The Principate of Nerva (AD 96 98) and the Adoption of Trajan CONCORDIA EXERCITVVM HARMONY OF THE ARMED FORCES MARCUS COCCEIUS NERVA b. 8 Nov. AD 30 Princeps 18 Sept. AD 96 27 Jan. AD 98
The Assassination of Domitian (again!) 1. There has been extensive scholarly debate about whether any senators were involved in the plot which succeeded in eliminating Domitian. 2. As noted, our sources name only members of his household staff. 3. But the probabilities seem to favour at least quite a number of senators being in the know:
a) i) Several men were approached before the plot was carried out to see if they would accept the office of Princeps [as we saw before]. ii) They must have been senators. iii) They, of course, all declined believing it a trick. iv) Only then was Nerva approached and accepted the offer. b) i) The Senate was called to meet immediately after Domitian was killed. ii) This would take at least some organizing and the presiding consul is likely to have known what was about to happen.
c) Frustrating though it is, all attempts to identify senatorial conspirators (as attempted, e.g., by John D. Grainger in 2003 in his Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of AD 96 99) must remain speculative. WHY WAS NERVA (whose family came from Narnia!) CHOSEN? 1. There were marked disadvantages to choosing him: a) He was already in his mid-60s. b) Although he had been very close to the centre of power under Nero, had served as co-consul with Vespasian in AD 71 and with Domitian in AD 90, and was likely a member of the consilium [advisory council] of all three Flavians, he had no known experience outside the civilian sphere.
2. BUT there were considerable advantages too: a) He had no children certainly no sons [there is no evidence that he ever married] - and so there were no dangers of another dynasty b) He had an intimate knowledge of the workings of court politics (and was a survivor ). He may have been seen c) by senators as a man who, as a senator himself would bow to the wishes of the Senate; b) by the governors of militarised provinces and by legionary commanders as no threat (because he had no personal links with any military units);
c) by those who had supported the Flavians as a man who had worked well with the dynasty; and b) by just about everyone with any influence as a stop-gap measure to prevent another civil war while the empire sorted itself out. For his administration to be successful, there would be a need for great skill and diplomacy which Nerva presumably had. Nerva was probably helped by operating a noticeable gerontocracy as he included some very elderly statesmen as members of his advisory council (consilium) and took as his co-consul VERGINIUS RUFUS, the victor against Vindex back in AD 68 (who was 82 by now).
Nerva s short reign involves many puzzles for the historian, because it appears so different from what had gone before but also because, in large part, our written sources are so limited Written Sources a) For Nerva there is no ancient biography [Suetonius finished his Lives with Domitian; the strange Augustan History (a series of biographies) begins with Hadrian in AD 117] b) Cassius Dio s Roman History (Book 68 in epitome form) has only 30 lines or so on his reign. c) We have only three late 4 th century epitomes : Aurelius Victor s Book of the Caesars (about 7 lines); The Epitome of the Caesars (about 18 lines); and Eutropius Breviarium (about 6 lines)
We have to use: a) a very limited number of inscriptions; and b) the COINS Nerva issued (two of which tell us about policies which would otherwise be more or less unknown) Despite the limitations of the evidence, Nerva s principate is important because it is in some senses transitional. But we need, first of all, to review how and why he became Princeps when Domitian was assassinated.
NERVA S ADMINISTRATION Nerva s Coinage 1. Given the absence of any detailed narrative account for Nerva s principate we have to turn to his coin issues to learn about some of his policies (as noted). 2. Few themes on the coins are new and, for the most part, continue to emphasize the values that Romans were supposed to hold dear. 3. There was a suspiciously frequent emphasis on the Agreement of the armed forces, (namely CONCORDIA EXERCITVVM) whether agreement that he should be Princeps OR agreement amongst the armies not to challenge one another isn t clear.
AD 96 AD 97 The same theme was still being repeated in January AD 98 when Nerva died.
IMP NERVA CAES AVG PM TR POT COS III PATER PATRIAE The depiction of religious sacrificial vessels stressed Nerva s role as PONTIFEX MAXIMUS (Chief Priest) but this was nothing new.
