandal army after Petronius Maximus was stoned to death by his disbelieving and disgusted subjects, no they kept going and sacked the city. 

It’s hard to think of a greater consequence for Rome of having an emperor in post who was so very not up to the job. Nor a man least worthy of the title 'most fortunate'. I think we are all likely sharing Sidonius levels of crossness with Senanus for such a misplaced description of Petronius Maximus.

L.J. Trafford is the author of two non fiction books; Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome and How to Survive in Ancient Rome. As well as the fictional Four Emperors series set in that year of the Four Emperors, 69 CE.

Ancient Rome's Worst Emperors will be released in 2023.

 

Don't you Dare Forget About Me By L.J. Trafford

An example of a Roman Emperor

Being a Roman Emperor is hard; what with a daily inbox brimming with problems that desperately require solutions; barbarian incursions, military mutinies, revolting provinces, troublesome new religions, failed harvests, plague, inflation, riots - not to mention your own officials plotting behind your back to replace you.

On top of those energy sapping problems an emperor was also expected to do stuff for their people. Easy, I hear you cry, Bread and Circuses! Oh if only it were that easy. Let’s take the circus part of that duo of people pleasers.

The emperor builds a shiny new amphitheatre. If it’s the colosseum it’s taken 10 whole years to complete, a whopping big hugely complex building project that took hundreds of people and oodles of money. This structure is not for the emperor, it’s not a palace where he can kick off his sandals at the end of hard day of emperoring and sink into a comfy couch with a glass of vino and some honey roasted dormice to snack on, it is purely for his people.

You’d think they’d be at least a bit grateful for the effort or at the least the thought. But no! They require more. They want to be entertained and they want the emperor to pay for and stage this entertainment in their shiny new amphitheatre he’s taken 10 years to build for them. And it was not enough to throw a load of gladiators in the arena and tell them to get on with it. Oh no, the people want to see something new from their emperor, something novel, something that nobody had ever seen before, and they want to see it now or else they might riot out their displeasure at your ever so ordinary games.

Even if they are enjoying watching two blind men fight, elephants walking the tightrope and freaking leopards doing kick boxing (that last one is invented, as far as we know, frankly I’m not ruling it out) they will probably make use of being in the same space as the man who makes all the decisions by yelling out why they think those decisions you made stink. This being ancient Rome, a time when poets put pen to papyri to threaten people they didn’t like with the insertion of a radish and a mullet fish in an orifice of their choice and the noble citizen of a seaside down one day paused on his evening walk to scrawl the immortal line ‘I’ve buggered men’ on a wall*, you can bet that such political commentary is likely not going to be terribly polite.

And just to top it off not only did you have to pay for the entertainment of others, provide a suitable level of spectacle and take abuse from the crowd, you also had to look like you were enjoying the thing! Because if you for one small moment look away to sign some official form or the gods forbid take a quick nap you could find yourself publicly scorned or possibly even assassinated!. Witness here Augustus trying to avoid the bloody fate of his adopted father, Julius Caesar.

He gave his entire attention to the performance, either to avoid the censure to which he realized that his father Caesar had been generally exposed, because he spent his time in reading or answering letters and petitions. Suetonius Life of Augustus.

Oh and did I mention the prizes? Yes, aside from the free novel entertainment and the opportunity to abuse the man at the top, a good emperor tossed prizes into the crowd.

These demands of perfection are applied to every task that an emperor undertakes. Woe betide any that fall a cm short, because they can expect to find themselves in one of the pithier passages in Suetonius’ highly entertaining biographies of the first eleven emperors (and Julius Caesar) or in the case of Claudius here who grievously failed with the Bread part, actual physical danger:

When there was a scarcity of grain because of long-continued droughts, he was once stopped in the middle of the Forum by a mob and so pelted with abuse and at the same time with pieces of bread, that he was barely able to make his escape to the Palace by a back door.

Suetonius Life of Claudius

The Emperor Claudius having possibly lost his clothes in that mob attack

Is it any surprise that Emperors dive at the perks of the role, grasping them in both hands and shed a grateful tear as their name is slapped on a building, a month renamed in their honour and an enormous dish of flamingo tongues and eel spunk* is placed in front of them? Frankly they deserve that eel spunk, let them have it. 

