The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 BC-AD 476

Citation

Grant, M. (2001), "The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 BC-AD 476", European Business Review, Vol. 13 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2001.05413dab.003

The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 BC-AD 476

Michael GrantMichael Grant has written widely on the ancient world and has very many academic distinctions.Keywords: History, Biography, Leadership

The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31BC-AD476, published by Wiedenfeld and Nicholson in 1985; reprinted by Phoenix, London; ISBN No. 1-85799-962-2 (softback); £12.99; 334pp. 1999.

All the Roman emperors were the rulers, in name and often in reality, of one of the greatest multi-racial states that the world has ever known; a state, moreover, to which we owe many features of our own lives, so that it is worthwhile to ask what sort of men they were. Admittedly, our own age, because of what we have suffered in the twentieth century, has a distrust of personality cult. This distrust in turn has sometimes been applied in retrospect to the Roman emperors, promoting the suspicion that earlier historians paid rather too much attention to the individual personalities of these rulers and too little to underlying social, economic, political and cultural trends. This is a healthy enough caution. But surely it should only be exercised with moderation. For despite the vast pressures on their time and nerves, by no means all the emperors were just tossed passively upon the surface of events. On the contrary, some of them gave that series of events a sharp impulsion, a formidably decisive turn: who can believe that the course of history would still have been the same if Augustus, Aurelian, Diocletian and Constantine had never existed, or had possessed quite different qualities? Second, any man, whatever his faults or deficiencies, who was called upon and agreed to take the helm of the enormous and portentous vessel of the Roman Empire, is an object of legitimate curiosity, and invites further investigation. Indeed the first 12 men dealt with in Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars were a fabulous series, the theme of countless legends. Every sort of enormous achievement and bizarre fantasy is conjured up by their names.

Suetonius

Suetonius, who was born in about AD 69, may have come from Hippo Regius, near the present Annaba in Algeria. Another writer, the younger Pliny, who liked him very much, intervened with a friend, Baebius Hispanus, to secure him a little property in Italy. "My friend Suetonius Tranquillus", [he wrote] "wishes to buy a small estate which I hear a friend of yours is trying to sell. Please see that he has it at a fair price, so that he will be pleased with his purchase. There is indeed much about this property to whet his appetite if only the price suits him: easy access to Rome, good communications, a modest house, and sufficient land for him to enjoy without taking up too much of his time. Scholars who take to the country, like himself, need no more land than will suffice to clear their heads and refresh their eyes, as they stroll around their grounds and tread their single path, getting to know each of their precious vines and counting every fruit tree."

Later, however, Suetonius left that earthly paradise to accept a series of appointments at the imperial palace, culminating in three important secretaryships.

Omens

Of all the 12 Caesars, perhaps the only one who wholeheartedly disbelieved in omens was the first, Julius Caesar; though Galba may also have tended in that direction. Augustus was sceptical about some reports though not always prepared to admit as much. But he keenly believed in others. Tiberius was deeply involved with the astrologer Thrasyllus, and it was because of astrological predictions, magicians' rites, and interpretations of dreams that the first treason victim of the reign, Libo, came to a bad end. Even the very tough Agrippina the younger was frightened by the births of half-bestial children, and of a pig with the claws of a hawk: and when Claudius died (probably by her own hand), she refrained from announcing her son Nero's succession until the propitious moment forecast by the astrologers. Vespasian was keen to publicise all the signs that had pointed to his imperial destiny. Vitellius, like Augustus, scoffed at such signs on occasion, yet believed that many others were authentic. Otho took an astrologer with him to Lusitania. The horoscopes of potential rivals were keenly scrutinised by Domitian.

So portents and prodigies played a massive part in Roman history, for they influenced events, directed them and created them.