Standard themes included: LIBERTAS PVBLICA Public freedom PAX AVGVST. Imperial peace IVSTITIA AVGVST. Imperial justice
FORTVNA AVGVST. Imperial Good fortune AEQVITAS AVGVST. Imperial Fairness
SALVS PVBLICA Public safety OR Public good health v ROMA RENASCENS Rome being reborn
Policies revealed by Coinage PLEBEI VRBANAE FRVMENTO CONSTITVTO grain was allotted to the urban plebs a) A congiarium (distribution of largesse) to citizens is also recorded. b) There must have been a donative to the troops, but it is unrecorded.
CONGIARIVM Nerva seated on a platform as two attendants distribute largesse to a citizen on a ladder
VEHICVLATIONE ITALIAE REMISSA the vehicle tax on Italy was removed a) One of the ways Nerva assisted communities in Italy was by relieving them of the burden of paying for the imperial postal service which passed by them. b) It put into practice AEQVITAS ( fairness ) and IVSTITIA ( justice ).
Italy also benefited in other ways: 1. a) A coin with Nerva seated on a curule chair extending his hand to a woman with two children has the legend TVTELA ITALIAE b) It reflects several measures introduced to show his special interest in Italy as its protector 2. We know also of a new agrarian law which promoted the settlement of poor Romans on farms: a fund of 60 million sesterces was set up to buy land for redistribution to them.
3. Citizens also benefited in general from a measure to provide funeral assistance (reported by the Chronography of 354 ). 4. Jews gained from the removal of some sort of abuse f from the Jewish poll tax (now sent to Rome instead of to the Temple. FISCI IVDAICI CALVMNIA SVBLATA (IMPROPER PRACTICE WAS REMOVED FROM THE JEWISH TREASURY )
Major events under Nerva 1. a) In the autumn of AD 96, only a month or so into the new regime, Nerva was made aware of a conspiracy by C. Calpurnius Piso Crassus Frugi Licinianus of very noble ancestry. b) One cause of dissatisfaction on Crassus part may have been his not being included in the list of consuls for AD 97 an office he expected. c) Nerva handled the situation well. d) Crassus (who seems not to have been very intelligent) and his wife were exiled to southern Italy and his immediate supporters just melted away.
2. a) Early on too we hear of an Economic Commission being established, although its purpose is obscure. b) Some analysts suggest that Nerva s administration had started to experience economic difficulties because some of the early programmes introduced were costly. c) Others suggest that it was created as a sop - because some senators were concerned about what they perceived as extravagance. d) Nothing suggests that Domitian had not left a very healthy treasury in September AD 96.
e) Nerva had announced his hope to work closely with the Senate and it was the Senate that set up the commission, with five members, to recommend cutbacks in, it appears, the middle of AD 97. e) It reported later that year and its recommendations seem to have been largely palliative measures e.g. the abolition of various sacrifices and horse-races: in short, it was probably more a public relations exercise than anything of a serious nature economically.
3. But a REAL and SERIOUS CRISIS occurred sometime in the late summer of AD 97: the Praetorian Guard rebelled! 4. Suetonius tells us that, at the time of Domitian s assassination in September AD 96: The soldiers were greatly grieved and at once tried to call him Divus Domitianus. They were also prepared to avenge him but they lacked leaders. 5. It may be that a contingent of the armed forces, in the form of the Praetorian Guard, was now moved to act.
Now, in the late summer of AD 97, the Praetorians, under the Praetorian Prefect CASPERIUS AELIANUS, demanded that DOMITIAN s killers be punished - specifically a) PETRONIUS SECUNDUS who had been a Prefect of the Guard in September 96; and b) PARTHENIUS, Domitian s chamberlain, who had been instrumental in the plot that assassinated him.
