THE HISTORY OF THE EARLY PRINCIPATE

 

The period of Roman history referred to as the Early Principate begins with the assumption of sole authority (auctoritas) and right to command (imperium) by the Roman statesman, Gaius Octavius (called Octavian), following his victory in the cycle of civil wars that swept away the Roman Republic (ca. 49-42 BCE). The Early Principate ends with the Year of the Five Emperors (193 CE) and the War of Succession (193-197 CE). The term "Principate" is derived from the Latin title princeps civitatis ("first citizen"), adopted by Octavian to mask his enormous accumulation of personal power and to maintain the illusion that Rome was still a republic. Later emperors retained this title, shortening it to princeps (the English word "prince" is derived from this Latin title). The Roman Senate remained, but it was divested of any real power, even the administrative functions of empire gradually being usurped by a palace bureaucracy. Octavian's name changed gradually over time both as a result of his conscious efforts to associate himself with his adoptive father (Julius Caesar) and as the fawning Senate heaped honorifics on him—by the end of his reign he was known as Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus ("Most Honored Commander and Son of the Divine Caesar"), although historians often refer to him simply as Augustus (the month of August is named after him). Augustus ruled openly from 27 BCE until his death in 14 CE, presiding over a renaissance in Roman culture and laying the foundations of the Roman autocracy. The stability that his reforms created led to a 200-year period of Roman prosperity known as the Pax Romana ("the Roman Peace"). The name is somewhat misleading because the empire was in a state of almost perpetual war during this period—expanding and consolidating a vast empire—but the heartlands in Italy did indeed enjoy an unprecedented stretch of peace and prosperity (especially when viewed in contrast to the spasm of chaos and violence that brought the Republic crashing down). However, a quote from Calgacus, a Celtic chieftain of the Caledonian Confederacy, seems apropos:

 

They rob, they slaughter, they plunder, and they call it "empire." Where they make a wasteland, they call it "peace."

 

Augustus established what is known today as the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, so-called because its dynasts each came from the two ancient noble families of the Julians (Augustus' family by adoption) and the Claudians (Augustus' family by marriage). There were four Julio-Claudian emperors after Augustus—Tiberius Claudius Nero (usually known as Tiberius)(14-37 CE), Gaius Julius Germanicus (usually known as Caligula, "Little Boot," a childhood nickname)(37-41 CE), Claudius Tiberius Germanicus (usually known as Claudius)(41-54 CE), and Nero Claudius Germanicus (usually known as Nero)(54-68 CE). While the state continued to expand during this time period, the dynasty quickly deteriorated in corruption, violence, and insanity—a sharp contrast to the carefully crafted reputation of probity and sagacity maintained during Augustus' 41-year reign.  Nero's suicide was followed by a civil war that brought three emperors to the throne in quick succession—Servius Sulpicius Galba (68-69 CE), Marcus Salvius Otho (69), and Aulus Vitellius Germanicus (69). The civil war ended with the victory of Titus Flavius Vespasianus (called Vespasian), who established the short but effective Flavian Dynasty. Vespasian (69-79 CE) was followed by his sons Titus Flavius Vespasianus (78-81 CE) and Titus Flavius Domitianus (81-96 CE). Vespasian restored the good government established by Augustus, crushed several major provincial rebellions (most notably in Judea), and turned his back on the corruption and self-aggrandizement of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Vespasian followed Augustus' precedent, which defined imperial greatness not through the luxury and opulence of the imperial palace and the naked display of ambition and power by its dynasts, but through the building of infrastructure throughout the empire, the maintenance of good government, and the honor of Roman arms. This is perhaps best symbolized by Vespasian's dismantling of the sprawling Golden House (Domus Aureum) palace complex built by Nero in central Rome and replacing it with civic buildings, theaters, markets, private homes and apartment blocks, and the great Flavian Amphitheater (often called the Roman Colliseum) where the populace of Rome was to be treated to entertainments and the dispensing of public largesse (panem et circenses, "bread and games").

 

One of the things that makes the Roman Principate (ca. 25 BCE to 284 CE) unique among ancient imperial powers is that it never had a strong principle to back a right of succession.  The Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties were both anomalies, and throughout the rest of the history of the Early Principate succession was officially maintained through the legal adoption of an emperor's intended successor, the gradual sharing of power with the intended successor, and his eventual assumption of full powers. This was intended as a kind of meritocracy, whereby each emperor chose the best man he had available to succeed him. The system proved amazingly durable, and for almost a century Rome basked in the rule of the "Five Good Emperors"—Marcus Ulpius Traianus (known as Trajan)(98-117 CE), Publius Aelius Hadrianus (known as Hadrian)(117-138), Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius (known as Antoninus Pius)(138-161 CE), Lucius Aurelius Verus (known as Lucius Verus)(161-169 CE), and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (known as Marcus Aurelius)(161-180 CE). Of these, Trajan is often singled out for praise as one of Rome's greatest, and certainly most dynamic, emperors—during his lifetime, the Senate voted him the title of optimus princeps ("greatest prince"), a verdict almost universally shared by historians down to the present day. Trajan embarked on an extensive public building program that reshaped the city of Rome, including major public facilities like Trajan's Forum, Trajan's Baths, and Trajan's Market. His administration was extremely popular, noted for a relative lack of corruption, and his treatment of the provinces was considered fair and balanced. As an example of his civic-minded largesse, Trajan formalized and funded a formerly ad hoc civil program known as the alimenta, which provided funds, food, and subsidized education for orphans and poor children throughout Italy. Trajan extended the borders of the empire to their greatest extent by peaceful annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom, a wealthy Aramaic trading state in Jordan (see my Hellenistic Syrians gallery), and through three massive military campaigns against the Kingdom of Dacia (see my Northern Thracian Peoples gallery), the Kingdom of Armenia, and the Parthian Empire (see my Parthians gallery). In order to invade Dacia, Trajan had a massive bridge built across the Danube River—an architectural wonder that was the longest arch bridge built anywhere in the world for the next 1,000 years. Trajan commemorated his conquest of Dacia with a monument in the plaza of his eponymous forum in Rome. Trajan's Column has a spiral frieze that depicts the Dacian Campaigns in pictoral detail, and it remains one of the most valuable sources of evidence for the army of the Early Principate, the Dacian and Sarmatian peoples, and the war itself (Trajan's written account of the war is, unfortunately, lost). Although Trajan's successor, Hadrian, ultimately decided to abandon some of the territorial gains Trajan made (mainly those in Mesopotamia), the massive amount of booty brought in kept the imperial treasury in the black for almost a century.  While overseeing the consolidation of his Mesopotamian conquests, Trajan grew ill and died of a stroke—his ashes were interred in the base of his Column in Rome.

