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[Assistant] Luckily, or maddeningly or something, it only dropped the last eight words. So for those of you who haven't gone back and downloaded the corrected version, which is posted by the way, I'll just go ahead and spoil the ending.


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[Assistant] Senatorial historians were doing their best to confine demission to the dustbin of history, then the music place. That was all that was left. Uhm, sorry about that.


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[Assistant] But as much as the Senate tried to literally purge Demission from the collective consciousness, passing an edict damning his memory just days after the Emperor was assassinated, and then proceeding to expunge his name from public records and monuments, Demission reigned for too long, and had too much of an impact to simply be ignored.


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[Assistant] So, failing to erase his memory completely, sympathetic historians of senatorial rank ran a fairly uniform smear campaign against him that was picked up and promulgated by later church scholars who further identified the evil Domitian as an early prosecutor of Christians.


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[Assistant] So, for the better part of 1800 years, the perception that Domitian was one of the worst emperors in Roman history persisted.


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[Assistant] But in the 20th century, his memory has been rehabilitated some, most notably by Brian Jones' The Emperor Domitian.


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[Assistant] And he is now understood to be an undeniably autocratic ruler, but one who is far more effective and rational than early sources give him credit for.


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[Assistant] Vespasian withdrew from public life following the rise of Agrippina, and was around to supervise the upbringing of his three children. Titus, who was 12 years Domitian's senior, daughter Domitila, 6 years older, and Domitian himself.


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[Assistant] But as was sometimes typical in Roman families, while Vespasian took a keen interest in his eldest son's education, and a keen interest in finding his daughter a husband, he did not take much interest at all in his youngest son.


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[Assistant] Not that Domitian did not receive a first-rate education, just that by the time he was born, Titus was almost an adult, and Vespasian naturally looked at the older boy as the bearer of his legacy.


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[Assistant] Demission, unfortunately, became little more than an afterthought in his father's eyes.


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[Assistant] Titus was shipped off to Germania to begin his public career when Domitian was seven, and a few years later, Vespasian accepted a governorship in North Africa, leaving the twelve-year-old Domitian at home with his mother and sister, and he naturally grew much closer to them than the two men to whom he is historically connected.


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[Assistant] The causes of death are unknown, but they left the 15 year old Domitian virtually alone in the world. And during this period, he developed a penchant for solitude, a very un-Roman-like trait, that would be inevitably pointed out by his enemies as they ticked off all the things that made the monster Domitian such an abomination.


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[Assistant] Where's the mission, someone would ask. Alone in the palace would come the witty reply with not even a fly.


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[Assistant] Of course, this joke worked doubly well, because it was rumored that Demission liked to sit around and stab flies with a penknife, but that is neither here nor there.


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[Assistant] The virtually orphaned emission was handed off to Vespasian's brother, Flavius Sabinus, and he was still living in his uncle's home when the events of 68 and 69 AD swept across the empire.


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[Assistant] When it comes to contrasting the roots of the generous and positive reigns of Vespasian and Titus with the jealous and negative reign of Domitian, one can look obviously to the circumstances of his upbringing and the humiliating slights he would receive under the reign of his father, and one would be right to do so.


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[Assistant] But there is another little thing that no doubt colored the mission's whole worldview.


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[Assistant] He was actually physically present in Rome during the last mad days of Nero, then the massacres that greeted the arrival of Galba, then the violent coup orchestrated by Otho, then the occupation of the city by Vitellius' Rhine legions, and then, finally, the sacking of Rome by Antonius' army.


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[Assistant] Not only did he endure the paranoia of being related to a prominent politician at a time when standing out was likely to get you purged by the capricious Nero or the scheming pedagogues, but he also saw up close and personal just how readily the Senate swung with the political breeze and how much that political breeze was blown by violence.


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[Assistant] Every time some usurper got the upper hand, the Senate was right there to retroactively justify their most heinous crimes. One minute they were praising you to the stars, the next they were hailing your assassins as state heroes.


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[Assistant] The Senate as a body had many characteristics, but loyalty to the sitting Emperor was clearly not one of them, and it was a lesson Demission would not soon forget.


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[Assistant] He spent his latter teenage years surrounded by backstabbers, plotters, and the senators who enabled them.


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[Assistant] It should come as no surprise then, that in contrast to his laid back father and brother, Emperor Domitian would rule with a strong and vigilant hand, and do everything he could to enfeeble the Senate, who he knew full well would turn on him the minute he looked away.


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[Assistant] Ironically, of course, this paranoid disposition would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the Flavian most worried about assassination would be the only one to die a violent death. Life's funny that way.