A. Nerva tried to resist their demands (rather melodramatically in Cassius Dio s account), but B. he was forced to concede, and C. Casperius Aelianus and Parthenius were handed over to the rebel Praetorians and killed. NERVA had lost face and he never fully recovered from this undermining of his auctoritas. The next we hear is that, in October AD 97, Nerva went up to The Capitol for a ceremony of thanks for a great victory won on the Danube by the commander POMPEIUS LONGINUS, the governor of the province of Pannonia (on the upper Danube).
On the Capitol he proclaimed: I adopt MARCUS ULPIUS TRAIANUS (the governor of Upper Germany). He did not announce the adoption, as one might have expected, of the victorious governor on the Danube. It is left to the modern historian a) to fill in the gaps, and b) to try to explain it all. One of the vital questions must be: Why Trajan?
Marcus Ulpius Traianus b. 18 September AD 53 [In October 97 he was just 44 years old]
Why Trajan? We can do no more than speculate. 1. After the rebellion of the Praetorian Guard in the summer of AD 97, Nerva s position must have been very precarious (and Cassius Dio claims he was never in good health). 2. There must have been frantic negotiations behind the scenes from then onwards (if not from earlier) about the future especially about what would happen when Nerva died and about who would succeed to the imperial powers when he did.
3. There must have been wide consultation; Nerva will not have been strong enough to make the decision about a successor alone in defiance of strong suggestions from others in particular his close advisors. 4. There would be quite a number of suitably qualified candidates to choose from. 5. a) those contemporary with Nerva (that is, those in their 60s and older) are unlikely to have been considered; b) those likely to have been considered will have been replacements for Domitian (who had remained popular with the armed forces), that is mainly men in their 40s.
Quite a number of suitable men were available: a) Aulus Bucius Lappius Maximus (victor over Saturninus in AD 89 as governor of Lower Germany, and a former governor of Syria with its four legions); b) L. Caesennius Sospes (former governor of Cappadocia- Galatia in Asia Minor, commander in the Suebic-Sarmatian wars which Domitian had fought); c) Sex. Julius Frontinus (older, but very experienced, a former governor of Britain which had legions and of unarmed Asia ); d) Q. Corellius Rufus (a former governor of Upper Germany and of Asia ); e) M. Cornelius Nigrinus Curiatus Maternus (with military experience on the Danube);
f) Pompeius Longinus (a former governor of Judaea, of Upper Moesia on the Danube, currently the governor of Pannonia, and the man who in a few months would win a great victory on the Danube). Assuming a good military man was needed (which seems a given), all of these men were as suitable as Marcus Ulpius Traianus (TRAJAN) 1. in experience; 2. in their links with Domitian; 3. in their current status and positions. So why Marcus Ulpius Traianus, current Governor of Upper Germany?
1. Of course, no definitive answer is available. 2. But a suggestion which must command respect is that Trajan, unlike the others, somehow represented the meeting point for the interests of certain rising provincial elite groupings: a) the interests of leading families in BAETICA (southern Spain) from whose ranks TRAJAN himself came [he was born in Italica (about 9 km NW of Seville]; b) the interests of leading families in GALLIA NARBONENSIS (southern Gaul) from whose ranks Trajan s wife, POMPEIA PLOTINA, came. [She was born in Nemausus, modern Nîmes]
TRAJAN POMPEIA PLOTINA
and c) the interests of leading families in Asia Minor which had links with leading families in Gallia Narbonensis and, through the Narbonensis families, links with the Baetica families. In short, MARCUS ULPIUS TRAIANUS (as indicated) was a point where all these many families and their interests met. 1. Trajan (who must have known well in advance that he was to be named) thus became Nerva s heir in October AD 97. 2. He succeeded as Princeps on 28 th January AD 98, with widespread support behind him, when Nerva died (of natural causes) [1920 years ago!].
Although Nerva was (naturally) deified by the Senate upon his demise and although Trajan (presumably) owed much to him, it is interesting that Trajan took his time honouring his adoptive father on his coins - associating him even them with his long- since-dead biological father who is described as a DIVUS too. AUREUS (not issued until 10 years after Nerva s death) honouring DIVI NERVA ET TRAIANVS PAT(ER)