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AUGUSTUS

Rome achieved great glory under Octavian/Augustus. He restored peace after 100 years of civil war; maintained an honest government and a sound currency system; extended the highway system connecting Rome with its far-flung empire; developed an efficient postal service; fostered free trade among the provinces; and built many bridges, aqueducts and buildings adorned with beautiful works of art created in the classical style. Literature flourished with writers including Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy all living under the emperor's patronage.The empire expanded under Augustus with his generals subduing Spain, Gaul (now France), Panonia and Dalmatia (now parts of Hungary and Croatia). He annexed Egypt and most of southwestern Europe up to the Danube River. After his death, the people the Roman Empire worshipped Augustus as a god. Rome achieved great glory under Octavian/Augustus. He restored peace after 100 years of civil war; maintained an honest government and a sound currency system; extended the highway system connecting Rome with its far-flung empire; developed an efficient postal service; fostered free trade among the provinces; and built many bridges, aqueducts and buildings adorned with beautiful works of art created in the classical style. Literature flourished with writers including Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy all living under the emperor's patronage.The empire expanded under Augustus with his generals subduing Spain, Gaul (now France), Panonia and Dalmatia (now parts of Hungary and Croatia). He annexed Egypt and most of southwestern Europe up to the Danube River. After his death, the people the Roman Empire worshipped Augustus as a god.

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TIBERIUS

The reign of Tiberius (b. 42 B.C., d. A.D. 37, emperor A.D. 14-37) is a particularly important one for the Principate, since it was the first occasion when the powers designed for

Augustus

alone were exercised by somebody else. In contrast to the approachable and tactful

Augustus

, Tiberius emerges from the sources as an enigmatic and darkly complex figure, intelligent and cunning, but given to bouts of severe depression and dark moods that had a great impact on his political career as well as his personal relationships. His reign abounds in contradictions. Despite his keen intelligence, he allowed himself to come under the influence of unscrupulous men who, as much as any actions of his own, ensured that Tiberius's posthumous reputation would be unfavorable; despite his vast military experience, he oversaw the conquest of no new region for the empire; and despite his administrative abilities he showed such reluctance in running the state as to retire entirely from Rome and live out his last years in isolation on the island of Capri. His reign represents, as it were, the adolescence of the Principate as an institution. Like any adolescence, it proved a difficult time.

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CALIGULA

Whatever damage Tiberius ﾕ s later years had done to the carefully crafted political edifice created by Augustus , Caligula multiplied it a hundred-fold. When he came to power in 37 AD, Caligula had no administrative experience beyond his honorary quaestorship, and had spent an unhappy early life far from the public eye. He appears, once in power, to have realized the boundless scope of his authority and acted accordingly. For the elite, this situation proved intolerable and ensured the blackening of Caligula's name in the historical record they would dictate. The sensational and hostile nature of that record, however, should in no way trivialize Caligula's importance. His reign highlighted an inherent weakness in Augustus ﾕ s Principate , now openly revealed for what it was -- a raw monarchy in which only the self-discipline of the incumbent acted as a restraint on his behavior rather than the "first among equals" Augustus had intended. That the only means of retiring the wayward Princeps was murder marked another important revelation: Roman emperors could not relinquish their powers without simultaneously relinquishing their lives. Caligula would be the first of many emperors to be brutally executed in the years to come.

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CLAUDIUS

Claudius Nero Germanicus (b. 10 BC, d. 54 A.D.; emperor, 41-54 A.D.) was the third emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. His reign represents a turning point in the history of the Principate for a number of reasons, not the least for the manner of his accession and the implications it carried for the nature of the office. During his reign he promoted administrators who did not belong to the senatorial or equestrian classes, and was later vilified by authors who did. He followed Caesar in carrying Roman arms across the English Channel into Britain but, unlike his predecessor, he initiated the full-scale annexation of Britain as a province, which remains today the most closely studied corner of the Roman Empire. His relationships with his wives and children provide detailed insights into the perennial difficulties of the succession problem faced by all Roman Emperors. His final settlement in this regard was not lucky: he adopted his fourth wife's son,

L. Domitius Ahenobarbus

, who was to reign catastrophically as

Nero

and bring the dynasty to an end. Claudius's reign, therefore, was a mixture of successes and failures that leads into the last phase of the Julio-Claudian line.