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[Assistant] As the son of a prominent Neuronian general, Domitian had lived into 69 AD as a sort of unofficial political hostage.


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[Assistant] But when Vespasian launched his own bid for the throne, the target on Demission's back threatened to overwhelm the young man.


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[Assistant] By the time Vitalius arrived in the city, Vespasian's eastern revolt was well underway and the Vitalians were quick to locate their rival's youngest son and place him under house arrest.


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[Assistant] Vitellius hoped that by keeping Domitian hostage, Vespasian would think twice about his plans. But of course, Antonius' aggressive invasion of Italy took the decision out of Vespasian's hands completely. Though, whether he would have let Vitellius' threats to harm Domitian deter him is still an open question.


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[Assistant] When Vitellius attempted to abdicate the throne, Domitian was freed from his confinement and accompanied his uncle Sabinus as the latter marched to the forum to deliver a message on Vespasian's behalf.


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[Assistant] This meant that Domitian was with his uncle when the Flavian entourage ran into the still defiant Vitelians and fought in the ensuing street fight that drove the Flavians up onto the Capitoline Hill.


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[Assistant] When it was clear that the impromptu siege was not going to end well, Demission was snuck off the hill, dressed as an adherent of the cult of ISIS.


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[Assistant] He slipped into a passing religious procession and escaped the fate of his less fortunate uncle.


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[Assistant] When Antonius' army smashed their way into Rome a few days later, Domitian was liberated from his hiding place and hailed as Caesar by the triumphant Flavian troops who carried the 18 year old on a shield to his father's house.


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[Assistant] Suddenly, the boy who had always been relegated to the background found himself standing right smack dab in the middle of everything. But his time in the limelight was short lived.


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[Assistant] When Mucianus arrived in the city, he quickly co-opted to mission and relegated the boy to a closely guarded ceremonial position.


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[Assistant] As the son of Vespasian, he had enormous value and was assigned the task of representing his father's interests in the Senate.


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[Assistant] But he was kept away from real power, and any Flavian supporter who seemed inclined to back to mission over Lucianus was rapidly promoted away to positions in the provinces.


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[Assistant] And it was very likely that during these formative months that the future Emperor Domitions disdain for the body cemented itself.


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[Assistant] There was no escaping the fact that the Senate had no real authority and seemed driven by nothing so much as the vanity of old men.


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[Assistant] Demission endure their endless speeches, all the while longing to get out of this sideshow and onto the main stage.


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[Assistant] He had tried to talk his father into taking him to Judea at the outset of the Jewish revolt, but this request was dismissed out of hand. He was far too young and would only get in the way.


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[Assistant] By the time he was old enough to join the legions in his own right, the whole empire was turned upside down and Domitian was forced to sit on the sidelines while the rest of his family bathed themselves in military glory.


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[Assistant] With his father now emperor, Domitian was sure to be granted a position somewhere in the legions. If not a command, then at least something close to it.


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[Assistant] The Batavian Revolt offered the perfect opportunity and Domitian jumped at the chance to join Mucianus as the Imperial Administrator raised reinforcements to lead North to crush the rebellion.


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[Assistant] Mucianus was hesitant to put the boy in charge of troops, not just because he was totally inexperienced, but also because he would become a dangerous rival for the army's loyalty.


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[Assistant] Fortunately for Mucianus and unfortunately for Domitian, the revolt was put down before the armies from Rome got anywhere near the front lines and the unfulfilled Domitian was returned to Rome.


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[Assistant] Demission wrote a letter directly to the commander of the Rhine legions, who just so happened to be his uncle-in-law, asking for a command, but his uncle essentially ignored the request.


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[Assistant] When Vespasian arrived in Rome later that year, Domitian then was still stuck, shut out of political power, and denied a military post.


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[Assistant] The young man may have hoped that the arrival of his father would correct this situation, but it was apparent from the get-go that Vespasian had no interest in raising the mission out of his glum irrelevancy.


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[Assistant] Despite being one of only two sons, Demission was treated with remarkable indifference by Vespasian, who, like always, seemed to only have eyes for Titus.


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[Assistant] In fact, when Titus returned from the east and Vespasian granted his eldest son a triumph, Domitian was forced to trail behind the vanguard led by his father and brother, relegated to the spot reserved for other family members.


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[Assistant] This would prove to be Demission's lot in life for the remainder of his father's decade in office.


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[Assistant] Where Titus was granted near co-equal status with Vespasian, the mission was assigned only ceremonial positions.


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[Assistant] Aside from being trotted out every once in a while to preside over some archaic ceremony or another, the mission faded completely from public view.