However, one Emperor decided he wanted proper appreciation for the job that he’d done and he found a way that ensured that the generally ungrateful Roman public could never forget all the good stuff he had done for them. The route he took to do this was not subtle, but subtlety gets you nowhere in a society where lucky penises are scrawled onto every available surface. His name was Augustus and you’ll have heard of him because he made damn sure he was unforgettable by writing a list of everything he’d done that was marvellous, having it inscribed in massive letters and shipping copies to be put on display throughout the empire.

The man himself, Augustus looking damn Imperial

 

The Res Gestae Divi Augustus or the deeds of the divine Augustus as it translates, is a list of all the achievements that Rome’s first emperor wanted to be recorded for posterity. It consists of 35 paragraphs, every single one of which translates as ‘I’m brilliant, marvel at it.’

Reading the Res Gestae for the first time is an interesting experience, the boastful tone is at odds with our modern sensibilities where achievements must be downplayed, and we must act humble and grateful when rightfully rewarded. Or at least you do when you’re British. Probably the nearest analogy I can find to the Res Gestae is a job application and that box that asks you to, ‘explain why we should appoint you to the position of xxxx using examples.’ Which you fill in with an account of how you have made a glorious success of every job you've ever held and how much everyone loved you for that, even if you didn’t and they didn’t. But nobody ever got offered a job interview by downplaying their successes or referencing the time they completely cocked up a project.

Amongst Augustus' many talents was directing people to the facilities

The Res Gestae is similar in tone. There is no mention of any cock ups in those 35 paragraphs but rather a hugely long list of things he, Augustus, has personally done during his forty odd years in power. He uses ‘I’ 122 times in a text that is only 3861 words long, so he would have been useless at the teamwork question on a job application. But being proactive and working on one’s own initiative Augustus has examples of in spades, as it evident from the opening line of the Res Gestae

“At the age of nineteen [44 BC] on my own responsibility and at my own expense I raised an army, with which I successfully championed the liberty of the republic when it was oppressed by the tyranny of a faction.”

A singular sentence that is capable of rendering every reader over 20 feeling instantly inadequate and pondering quite why they spent so much time downing £1 pints of cider in the student union bar when they could have been off championing the liberty of the republic instead.

On keeping the ungrateful people of Rome grateful Augustus is at pains to mention how many times he dipped into his pockets for them:

To each member of the Roman plebs I paid under my father's will 300 sesterces and in my own name I gave them 400 each from the booty of war in my fifth consulship, and once again in my tenth consulship I paid out 400 sesterces as a largesse to each man from my own patrimony, and in my eleventh consulship I bought grain with my own money and distributed twelve rations apiece, and in the twelfth year of my tribunician power I gave every man 400 sesterces for the third time. These largesses of mine never reached fewer than 250,000 persons.

Now I could work out for you what 300 sesterces times 250,000 people is and then do the same for the subsequent amounts mentioned and then translate this into how many loaves of bread/soldiers/pints of eel spunk that would purchase in total. But I don’t need to, the fact that Augustus mentions it and the number of 0’s that feature demonstrates on its own that Augustus gave away sh*t loads of money to the Roman public. Although it might be handy for you to know that the annual salary of a soldier in this time was around 1200 sesterces per year and soldiers were considered suitably recompensed. Because if they weren’t there tended to be trouble of the pointy sword variety.

 

Yet another thing Augustus was brilliant at - obedience training wild boars

In a paragraph dedicated to the Games he staged, Augustus is keen to have noted the efforts he went to in providing entertainments.

I gave beast-hunts of African beasts in my own name or in that of my sons and grandsons in the circus or forum or amphitheater on twenty-six occasions, on which about 3,500 beasts were destroyed. I produced a naval battle as a show for the people at the place across the Tiber now occupied by the grove of the Caesars, where a site 1,800 feet long and 1,200 broad was excavated. There thirty beaked triremes or biremes and still more smaller vessels were joined in battle. About 3,000 men, besides the rowers, fought in these fleets

I can almost feel him hovering over my shoulder like the ghost of Obi wan Kenobi in Star Wars saying in Alec Guiness' deep voice ‘Be impressed, my child.’ Impressed am I' (accidental Yoda voice).