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NERO

Nero, last of the Julio-Claudians, had been placed in the difficult position of absolute authority at a young age coupled with the often contradictory efforts of those in a position to manipulate him. Augustus, however, had not been much older when he began his bid for power, and so a great deal of the responsibility for Nero's conduct must also rest with the man himself. Nero's reign was not without military operations (e.g., the campaigns of Corbulo against the Parthians, the suppression of the revolt of Boudicca in

Britain

), but his neglect of the armies was a critical error. He left Rome not to review his troops but to compete in Greek games, and as a further slight had left a freedman, Helius, in his place at Rome to govern in his absence. The suspicion which surrounded him after the treason trials and the conspiracy set the stage for a series of civil upheavals, "the Year of the Four Emperors," which included the rise to power of men, such as

Otho

in Lusitania and

Vespasian

in Judaea, whom Nero himself had sent to the frontiers, unaware that they were to become his successors.

VESPASIAN

• Titus Flavius Vespasianus (b. A.D. 9, d. A.D. 79, emperor A.D. 69-79) restored peace and stability to an empire in disarray following the death of

Nero

in A.D. 68. In the process he established the Flavian dynasty as the legitimate successor to the Imperial throne. Although we lack many details about the events and chronology of his reign, Vespasian provided practical leadership and a return to stable government - accomplishments which, when combined with his other achievements, make his emperorship particularly notable within the history of the Principate.

TITUS

• Titus was the beneficiary of considerable intelligence and talent, endowments that were carefully cultivated at every step of his career, from his early education to his role under his father's principate. Cassius Dio suggested that Titus' reputation was enhanced by his early death. It is true that the ancient sources tend to heroicize Titus, yet based upon the evidence, his reign must be considered a positive one. He capably continued the work of his father in establishing the Flavian dynasty and he maintained a high degree of economic and administrative competence in Italy and beyond. In so doing, he solidified the role of the emperor as paternalistic autocrat, a model that would serve Trajan and his successors well.

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DOMITIAN

On 18 September, A.D. 96, Domitian was assassinated and was succeeded on the very same day by

M. Cocceius Nerva

, a senator and one of his

amici

. The sources are unanimous in stressing that this was a palace plot, yet it is difficult to determine the level of culpability among the various potential conspirators. In many ways, Domitian is still a mystery - a lazy and licentious ruler by some accounts, an ambitious administrator and keeper of traditional Roman religion by others. As many of his economic, provincial, and military policies reveal, he was efficient and practical in much that he undertook, yet he also did nothing to hide the harsher despotic realities of his rule. This fact, combined with his solitary personality and frequent absences from Rome, guaranteed a harsh portrayal of his rule. The ultimate truths of his reign remain difficult to know.

NERVA

• Nerva's reign was more concerned with the continuation of an existing political system than with the birth of a new age. Indeed, his economic policies, his relationship with the senate, and the men whom he chose to govern and to offer him advice all show signs of Flavian influence. In many respects, Nerva was the right man at the right time. His immediate accession following Domitian's murder prevented anarchy and civil war, while his age, poor health and moderate views were perfect attributes for a government that offered a bridge between

Domitian's

reign and the emperorships of the stable rulers to follow.

stormy

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TRAJAN

Early in his principate, he had unofficially been honored with the title

optimus

official titulature. His correspondence with Pliny enables posterity to gain an intimate sense of the emperor in action. His concern for justice and the well the question of the Christians, that they were not to be sought out, "nor is it appropriate to our age." At the onset of his principate, Tacitus called Trajan's accession the beginning of a extensive as

Domitian's

beatissimum saeculum

faced no internal difficulties, with no rival nor opposition. His powers were as had been, but his use and display of these powers were very different from those of his predecessor, who had claimed to be , "the best," which long described him even before it became, in 114, part of his being of his subjects is underscored by his comment to Pliny, when faced with , and so it remained in the public mind. Admired by the people, respected by the senatorial aristocracy, he

deus et dominus

. Not claiming to be a god, he was recognized in the official iconography of sculpture as Jupiter's viceregent on earth, so depicted on the attic reliefs of the Beneventan arch. The passage of time increased Trajan's aura rather than diminished it. In the late fourth century, when the Roman Empire had dramatically changed in character from what it had been in Trajan's time, each new emperor was hailed with the prayer, essentially survived into the present day.

felicior Augusto, melior Traiano

, "may he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan." That reputation has

HADRIAN

• 117-138 CE

• Placed in the list of "good" emperors, a worthy successor to the

optimus princeps

Trajan

. Hadrian played a significant role both in developing the foreign policies of the empire and in its continuing centralization in administration. Few would disagree that he was one of the most remarkable men Rome ever produced, and that the empire was fortunate to have him as its head.