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[Assistant] He spent most of his time in the Imperial Palace reading and writing and generally resigning himself to the life of obscure scholarship that he seemed destined for.


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[Assistant] In fact, if it hadn't have been for the influence of Titus, Domitian likely would not have been allowed any practical governmental experience at all before attaining the throne for himself in 81 AD.


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[Assistant] Though he had never been close to his so much younger brother, Titus seemed at least aware of Domitian's existence.


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[Assistant] Not to get off on too much of a tangent, but by the time of the imperial period, consulships still existed, but they were no longer the yearly affairs that they had been during the republican era.


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[Assistant] In order to satisfy the many grasping elites who all clamored to add consul to their list of public accomplishments, the consulship turned into an office held for months and sometimes even days.


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[Assistant] The most prestigious slot was to begin the year in office, as the Roman dating system still named the years after the consuls in office on January the first.


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[Assistant] These men were called the Consul's Ordinary Eye, and once they had served for a few months, they often resigned in favor of new candidates who were known as Suffolk Consuls.


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[Assistant] Vespasian assigned Titus to seven Ordinary Eye console ships during his time in office, while granting to Mission only one.


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[Assistant] But aware that his brother needed much more practical experience than this, Titus ensured that when he resigned from his console ships, that Domitian took over as Suffett Consul.


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[Assistant] Bringing his younger brothers total to a less prestigious, but still respectable, six console ships.


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[Assistant] I think the main difference between Vespasian and Titus' attitude towards demission is that the former was an old man who felt that the issue of succession was a done deal, and beyond Titus, he didn't really have to worry about it.


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[Assistant] While the much younger and sunless Titus still had to consider the possibility that Domitian would dawn the purple one day.


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[Assistant] While Domitian got absolutely nowhere with his father when it came to career advancement, he was able to get his way when it came to his private life.


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[Assistant] He warded off a plot hatched by Vespasian to marry him off to Titus's daughter to ensure the purity of the dynasty. And in 70 AD, he married the woman he loved, Domitia Longia.


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[Assistant] The match may not have been the one Vespasian wanted, but politically, it was an excellent pairing.


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[Assistant] Domitia was the youngest daughter of the great general Corbulo, who had spent his life in service to the empire, and had been rewarded by Nero with an order to commit suicide.


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[Assistant] Connecting the Flavians to this great sanitorial family raised the profile of both and established the Flavians as a family of anti-Neros and signaling to those who had previously opposed the imperial regimes of the past that they could find a home in this new dynasty.


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[Assistant] Beyond the political upside, the marriage seemed to be a happy one, and despite a brief hiccup shortly after Domitian became emperor, the two remained devoted to each other for the rest of their lives.


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[Assistant] Just as he had hoped the arrival of Vespasian in Rome would deliver him from powerless obscurity.


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[Assistant] Demission held out similar hopes when his brother ascended to the throne in 79 AD.


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[Assistant] But just as before, Demission was disappointed.


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[Assistant] This time, the snub was more acutely felt, as Titus had specifically promised him a greater role in government once he became emperor.


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[Assistant] Now in Titus's defense, it may have been that he was fully planning on following through with his promise and died before he could take any concrete steps. But for the two years he reigned, Domitian's status changed very little.


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[Assistant] It is at this point in the story that the ancient historians really start to get their digs in on the man they so love to hate.


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[Assistant] Casting the mission as an undisciplined and scheming cad who did everything in his limited power to undermine his handsome and wonderful brother.


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[Assistant] Sweetonius even paints a scene in which Titus, after discovering that Domitian has been plotting against his life yet again, confronts his brother and pleads with him to remain an honorable partner, reminding him that at this point he is Titus' chosen successor, so there was no need for shifty violence.


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[Assistant] Following the sudden death of Emperor Titus, rumors were dutifully handed around that Domitian had a hand in the tragedy. And, even if he hadn't killed his brother, he certainly proved himself to be unworthy of the Flavian name and his conduct immediately following his brother's fatal illness.


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[Assistant] Rather than taking the time to mourn his brother properly, Domitian instead left the corpse behind and hurried to the Praetorian camp to have himself hailed Emperor.


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[Assistant] However it really happened and however much he really felt the loss of his older brother, it is true that on September the 14th, 81 A.D., just a day after Titus died, Domitian called a session of the Senate and was confirmed as Augustus.


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[Assistant] The forgotten son of Vespasian was now master of the Roman Empire.


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[Assistant] As I've mentioned, Domitian arrived in office with a very different idea about how to wield power than any of his predecessors.


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[Assistant] The Julio Claudians, even the craziest of them, had always followed in Augustus' footsteps and pretended that the mechanisms of the Old Republic still had power.