Sexual aberrations

Another aspect of Suetonius' Lives which we may feel inclined to take with a pinch of salt, or disinfectant, is his emphasis on sexual aberrations. Were the Caesars really as peculiar as all that? Some of his descriptions, notably the account of Tiberius' aquatic sports, are so pornographic that the Loeb editions modestly leave them in the highly descriptive Latin. We may remark, says Gibbon, that Claudius was the only one whose taste in love is entirely correct: that is to say, he seems to have been 100 per cent heterosexual and this was unique.

In writing of such matters Suetonius did not display the burning indignation of Tacitus, or indulge in Juvenal's satirical invective. He just piled on the details either because he was carrying out his usual practice of quoting the good and the bad with indifferent impartiality, or more probably because he enjoyed that sort of thing.

Power

In composing his biographies, unlike the more chronologically minded Plutarch, Suetonius generally interrupts the straightforward account of his subject's life by a selection of material, classified according to topics, which deals successively with the man's various characteristics. In this rather schematic pattern we may detect the grammarian and antiquarian at work, for Suetonius possessed both of these interests. Nevertheless a host of vital characters leap out from his pages. Yet they are characters of rather too static an appearance, since, in keeping with the ancient idea that a man's inner nature remains unchanging from birth to death, little attempt is made to reflect psychological developments or alterations. Biographers of Franklin D. Roosevelt often discuss whether illness had made him a changed man at the end of his life. The ancient biographers and historians would not have admitted that any such real, basic, change was possible. The Caesars were subject to so many almost intolerable pressures of contradictory kinds. To us those pressures are probably the most interesting things about them. A biographer, to quote Virginia Woolf, must "give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders". The fertile fact, for the Caesars, relates to power. It is important to know just how they handled this power, and how it affected them.

Now the answers to these questions may not necessarily emerge from Suetonius. Still the situation is not hopeless, since we also have Tacitus. He deals with many of the same men, but works, very often, in a diametrically opposite manner, omitting private biographical material and considering his subjects almost exclusively from the standpoint of their power. He hates power, and finds it a horrible denial of freedom, a seed-bed of cruelty and evil of every sort. Yet he believes that the alternative of civil war is even worse. So the imperial might has to be endured: and its progressive consolidation, under whatever names and forms, is the main theme that is apparent in his vision of the 12 Caesars.

Since Suetonius is so much more forthcoming than Tacitus about the picturesque details of his characters, and Tacitus is so far more enlightening about their power, our problem of relating the Caesars' personalities to their exercise of authority might seem to be largely solved by a judicious blend of the two writers (with a certain admixture of a third, later, surviving historian, Dio Cassius, who concentrates on politics from valuable first-hand experience but with notable anachronisms).

This, indeed, is what countless modern historians, and historical novelists, have thankfully decided. But their decision has been premature, for something more than a combination of Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio is required.

Two contradictory theories of history

In 1841 Thomas Carlyle, in his book On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History, reasserted the significance of the individual. As I take it, he declared, universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here. But Friedrich Engels on the other hand went back to the opinion of Montesquieu, declaring that Napoleon, for example, did not come by chance, and if he had not come another man would have taken his place.

Today's historians, disgusted by Hitler and other autocrats of our own century, feel more sympathetic to Engels' point of view than to Carlyle's. Far too much attention goes to the emperors as individuals. Certainly, the ancient writers were too intent on seeing everything in terms of personalities, and concentrated excessively on the melodramatic, rhetorical figures whom they themselves had conjured up out of the sometimes recalcitrant facts. This sort of over-emphasis stands in need of redistribution. The continuity of Roman policy depended, not on a single man, but on the almost unconscious consensus of the whole governing class. In any case the personal malevolence of ferocious emperors only affected a limited clique, comprising the relatively few men who came within his personal orbit. Even Tacitus himself admitted as much. Yet at the same time he added a qualification, on the lips of a Roman general, Cerialis, addressing rebel Gauls: "Whereas tyrants wreak their will upon such as are nearest to them, those emperors who are well spoken of benefit you as much as they do us, though you live far away." For rulers could make themselves felt over all the vast range of the imperial territories.

