Monarchs of Rome

Emperors analyzed

Gaius Julius Caesar gave his name to a grand institution. By tradition, the Romans detested kings and the very word rex, so all manner of euphemisms and play-acting were necessary. These functioned as a fig leaf to hide reality from tender eyes. All the bashfulness didn’t change the fact that the Roman Republic had transformed back into a Roman Monarchy, and history revealed that the second Brutus failed where the first one had succeeded.

On part of Western Rome the men in purple dominate a period spanning five centuries. Some of them were Great Men of History, others obscure and short lived failures in the ruthless game of power politics. In this piece I shall make some general notes on the changes the Roman monarchy went through along the way, and highlight some of the key figures in the institution’s history.

Julio-Claudians

Octavian-Augustus was the ideal man to become the first Emperor or Rome. He was the young, intelligent adopted son of a legend, and a great man of vision on his own right. His remarkable four decade reign allowed the new monarchy time to set roots deep enough for the institution to get through the rocky decades under later Judio-Claudians. Augustus was a man who understood the importance of social virtue and the necessity for uplifting the decayed morality of his society. His efforts were ultimately insufficient, however. It probably didn’t help matters that the man was personally unfaithful to his wife and as such prone to exactly the kind of unchaste behavior he was legislating against.

It was unfortunate personally, and formative institutionally, that Augustus never had a son of his own to position as uncontested heir. This meant that the Roman monarchy could not immediately establish a solid inheritance of power from father to son. All of Augustus’ attempts to find a solid male heir that carried his blood ultimately failed, and he had to settle with Tiberius, the son of his wife from a previous marriage. This is also why the dynasty came to have two names – Julian from Augustus himself, and Claudian from the family of his wife Livia.

Compared with Augustus, Tiberius was an unexceptional emperor. He appears to have had basic competence, and had certainly proven himself as capable militarily (including the achievement of winning back the Roman eagles from the Parthians, previously lost by Crassus in his disastrous defeat in Carrhae), but his reign was plagued by apparent personal disinterest and over-delegation. The most famous case was that of the Praetorian Commander Sejanus, who was the de facto ruler of Rome for many years, while Tiberius lived in lazy dissipation on the isle of Capri.

That the praetorian guard became a great player in the power game so early on is remarkable. Partly this is due to the Romans not being able to fully commit to a sacred kingship early on. In addition to the failure of Augustus to establish a solid dynastic inheritance and bloodline, another problem was Roman stubbornness with their hatred of kings.

Because they wanted to keep up the appearances of the old Republican system, the position of the Emperor lacked the venerable qualities that belong to that of a sacral King. This made it easier for the throne to become the target of the basest power politics. There was precious little to inhibit cynicism.

It is remarkable that the history of the Roman Empire was written by the losers. It’s men of the senatorial class like Suetonius, Tacitus and Cassius Dio who do the writing, and the senators were on the losing side with the rise of the Roman monarchy. They always had the interest to paint each emperor with the darkest colors – especially ones who were the most monarchical and least willing to share power with the senate.

This is important to bear in mind when we read about the extravagances of men like Caligula or Nero. There probably is some fire where there is smoke, but in this case we can be sure that the historians had an interest in fanning the billows.

Still, some of the stories are worth recounting. We are told Caligula stole the breastplate of Alexander from his sarcophagus and used it in his mad antics. He was the first to bring emperor worship into Rome, and it is quite possible he was clinically insane – in truth believing himself to be the great sky god. The behavior certainly didn’t garner him any political success, so if it was all an act, it was a decidedly stupid one.

Caligula was followed by his uncle Claudius, whom we can tentatively count as one of the good emperors. The conqueror of Britain and a sufferer from cerebral palsy. He managed to win the dynastic game and rise to the highest position by being so unassuming and apparently harmless. Though looking like a fool in most people’s eyes, he was actually a man of good intellect, with a particular interest in writing chronicles.

It is one of the mysteries of history why he decided to make the infamous Nero his heir, over his own son. Perhaps it was partly because Claudius had reason to doubt the legitimacy of his ostensibly biological son Britannicus – after all, the boy’s mother had been the most infamously promiscuous woman in Roman history, Messalina. Among other things, we are told she arranged a competition between herself and an actual prostitute on which one of them could sleep with more men in one night.

Whatever the reason, Nero was the one to inherit power, and in fact his first years as emperor were quite promising. Like Alexander with Aristotle, Nero had an excellent personal tutor in Seneca. But after some years Seneca and other good councilors were pushed aside and Nero’s reign began to resemble that of Caligula.