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[Assistant] Thespacian and Titus had both continued this tradition, not seeing any reason to upset a political apple cart that had so recently been set right. But Domitian had no use for this play acting.


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[Assistant] His experience had taught him that the Senate was an ineffective partner at best and a dangerous threat to the imperial peace at worst.


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[Assistant] The republic had been dead for more than a century. There was no use pretending otherwise.


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[Assistant] All that Rome required was an enlightened despot to guide the ship of state wisely, and placating the Senate was an unnecessary and inefficient distraction from the kind of enlightened despotism the Empire needed to flourish.


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[Assistant] Not lacking in ambition or ego, Domitian decided to model his new administration on no less a figure than the greatest enlightened despot of them all, the Divine Augustus.


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[Assistant] But though Demission's policies would prove themselves to be clearly Augustine in both scope and quality, in the end, he completely missed the insight that had made Augustus so successful.


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[Assistant] Rather than publicly castrating the Senate, the First Emperor had obsessively maintained the charade of democracy, knowing full well that giving a little publicly meant getting a lot privately.


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[Assistant] In contrast, Demission dragged the ugly realities of Imperial rule right out into the open.


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[Assistant] And very loudly, concentrated all power in the Imperial Palace, refusing to even pay lip service to the self-important windbags down in the Senate House.


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[Assistant] Where Augustus had siled himself as princeps. Merely your first citizen.


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[Assistant] Demission preferred demission, your Lord and God.


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[Assistant] One could argue that the unsentimental administration set up by Domitian was more efficient than the touchy-feely charade of Augustus. But what one cannot argue is that when Augustus died, they made him a god, and his name became synonymous with supreme authority.


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[Assistant] Whereas when Domitian died, they toppled his statues and damned his name.


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[Assistant] But despite his ultimately fatal unwillingness to play act, in every other way, the mission sought to emulate Rome's first and greatest emperor.


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[Assistant] In the breadth of his interests and the depths of his management, Domitian sought to usher in nothing less than an Augustan Renaissance.


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[Assistant] First up on his list of things to do was to reaffirm the divine status of the Caesars.


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[Assistant] The recent civil wars had perhaps given some the idea that donning the purple was simply a matter of controlling the strongest army or the sneakiest assassins.


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[Assistant] Demission wanted to remind everyone that the Imperial dynasties were divinely ordained.


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[Assistant] If you're thinking about making a bid for the throne, just ask yourself, are you a god? Or are you descended from a god? If not, then you'd better just pack it up right now.


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[Assistant] So his first official act as emperor was to push through an edict deifying his deceased brother Titus to join his already deified father.


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[Assistant] But unlike Titus's push to have Vespasian deified, Domitian refused to submit himself to the plotting of the Senate, who had only approved godhood for Vespasian six months after the latter's death.


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[Assistant] Demission had no patience for such stalling and simply declared the divinity of his brother without waiting for senatorial approval.


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[Assistant] This total abandonment of protocol was the opening salvo in Demission's running war on the obsolete institution.


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[Assistant] The new emperor then set to work, closely tying himself not to the senate, but to the gods.


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[Assistant] He finished the rebuild of the Temple of Jupiter, adding splendid flourishes that were sure to please the King of the Gods, and then set to work building a lesser shrine to Jupiter the Protector in the home that he had hidden himself in during the final dark days of Vitellius' reign.


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[Assistant] Capping off this initial flurry of religious monument building, Domitian completed the temple of Vespasian and Titus, where the people of Rome would be encouraged to actively worship his deceased and now divine father and brother. Domitian's point was clear. The emperor was not the first among equals.


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[Assistant] He was nothing less than the God's appointed representative on earth.


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[Assistant] With the gods firmly in his corner, Domitian then set about reorganizing how the state went about its daily business.


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[Assistant] He unceremoniously stripped the Senate of all practical authority and ensured that they were cut out of the decision making process completely.


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[Assistant] If the emperor wanted something done, he was just going to order it done. And that was that.


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[Assistant] The Senate was shocked that the new Emperor refused them even the slightest consideration, and they quickly grew to despise him.


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[Assistant] He had an empire to run, and tiptoeing around the sensitivities of rich old men was not how he planned to spend his days.


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[Assistant] But as much as this embittered the elite, the common people loved it.


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[Assistant] Because, though Demission was every bit the dictatorial autocrat, he seemed focused on weeding out corruption and streamlining the tax code and making things fair, not wallowing in his own hedonism.


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[Assistant] The corrupt upper classes had been growing fat for years while the emperors had turned a blind eye.