Even to do so much was an enormous performance, affecting the lives of thousands and millions of people. Yet some of the Caesars, surely, did a good deal more even than that. Although, had Julius and Pompey never been, the republic would still have fallen to someone else, the way in which it fell was that of Julius, and his choice of method bequeathed enormous consequences to the future. As for Augustus, the effect he himself exercised on the Roman world, and subsequent civilisation, was gigantic. Rightly did Tiberius, at his predecessor's funeral, lay stress on the deeds which are in a peculiar sense those of Augustus himself, deeds which have never been performed by any other man. For Augustus' personality was the greatest impetus and determinant in every aspect of his age. Claudius, too, exerted a highly individual effect. Vespasian and Domitian established two different, opposed, methods of imperial rule of which their successors followed one or the other for centuries.

The current tendency, then, to attribute developments to general trends rather than to the characters and abilities of the Caesars is in danger of going a little too far. The task of trying to find out what the leading personalities were like remains extremely important.

Other historical evidence

There is one great advantage that we modern students of these subjects possess in contrast with the ancient writers who were not deeply interested in such matters. That is to say, labours in various specialist fields enable us to consult a large number of original documents for ourselves – inscriptions, papyri, buildings, works of art and coins. Inscriptions supply the exact words of emperors, for example the highly individual and revealing utterances of Claudius. Papyri cast light on many obscure places and themes. Great complexes of buildings show us the emperors' chosen bequests to posterity. The achievements of sculptors include an extraordinary series of imperial portraits. Coins add to them, as well as providing an enormous range of governmental publicity, much of it demonstrably inspired by the personal aims of the emperor himself.

What is the snag about all this evidence? Certainly it needs handling with a great amount of caution. For it is all, or almost all, imperial propaganda. Yet that, in itself, makes it infinitely valuable because so much of our literary material is anti-imperial propaganda. It is only fair to weigh the one kind of source against the other. Neither is necessarily true but by a judicious combination of the two we can truly begin to build up a picture of what the emperors were like.

Accessibility of the emperors

The ancient tradition did not comprehend sophisticated arrangements for the delegation of work. When, for example, a letter arrived for one of the emperors, it was brought directly in for his personal perusal, and after reading it he wrote out or dictated a reply. The practice of President Herbert Hoover, who personally read and approved every letter sent by the Budget Bureau to executive agencies, would have seemed to them quite appropriate. Augustus dismissed one of the governors of his provinces because he spelt in an illiterate fashion, writing ixi for ipsi; the story shows not only that the governor had written the dispatch himself, but that the emperor himself had read it. We hear of Caligula flushing with anger as he looked through a report from his governor of Syria.

The rulers also had to listen to innumerable verbal pleas. Indeed, if they were conscientious, the receipt of a written petition often prompted them to demand supplementary explanations by word of mouth, summoning the applicants from far off to provide them. When Tiberius asked Augustus to give Roman citizenship to a Greek client, the emperor answered that he would not grant the request unless the man appeared in person and persuaded him that his application was well founded.

The public considered that this sort of interview was very much the ruler's duty. A woman once accosted Hadrian with a petition while he was on a journey. He replied, "I haven't time". But she shouted after him, "Well, stop being emperor in that case!" So he immediately turned back and gave her a hearing. This was all part of the gruelling accessibility of the rulers, which greatly exceeded what is required of their counterparts today. Exceptionally accessible men such as Vespasian and Trajan are noted and praised. "At last", says Pliny the younger about Trajan, "there is an end of closed doors and crowds of delegates waiting on the palace steps". Those who like Tiberius hid themselves away were correspondingly blamed, and became the targets of malevolent rumours.