Augustus with that far more succinct first draft of the Res Gestae

Other impressive things Augustus is keen to impress upon us include .

I undertook many civil and foreign wars by land and sea throughout the world, and as victor I spared the lives of all citizens who asked for mercy.

Bless you, Imperial Majesty

I restored the Capitol and the theatre of Pompey, both works at great expense without inscribing my own name on either. 

 Unexpectantly restrained of you, Imperial Majesty

The door-posts of my house were publicly wreathed with bay leaves and a civic crown was fixed over my door and a golden shield was set in the Curia Julia, which, as attested by the inscription thereon, was given me by the senate and people of Rome on account of my courage, clemency, justice and piety.

Humble much, Imperial Majesty?

I made the sea peaceful and freed it of pirates. 

 Ooo ahhh, Imperial Majesty

And my all time favourite:  After this time I excelled all in influence, although I possessed no more official power than others who were my colleagues in the several magistracies. 

Of course you didn’t Imperial Majesty whom I am calling Imperial Majesty because I want to of my own free will.



The Res Gestae as well as being a document to big up one man (and by the gods it does that!) also acts as a blueprint for what a good emperor should be; they should be generous to the people, build a ton of stuff, secure Rome’s frontiers & conquer new lands, be mindful of religion and paying respect to the gods, take care to reward the army and put on fabulous entertainments.

All of which sounds bloody exhausting, someone pass the roasted dormice please!

* The poet here is Catullus who has the reputation for writing an opening line to a poem so filthy it wasn't translated into English until the 20th century, 2000 years after it was written.

* A favourite dish of the Emperor Vitellius, it is referred to in our sources by the far nicer sounding milt of lampreys.

L.J. Trafford is the author of many books about Ancient Rome, she just can't stop writing them. Amongst her titles are How to Survive in Ancient Rome a guide for the would be time traveller to the year 95 CE and Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome a guide for people interested in that sort of thing.

Dream on

by Ruth Downie

“And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, [the wise men] went back to their country by another route.” According to the gospel of Matthew, it was only a dream that kept the baby Jesus out of the clutches of a murderer.

These days we tend to think of dreams in terms of psychology – Freud’s “royal road to the unconscious” - but people in the ancient world believed that dreams foretold the future. Then, as now, it was possible to forge an entire career on making sense of them.

Before Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” there was another collection of books with the same title, written in the second century by a man called Artemidorus.

Book Four tells a story of which Freud was particularly fond. Apparently while Alexander the Great was besieging the city of Tyre, he began to have doubts about his strategy. He dreamed that a satyr was dancing on his shield - which, if the satyr looked anything like the one below, must have been fairly disturbing. An interpreter spotted that the word “Satyros” can be divided into “Sa” and “Tyros” – “Tyre is yours”. Thus encouraged, Alexander launched an attack and took the city. 

A satyr, mercifully slightly out of focus.

 Not all interpretations were as timely as Alexander's. Another of Artemidorus’s stories concerns a man who was on the verge of marriage when he dreamed that he was riding a ram and fell off in front of it. Heeding his interpreter's warning that his future wife would be unfaithful to him, he broke off the engagement. His friends finally persuaded him to marry after all, but the man was taking no chances, and kept his wife under close surveillance. Unfortunately she only lived for a year. Thinking he was now safe, the man remarried. In a twist more satisfying for us than for him, his new wife took up a career as a prostitute.

Of course, not every dream meant something. Then as now, it was hardly surprising if a robber dreamed about robbing people. But if something unusual were to happen in a dream…

A man who dreamed that he couldn’t shake lots of large bed bugs out of his clothing found out the next day that his wife was unfaithful to him, but some complication meant he was unable to shake her off by getting a divorce.

Often the meaning of a dream depended on the situation of the dreamer, so that a teacher might be pleased to dream of ants running into his ears. They would represent all the young men coming to hear his lectures. For anyone else, their arrival would foretell death (because ants live down in the earth, in case you were wondering).