 

As has been mentioned, Trajan's successor, Hadrian, abandoned his territorial conquests in Mesopotamia, but he used the funds acquired from Trajan's campaigns to tour the entire Roman Empire. This was a working vacation, however, and Hadrian used the opportunity to make civic improvements throughout the empire, to reorganize and systematize provincial administrations, and to create a static line of defenses along the empire's long borders both to regularize and facilitate trade and to police the borders against foreign military incursions. Perhaps his most enduring monument is Hadrian's Wall in northern England/southern Scotland.  The following reigns of Antoninus Pius and Lucius Verus are mainly notable for their peace and stability, in part bought by Trajan's victories and Hadrian's far-sighted reforms. Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor, is also famous for being an important figure in the evolution of the Stoic School of Philosophy. I personally have been deeply affected by his book, Ta eis heauton (Greek, "Thoughts to myself"), usually printed in modern editions as "Meditations," and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in ethics. His emphasis on self-discipline and self-sufficiency, coupled with a concern for the common good and a belief in the inherent value of objective truth and doing good for its own sake (without expectation of reward) are presented in a deeply moving personal dialogue that should strike a spark of recognition in the minds of most readers, even today.

 

But all good things must come to an end. Ironically, the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius was the most martial of these emperors, due to the outbreak of the Marcomannic Wars (166-180 CE), a series of invasions of Roman territories (and Roman punitive campaigns into barbarian territories) between the upper Rhine and Danube rivers, by Celtic, Germanic, and Sarmatian tribes that had formed the Marcomannic Confederacy (marcomanni, Latin, "border-men"). The Marcomannic Wars raged in modern-day Switzerland, southwestern Germany, eastern France, Hungary, western Romania, and northern Italy, threatening the heart of the empire. This forced Marcus Aurelius to give provincial military commanders greater power (and thus inadvertently weakening the civil bureaucracy), and possibly also led him to break with the adoptive tradition that had led to the long period of prosperity and good government of the Five Good Emperors. Instead, he named his son, Lucius Aurelius Commodus (180-192 CE), as his heir (apparently with the belief that his son would prove more loyal to his father's political legacy than any of the newly empowered military commanders). However, unlike his predecessors, Commodus was not interested in taking a hands-on role in the administration of the empire, preferring to allow friends and functionaries to run the empire without oversight, which of course led to massive corruption and alienation of the newly empowered military commanders. Indeed, Commodus spent most of his reign carrying out a campaign of personal self-aggrandizement aimed at creating a public image of himself as a supremely virile reincarnation of Hercules (he was reputedly very good-looking and in great physical shape). Much to the shock and horror of many Romans, he often fought as a gladiator in the Flavian Amphitheater, sometimes in the nude, in fixed spectacles in which he was never in real danger but in which he would slaughter his opponents (man and beast). Following a major fire in Rome that gutted much of the city (192 CE), he took the opportunity to ritually re-found Rome (calling himself the new Romulus), he re-named the city after himself (Commodiana), he decreed that all Romans should call themselves Commodianus, that all legionaries should call themselves Commodianae, that the Senate should be renamed the Commodian Fortunate Senate, and that the months of the year should be renamed to match each of the twelve names he decided he would be known by thence (i.e., Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus, Exsuperatorius, Amazonius, Invictus, Felix, Pius). The day on which he re-founded Rome was also to be an imperial holiday known as Commodus' Day. Later that year a palace coup led by Quintus Aelius Laetus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard, assassinated Commodus (he was strangled in his bath by his wrestling trainer) and replaced him with Publius Helvius Pertinax, the Urban Prefect of Rome (a quasi-mayoral post). Pertinax probably would have been a good emperor—he both abrogated Commodus' egregious acts and initiated some far-sighted reforms of his own—but his reign was cut short by another palace coup initiated by the Praetorian Guards (who Pertinax had refused to pay off after his elevation), who then attempted to auction off the post of emperor to the highest bidder. This sparked off a struggle for power within the capital—the Year of the Five Emperors (193 CE)—followed by a civil war—the War of Succession (193-197 CE)—which brought the period of the Early Principate to a bloody and tumultuous close. The winner of that civil war, Lucius Septimius Severus (193-211 CE), founder of the Severan Dynasty (193-235 CE), made substantial changes to the civil and military institutions of the empire and presided over massive social, cultural, and environmental changes. Most historians point to his reign as a turning point in Roman history, beginning the period of Roman history known as the Later Principate (ca. 193-284 CE).