Security

The inhabitants of the capital, despite their perilous proximity to the palace, proved the least of the dangers to imperial security. The perils from army and senate, on the other hand, were far more menacing. Such plotting, remarked Tiberius, is a favourite pastime of subjects, and he declared that he, as their ruler, was holding a wolf by the ears. All, except the very few rulers who despised such timidities, were eternally preoccupied with security. The historians and biographers report a hundred measures that were taken to guard against the various perils. The praetorian prefect Macro would not even let Caligula fall asleep at a dinner-party, but would wake him up, in the interests both of propriety and of his safety: "since a sleeping man is an easy prey for conspirators". Every emperor took antidotes to poison.

For there were plots the whole time. Whether posterity has attached to an emperor the label "good" or "bad", he was the target of these seditious attempts all the same. Or were they only suspected plots, and not really authentic at all? It is never easy to tell – as the historian Dio Cassius was well aware: "It is not practicable, of course, for those on the outside to have certain knowledge of such matters. For whatever measure a ruler takes, either personally or through the senate, for punishment of men for alleged plots against himself, are generally looked upon with suspicion as having been done out of spite, no matter how just such measures may be."

The last of the 12 Caesars, Domitian, had spoken in similar terms. "The lot of a ruler is singularly unfortunate", he remarked, "since when he discovers a conspiracy no one believes in it until he has been killed."

The games

The rulers not only had to attend the games frequently, to the detriment of their other occupations, but had to look as if they were enjoying these spectacles. Tiberius manifestly did not care for them at all, so that his conscientious attendance failed to stand him in good stead. Julius Caesar was sharply criticised, when he came to a public show, for reading or answering letters and petitions while the performance was going on. Augustus showed a much more ostentatious, and indeed genuine, appreciation of such entertainments and never allowed his attention to wander. If he had to leave before they were over, he excused himself and designated someone else to preside. But even when he was suffering from a fatal bowel complaint, he still managed to attend the five-yearly festival at Neapolis (Naples). Caligula sometimes arrived at the theatre before dawn. When he was attending the games, he usually went out for a bath and lunch, and then came back. That was no hardship for him, because he was an addict, but even if he had not been, it would still have constituted a good political investment to waste his time in this way. Trajan created an excellent impression by sitting at the circus on the same level as his subjects, instead of upon an elevated dais.

The emperors' duties as judges

The Caesars were also expected to stand by their friends personally in lawsuits. But what seems strangest of all to our own ideas was their central and wearing role as judges. "This is indeed", declares the younger Pliny, "the true case of a prince" – the most essential of all his functions. Every ruler was obliged to spend an immense amount of his time deciding personally on the multifarious problems of litigants and defendants. When Augustus, once again at the very end of his life, wanted to escort Tiberius to Beneventum, we still read of contestants detaining him on the judgement seat by bringing forward case after case. Maecenas, on an earlier occasion, is seen fighting his way through the crowd which surrounded the emperor as he gave judgement.

Hard work

To be a Caesar was also appallingly hard work. This is a prosiac fact not always sufficiently emphasised by their biographers, ancient or modern. Some ancient writers, however, do not fail to make the point. Horace commiserated with Augustus on his gigantic responsibilities. On Tiberius at Capreae, stressed Plutarch, the cares of imperial rule poured in from every quarter of the world. Tiberius had forecast that the job would be a wretched and toilsome servitude, and he felt later that his prophecy had been perfectly right.

Claudius chose "Constantia", hard-working perseverance, as a special virtue of his own for self-advertisement on the coinage. Vespasian forgave conspirators with the remark that aspirants for his job were fools not to realise what an enormous burden it was. Pliny the younger praised Trajan because he needed so little sleep. "Thanks to his frugal diet", said Marcus Aurelius about his own predecessor Antoninus Pius, "he could remain at work from morning till night without even attending to the calls of nature until his customary hour."

Are we to believe that their heads and nerves were more resistant to strain than ours? It is possible that they were. But even so, they were not resistant enough, perhaps no human heads or nerves could have stood up to everything that they had to endure.