Famously he burned large swathes of Rome to clear room for his building projects, singing as he enjoyed the sight of flames. He blamed Christians for the deed, and began the first great persecution, which claimed the lives of Peter and Paul. Somewhat less famously we are told Nero took part in the Olympics and demanding that he must personally win every competition. He also got “gay married” with two different men, wanting to be in the position of husband with one, and in the position of wife with another. In the latter case he even gave his slave-husband permission to beat him, so as to make the perverse marriage feel more authentic.

With growing unpopularity came Nero’s ultimate fall, and with that the fall of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty (27 BC – AD 68) and the first great disruption point in the Roman monarchy. Though the Emperors were monarchs, they could not heedlessly do what they wished. Though stripped of its old power, the senate still had money, access, and influence. The emperor also needed senators as consuls and public officials to do much the practical work of of governance.

Almost immediate to emerge was their counterpoise. If the senate pushed the system towards aristocracy or republicanism, the praetorian guard became the safeguard of the monarchy. After all, if there were to be no emperor, who would employ the preatorians? Whom would they protect? Governance of Rome became a balancing act. If an emperor became too pro-senate, the praetorians would kill him and lift up a replacement. If the emperor disregarded the senate too much, the senators might arrange an assassination.

Flavians and Antonines

After a short disruption what emerged was a series of three solid emperors in the form of the Flavian dynasty (AD 69 – 96), with Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, a father and his two sons. Though a generally good and stable period for Rome, it was not a good time for the Jews. Vespasian was engaged with vanquishing the Jewish rebellion when he became emperor and took charge of Rome.

His son Titus was the one who carried out the destruction of Jerusalem and captured the treasures of the Temple as the centerpiece of his triumph in Rome. The destruction wrought by Titus was the one Jesus had predicted in Matthew 24:2. The calamity was predicted to be total by Christ, and was also described as such by chroniclers. We may then ask what exactly are the Jews worshiping at the Wailing Wall? How does an intact wall match with Jesus’ words of “no stone left on top of another”?

After a short reign as emperor, Titus was followed by his brother Domitian, who appears to have been another good emperor, but very unpopular with the senate, which causes him to have a dark record in the histories. He was the first emperor to be openly (and sanely) autocratic, not caring about acting the role of “first citizen”, etc. Another reason for his historical unpopularity is the fact that he was another victim of assassination. Given that he was succeeded by his assassins, they had all the reason to blemish his memory so as to justify their own rise.

Domitian was another emperor to care greatly about public morality. Among other things, he banned contraception and punished homosexuality. As a part of these efforts for uplifting public morals, he also combated atheism. As an unfortunate consequence, Christians came on firing line, because the Romans tended to consider Christianity a form of atheism in its denial of emperor-worship and the pagan pantheon. Indeed, the grimiest blemish on Domitian’s imperatorship was the second persecution of Christians. We are told that it was during this persecution that St. John was exiled on the island of Patmos, where he received his Revelation.

With Domitian’s fall came another break point in Roman history, with the rise of the Antonine dynasty (AD 96 - 192), which included the most successful and blessed continuous series of monarchs encountered in world history. With this dynasty Rome enjoyed a sequence of four great monarchs with a 20 year reign each. The secret of the dynasty’s success (and the explanation for its ultimate failure) was adoption. Instead of relying on their biological sons or family members, the Antonine emperors looked out for talented, popular, and trustworthy men whom they set up as their successors.

The century spanning dynasty was also remarkable in changing Roman self-understanding. Rome became less about Italy and its provinces, and more about a wide commonwealth with the city of Rome as its capital. Emperor Trajan (according to many opinions the best emperor Rome ever had) was also the first non-Italian emperor, being a Spaniard. He was also the only pagan emperor that Dante placed in his vision of Paradise. By all accounts a good man, skilled administrator, and a great conqueror, Trajan will live on in history as an exemplary monarch.

After a series of almost equally great successors, the dynasty broke down with the puzzling decision of the great “philosopher king”, Marcus Aurelius. Instead of adopting a man of talent and integrity, Aurelius the Stoic became soft and sentimental, and made his own son Commodus heir to the empire. In him Rome ended up receiving another madman in the purple.

Commodus imagined himself to be Hercules reborn (as can be seen in many of his statues), going around with a club in hand and a lion’s pelt on his shoulders. He took part in gladiatorial games as a contestant, which was vulgar to the point of a king taking part in a Big Brother reality show. He even ‘re-founded’ Rome and renamed it “Colony of Commodus.” On top of public extravagances, he also established a harem where he enjoyed 300 women and 300 boys.

It may be taken as a telling portent that during Commodus’ reign the temple of the Vesta in Rome burned down, and the legendary Palladium of Troy was possibly destroyed alongside it.