Dreaming of playing the harp boded well for the harmony of a forthcoming marriage. But for a dreamer who had other plans, all that tension in the strings was a warning of serious disagreements ahead.

To see a swan was a sign that secrets would be revealed, and to dream of a dolphin in the sea (not on the land!) was cheering, because it meant a favourable wind was on the way. 

Seeing a neighbour’s dog fawning could presage betrayal by wicked men and women. If the dream dogs bit or barked, the dreamer should be on the look-out for a physical attack. White dogs meant an attack out in the open, black an attack in a concealed place, and russet meant a combination of the two. As for spotted dogs – well, “they will be much more terrible,” because anything speckled was  dangerous and deceitful.

Singing was propitious if you found yourself doing it on the road, but it was bad to sing in the bath house. 

Strictly no singing in here!

 Dreaming of cabbage was bad for everyone, and so was dreaming of goats. Sheep, on the other hand, were always good news - especially the white ones.

Dreaming of cow-dung could also mean good luck – but only if you were a farmer.

Dreaming of being insane “would be especially propitious for potential demagogues, for those who wish to rule the masses, and for those who ingratiate themselves with the crowd." Better perhaps to dream of drinking cold water, a harmless pastime that signaled good fortune to everyone.

What about dreams where people spoke? Artemidorus recommended that his clients trust the words of gods, kings and rulers, parents, teachers and children. Actors were not to be believed by anyone. Others whose deceitful utterances should be ignored included magicians and prophets who claimed to find meanings in dice, sieves, palms, dishes or cheese. (Yes, I did just type "cheese".)  Only properly-trained professionals should be trusted: sacrificers, people who interpreted the flights of birds, astrologers, people who observed strange phenomena, dream interpreters and soothsayers who examined the livers of sacrificed animals.

As a non-psychologist what I find really interesting about Artemidorus’s work (apart from the bizarreness) is the insight into the concerns of ordinary people. It’s hardly surprising to find universal worries about business, health, children or marriages – and given the technology of the times, sea travel would have been fraught with risks that would have travelers praying for dreams of dolphins. But the many warnings of “secrets being revealed” were unexpected, and the frequency of warnings about attacks from enemies were a reminder that physical violence was an ever-present reality in the Roman empire. 

Back in the relative safety of the twenty-first century, may your dreams be full of white sheep and cold water, and may you never encounter goats and cow-dung. Unless, of course, you are a farmer.

This piece is based on Robert J White’s 1975 translation and commentary of “The Interpretation of Dreams” by Artemidorus – published by Noyes Press and reprinted by Banton Press, Isle of Arran ISBN 1 85652 046 3 

Ruth Downie is the author of the MEDICUS series of murder mysteries featuring Roman army medic Ruso and his British partner, Tilla. 
www.ruthdownie.com

So you want to be a Roman Emperor?

As this is my first post as a History Girl (and yes I shall be having a badge made with that title, which I shall wear at all times) I thought I’d introduce myself before launching into the subject of my post.


My name is LJ Trafford and I am obsessed with ancient Roman History.
This fixation kicked in whilst studying Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra for my English Literature A Level. Discovering that the arch villain in that play, Octavius Caesar, later became good emperor Augustus I was intrigued. Reading far and beyond my set texts I soon possessed the ability to draw a family tree from memory of the notoriously complicated and inter-marrying Julio Claudian dynasty.
It became clear that the best course for me was to spend three whole years fan-girling over Augustus with the similarly minded. Somehow, despite possessing absolutely no history qualifications, I managed to talk my way onto an Ancient History degree course.

I now write historical fiction and have just finished writing a four book series on the tumultuous Year of the Four Emperors, 69AD. I also have a day job as a Database Analyst.
I thought it might be fun for my first post to combine these two roles and crunch some stats on Roman Emperors .

*Disclaimer*  My Data set runs from Augustus who became Rome's first emperor in 27 BC to Romulus Augustulus the last Western Roman Emperor who was deposed in 476 AD.
There are some gaps in the knowledge of some of the short lived emperors and also some conflicting evidence. My figures are based on what data we do have and my own hunches on conflicting accounts.
*Second Disclaimer*  It's just for fun.