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Antoninus Pius

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• 138-161CE

• Antoninus Pius is regarded as one of the "Five Good Emperors" in Roman history. Antoninus believed the Empire needed no further conquests. Antonius believed that he should remain in Rome for the duration of his reign so as to receive news and messages from the provinces quickly and easily.

. He was respected by his neighbors and generally kept the peace with the border territories.

news and messages from the provinces quickly and easily.

MARCUS AURELIUS

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• 161-180 CE

Gibbon called Marcus "that philosophic monarch,” a combination of adjective and noun which sets Marcus apart from all other Roman emperors. His renown has, in subsequent centuries, suffered little, although he was by no means a "perfect" person. He was perhaps too tolerant of other people's failings, he himself used opium. The abundance of children whom his wife bore him included, alas, a male who was to prove one of Rome's worst rulers. How much better it would have been if Marcus had had no son and had chosen a successor by adoption, so that the line of the five good emperors,

Nerva

,

Trajan

,

Hadrian

,

Antoninus

, Marcus, could have been extended. It was not to be, and for that Marcus must accept some responsibility.Yet he was a man of ability and a sense of duty who sacrificed his own delights and interests to the well-being of the state. He was written in Greek, the

capax imperii

, he did his best, and history has been kind to him. As Hamlet said to Horatio, when awaiting the appearance of the ghost of his father,"He was a man! Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again." (I 2, 187-88)His memory remains vivid and tactile because of the famous column, the equestrian statue, and his slender volume of thoughts,

Meditations

.

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THE FIVE GOOD EMPERORS: 96-180

Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, known as the Five Good Emperors, were a series of excellent emperors who ruled in Rome from 96-180 AD. following the Flavian Dynasty. They were so called because they succeeded in winning the support and cooperation of the senate, which is something their predecessors had failed to accomplish.The first of these great emperors was Marcus Cocceius Nerva, ruling from 96-98 AD, who was chosen to take the throne by the assassins of the previous emperor, Domitian. He was a conservative man who promised to deal with the senate fairly and never put one of its members to death. The main things that characterize the reign of Nerva are his excellent relations with the senate, his completion of Dominitan's projects, his vast amount of spending on securing public good will, his attempt to increase civilian dislike for Dominitan, and the fact that he initiated a system of adopting heirs to ensure the succession of the best candidates. He adopted Trajan to be his heir, and thus inheriting the throne after him.The second emperor, Trajan, was in power from 98-117 and began his reign with pomp, killing all the leaders of the group who had shamed Nerva. He was named Optimus Maximus, meaning the best because of his respect for the senate and a series of foreign wars in which he attempted to extend the empire. He is well known for his contributions to public services, including an increase in the free distribution of food, the repair of roads, and the construction of the Forum, Market, and baths of Trajan. He adopted Hadrian, who became his successor.

THE FIVE GOOD EMPERORS: 96-180

• Publius Aelius Hadrianus (Hadrian), the third of the great emperors to rule Rome, was in power from 117-138. His first accomplishment was the termination of Trajan's attempts at expansion. He also abandoned military conquests because they were too expensive, and paid more attention to the provinces, traveling and listening to them. Regarding government and law, he developed the Frumentarii, or Secret Service, and established the Equestrian Order which took the major burden of civil service and amassed secretariat positions. Intellectually, he was an author surrounded with fine minds who encouraged art, literature, and culture.Hadrian's successor was Antonius Pius , ruling from 138-161. His name arose from his refusing to executing the list that was waiting when he came to power. He had no desire to conquer so his reign was very prosperous and he restored the status of the senate. Some other of his accomplishments include improving bureaucratic machinery, watching the development of foreign crises, and founding the dynasty of Antoninus, and being a great builder.The last of the famous emperors was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus , who ruled from 161-180, in an era of intense hardship. There was incessant warfare and financial suffering during his reign as well as an outbreak of plague from the East. He was part of the Marcomannic Wars of Marcomanni, Langobardi and others and broke into the Danube provinces, routed an army and besieged Aquileia as a prelude to Italy's invasion. The end of the reign of the Five Good Emperors was characterized by Aurelius's death on the frontier in 180 AD.