Time of crisis

With the fall of Commodus and of the Antonine dynasty, began a turn for the worse for the Roman empire. After a year long civil war, the Romans first experienced the comparatively unremarkable Severan Dynasty (AD 193 – 235). The titular Septimus Severus had another long reign of almost 20 years, and kept directing the ship of the state with a fairly steady hand.

He was followed by an emperor very popular with the military, Caracalla. Caracalla was also a great fan of Alexander the Great. He visited his idol’s tomb in Alexandria, where the well embalmed remains were still lifelike for visitors to behold, even five centuries later. So keen was Caracalla’s adoration of Alexander that he began to persecute Aristotelian philosophy, based on the vague idea that Aristotle had had something to do with his pupil’s death.

The most memorable of all the Severan emperors has to be Eleogabalus, another madman. He was in fact a Syrian high priest of the cult of Elagabal, a twisted sun-god worshiped in the form of a mysterious black rock. Eleogabalus rebuilt the venerable temple of Jupiter the Avenger on the Palatinine as the “Eleogabalium” – temple of Elagabal. Within the newly “sanctified” temple began new, distinctly satanic worship rituals brought from the east. Cassius Dio describes them with horror. Among other things they included child sacrifice, and castrated human genitals being fed to animals.

In addition to the wicked religion he led, Eleogabalus (Varius Avitus Bassianus, but usually named after his sick god) was a twisted man in his personal life as well. The man wanted to become a woman. He dressed like one, behaved effeminately and dreamed of cutting off his penis. He even offered to pay physicians lavish sums for building him a neo-vagina.

As may be imagined, he was a weak man an in practice allowed Syrian princesses, especially his mother, to rule Rome. Small wonder then that him and his power-hungry female relatives became the target of assassination, and were apparently put to the sword in a latrine.

Soon after the already troubled reign of Eleogabalus began the crisis and veritable chaos constituting the Crisis of the Third Century (AD 235-285). This was a time of woes that came close to destroying the empire. Historical records grow confused, reigns are short and violent, soldiers keep lifting up rival emperors, and laws of the jungle direct the action.

The nadir of the period has to have been the enslavement of Emperor Valerian, who was captured by the Persians, kept in a cage, and made a pathetic footstool for their king to use whenever he wanted to rise on top of his horse. After his death he was flayed and his remains were used as a trophy on the wall of the palace to remind Roman delegations of Persian power.

Still, amid all the chaos Romans got to witness the courage of Emperors Aurelian and Probus, who saved the empire from utter collapse by their military prowess. Most legendary is the war Aurelian fought against the Palmyran queen Zenobia, whom he ultimately brought to Rome as the centerpiece of his triumph.

After one arbitrary general-emperor after another, a seemingly non assuming praetorian commander called Diocletian got lifted up by his men to become Emperor. The same cycle had repeated time after time, and ostensibly there was no reason to expect anything different. But this time the Romans got lucky. Diocletian wasn’t just another soldier, but a man of vision and integrity. A true emperor in a common soldier’s clothing. He ended the long crisis, turned everything around, and gave the empire new life and new direction.

In Hoc Signo Vinces

Under Diocletioan the whole empire was reformed and restructured. Rome stopped being the sole imperial capital, functionally replaced by four cities nearer to the troubled frontiers. Senatorial power was decidedly and utterly smashed. Civil and military government was strictly divided. And perhaps most importantly, the empire was no longer ruled under a singular monarch. For some four decades Rome was ruled by four co-emperors, two senior and two junior, though one of them tended to always be in a clearly stronger position than the others.

Among Diocletian’s achievements was his ability or good fortune to choose such excellent co-emperors. His reign of 20 years was remarkably calm, and there was astonishing harmony of purpose among the two Augusti and two Caesari. It was a telling sign of Diocletian’s success that he got to retire in his old age, and to live for many years as a kind of “emperor-emeritus” on his calm countryside villa, growing cabbages. However, as with Domitian, his reign and that of most of his co-emperors was again blemished by harsh persecution of Christians.

The most laudable of Diocletian’s co-emperors was Constantius, who as a young man had fought with emperor Aurelian against Zenobia of Palmyra. While on that eastern campaign he had married Helena, who was to bear him a son and to figure strikingly in the history of Christendom. Later on Constantine re-conquered the secessionist province of Britain. It was in these westernmost parts of the empire where he held sway as Caesar. Called “The Pale One”, perhaps because of leukemia that may have been the cause of his death, Constantius was a man of virtue and respected by his men and admired by his son. Notably, he also refused to take part in the persecution of Christians ordered by Diocletian, and instead protected the Christians within his domain.