So you want to be a Roman Emperor?

First things first. Being a Roman emperor is extremely dangerous.

Yes, you have a whopping 63.95% chance of having an unnatural death.

This might rather put you off aiming for the purple. But never fear! I have some top tips that will help aid your likelihood of surviving a tumultuous life at the top.

Tips:

1) Choose the time of your accession carefully.

As you can see from the above chart, you have a better chance of a natural death if you start your reign in the 2nd Century AD.

This is the era of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, three of Edward Gibbon's 5 Good Emperors.

You will certainly want to avoid the 3rd Century for your Emperorship. This was a period known as the Crisis with a sudden, violent and rapid changeover of emperor. There were 28 emperors in 100 years, meaning an average length of reign of 3.6 years. The 2nd Century by comparison has an average reign of 11 years. Which is ample to make a name for yourself.

2) Are you ready to be emperor?

Though youthful exuberance and ambition has its place, it has no place in being a Roman emperor.

Of those who became emperor aged 30 or under a humongous 80% of them met an unnatural death.
Included in this total is Nero who became emperor thanks to his mother's machinations at 17 years old.
Geta, emperor at 20. Stabbed to death in his mother's arms at 22.
And Gordian III who ascended the purple at only 13 and was killed in battle, or assassinated by troops (neither of which is very nice).

Reassuringly, for those of us of a certain age, your chances of an awful death decline sharply once you pass 31. Indeed the best age to ascend to the throne and enjoy a long reign and peaceful death is between 40 and 45.

3) What to look out for.

 We've established that you want to begin your reign in the 2nd Century in comfortable middle age but what do you need to look out for to avoid that unnatural death?

Surprisingly, given the expansionist nature of Rome, those emperors killed in battles were for the most part in civil wars against fellow Romans.
Notable exceptions include Valens who was killed fighting the Goths, Valerian the only Roman emperor to be captured in battle and Julian, who like Valerian, was fighting the Persians.

By far the greatest risk factor is assassination.
A whopping 24 emperors were assassinated, giving you a 1 in 4 chance of ending your reign that way. Even extremely competent emperors such as Aurelian (who regained large tracts of territory during the Crisis era and was named 'Restorer of the World') fell to the assassin's dagger.

So who do you need to be aware of? Who are you most likely to be assassinated by?

4) The dagger wielders.

Though an army is a necessity for an emperor you might want to keep them and your own personal bodyguards, the Praetorians, in your favour. Preferably by using coinage. Emperor Galba was deposed and decapitated in the Forum after refusing to pay a bonus to the troops.
Pertinax was ousted because he only paid his Praetorian Guard half of what they were owed.

And keep looking over your shoulder at that 'friend' or relative of yours, they might just be hankering after your throne.

Other notable assassinations include Caligula whose death was organised by a Guard whose high pitched voice he'd made fun of. Caracalla who was stabbed by one of his troops whilst going to the toilet. And Commodus who was strangled in his bath by a wrestler named Narcissus after vomiting up the poison his mistress had given him.


In conclusion having faced up to what is an awfully dangerous job, it is worth remembering that there are some benefits to being a Roman Emperor.
Such as:

• Wealth beyond your wildest imaginings. A recent report put Augustus second in a list of the richest men of all time, estimating his worth to be around $4.6 trillion in today's money.
• Palaces! Who doesn't like a palace? Nobody. And certainly not Nero who used the excuse of the great fire of Rome to build his legendary Golden House. The Imperial Palace was later extended and improved upon considerably by Domitian and Septimius Severus to take up most of the Palatine Hill. So plenty of room for your ornaments and soft toy collection.
• Fame. Or infamy, Or if you're lucky a month named after you. July and August are named after Julius Caesar and Augustus. But they were not alone in having a month named after them. Nero named April after himself. Domitian went one better by calling two months Germanicus and Domitianus after himself. And apparently Commodus was set on naming all twelve months. Though obviously none of these stuck. Trafforduary anyone?

Footnotes.
Data set compiled courtesy of Timothy Vermeiren.

LJ Trafford. 

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