After Diocletian’s retirement, Galerius gained the leading position among the four emperors. Notably, we are told that it was Galerius who in the position of junior emperor originally pushed Diocletian into the policy of persecuting Christians. The cancer ridden, maggot infested death Galerius ultimately suffered seems like an evocative example of divine chastisement.

After Constantius died in York (then called Eboracum), his men decided to make his son Constantine his successor as emperor. Constantius’ men acted without any negotiation with the other emperors, most notably Galerius. But it appears the others had to accept the result as a fait accompli. Such was the popularity of Constantius and his son, and the strength of his men.

Though we now notice that the time quickly approaches when Christianity was to emerge dominant in the empire, curiously it appears that the more popular Christianity became (at this point perhaps 10% of the Roman populace) the more harshly it was persecuted. The decades before the religion’s ultimate rise were among the harshest, at least outside the area ruled by Constantius and Constantine.

The rise of Constantine the Great is one of the turning points in history where the hand of Providence becomes remarkably distinct. Beginning in the westernmost reaches of the Empire, Constantine swept across and destroyed all of his pagan competitors, and all the persecutors of Christians. Sometimes it is claimed that Constantine only became a Christian at his deathbed. While true in the sense that that’s when he ultimately accepted baptism and made matters official, it is quite clear that the man had already become convinced by the time of the miraculous events of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.

After receiving an angelic visitation, Constantine made his men fight under banners dedicated to Christ. He thus defeated the pagan emperor Maxentius, who actually drowned with his men as they made their retreat. The bridge collapsed under them, causing the army to plummet in the stream. The dramatic moment brings to mind the troops of the Pharaoh, and gives the divinely ordained battle a cataclysmic ending.

Constantine’s eastward sweep continued as he defeated Maximinus Daia, who had solemnly sworn to his pagan gods that he would eradicate Christianity altogether should he gain victory over Constantine. But his opponent had the support of the living God. Daia too suffered an ominous end, having suffered defeat and committed suicide by poison, the toxin proved excruciatingly slow-acting and painful. The man suffered for days, the pain being so great it drove him mad.

Having thus defeated all of his rivals, Constantine emerged as sole emperor. As a part of securing his power, an important decision by Constantine was the abolishing of the praetorian guard, which from since the time of Tiberius had brokered power and decided who gets to rule Rome.

In addition to the fervor behind his military accomplishments, we can witness Constantine’s Christian convictions in his laws as well. As we noted, earlier emperors like Augustus had cared deeply about public morals, but all of them pale in comparison with Constantine. Temple prostitution and gladiatorial games were abolished. Pagan sacrifices were banned. Pagan temples were confiscated of their valuables, and the proceeds were used to build great churches. It became illegal for a Jew to own a Christian, because it was considered absurd that a killer of Christ should ever hold sway over a follower of Christ.

Most remarkable were Constantine’s new laws for sexual morality. Adultery became a state crime, in certain cases punishable by death (it is even possible that Constantine’s own son was found guilty and executed on this basis). Same for homosexuality. Under his rule rapists were to be burned alive. And if a girl eloped with a lover, both were to be burned alive. If parents concealed the fact that their daughter wasn’t a virgin, they were to be exiled. Any girl raped while away from home was punished, on the basis that she ought to have remained at home, under her father’s protection.

None of this appears like the work of any “nominal Christian”.

It is truly remarkable how quick and radical was the change! In the span of just a decade or two the whole world was transformed. The persecuted minority became the ruling power. Rome’s laws and public morality began to reflect a wholly different view of ethics and humanity. The old gods were abandoned and their temples largely closed (though the full-on ban of paganism had to wait for the rise of Theodosius). Rome even received a new capital in the East, founded from the beginning as a great Christian citadel.

With Constantine Rome emerged anew as a true theocracy. Pagan emperors had been routinely deified (indeed, as an ironic twist, even the Christian Emperor Constantine was so deified by the pagan senate of Rome), but pagan deification held no sway, because their gods had no power. However, when a Christian monarch began to be seen as sacred and divinely appointed, it was no mere matter of pomp and glory, but something deeply felt and truly understood, and a key part of the form and legitimacy of the institution.

Rome became the first great power in the world to convert to Christianity, and this was made possible by the strong top-down power of her monarchs. What Constantine said was law, because that’s how Rome had learned to operate in the past three centuries. Christians had survived the oppression and had steadily grown in numbers. After many patient generations came the release. After the severest persecutions the sweetest catharsis. In a monarchical state, it was enough to convert one man, so long as it was the right one.

The secret plan God had set up for Rome had now become visible to all. The crucifiers became converts, and the greatest of pagan empires was transfigured into the greatest earthly engine behind the Kingdom of God.