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[Assistant] But this is not to say that demission was some fire-breathing populist like Julius Caesar had been.


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[Assistant] He was not on a crusade for social justice. He just saw the nobility as far more of a hindrance than a help when it came to administrative work, and so he cut them loose.


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[Assistant] What Demission was looking for was hard-working, loyal, conscientious, and honest administrators to help him govern, and the senatorial class did not seem particularly well-stocked with any of these types.


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[Assistant] This not only filled the government with men of merit, it also filled the government with men intensely loyal to demission, to whom they owed their jobs, their lives, and their careers.


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[Assistant] The new emperor's zeal for eschewing the hereditary politics of the past even extended to his own family.


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[Assistant] Refusing to fill key positions with family members just because they were family members.


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[Assistant] If they could do the job, then they could have the job. But being a relative of the emperor was no longer a free pass.


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[Assistant] Despite his lack of experience and the low regard his own father seems to have held him in, Domitian was in fact turning out to be a bold and innovative emperor.


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[Assistant] Eventually, of course, his flagrant disregard for elite opinion would come back to haunt him. But for the time being, Emperor Demission was successfully reinventing the office he held.


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[Assistant] Through his reforms, including his decision to declare himself censor in perpetuity so he could control the senatorial roles and expel members who opposed him, the seat of power in the empire was now no longer Rome itself.


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[Assistant] Demission famously moved around more than any other emperor since Augustus, and wherever he went, he brought the imperial court with him.


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[Assistant] This subtle shift was a big deal in the politics of the empire.


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[Assistant] When Tiberius had absented himself to Capri, the politics of the time required him to rely on a man in Rome to run the government.


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[Assistant] It was understood that while the emperor may have left, Rome was still where the action was.


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[Assistant] Next time, we'll get more into what Domitian did with all the power he was so jealously hoarding, and why he was traveling the Empire more than any Emperor since Augustus.


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[Assistant] There will be no episode next week, as it is Thanksgiving here in the United States, but we'll be back in two weeks, ready to dive headlong into Domitian's everlasting quest for military glory and his ever-annoying need to control every little detail of Roman life.


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[Assistant] Last time, we traced a mission's rise to power from forgotten afterthought to Emperor of the Roman Empire.


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[Assistant] Unlike his brother, Domitian's rise had no planned arc. There was no gentle addition of responsibility, no subtle raising of the volume.


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[Assistant] When it came to demission, one minute there was silence, the next, the amp was cranked to ten. Imperial non-entity to master of the world in just the blink of an eye.


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[Assistant] His sudden inheritance of the throne shocked everyone, as the citizens of the empire were just getting settled in to the nice long reign of Titus. And there was fear all around that the 30 year old demission would not be up to the task.


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[Assistant] But this fear was generally unfounded, and Domitian would prove both intellectually and politically that he had what it took to be emperor.


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[Assistant] Even though his blunt dismissal of the Senate eventually led to assassination, for 15 years, Demission ruled effectively in the manner he saw fit and efficiently got done what he thought needed to be done.


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[Assistant] Though neither is it to be embraced as the second coming of Augustus as Domitian would have liked us to believe.


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[Assistant] And in many ways, he set the stage for the coming century of brilliance for the empire.


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[Assistant] Demission was harsher and colder than his brother and father, but he was as astute and capable a man as they. And in the end, the whole of the Flavian dynasty should be remembered for their successful stewardship of the Empire.


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[Assistant] Demission opened his reign, as I said last time, with a flurry of pious construction projects.


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[Assistant] Completing the temple of Jupiter and unveiling a temple for his now divine relatives, Titus and Vespasian. But he did not plan to stop at a few temples.


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[Assistant] The city of Rome had been ravaged by war and natural disaster, most recently suffering from the great fire of ADAD, and Domitian saw an opportunity to kick off his planned Augustan Renaissance in style.


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[Assistant] The first emperor had famously inherited a city of brick and left it a city of marble.


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[Assistant] Demission was inheriting a city of ashes, and he planned to leave it a city of, well, buildings and stuff. Something functional anyway.


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[Assistant] Over the course of the next few years, he would direct the completion of some 50 new buildings, restoring the architectural dignity of Rome, which had been in steep decline since the reign of Nero.


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[Assistant] Among his many projects was the Arch of Titus, which was completed soon after his brother's death.


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[Assistant] The Great Arch, which still stands today and is a can't miss on any trip to Rome, ostensibly commemorates Titus's victory in Judea. But mostly, its job was to remind everyone of the divine, almost mythological status of the Flavians.


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[Assistant] Whether or not the Romans saw it as anything more than outsized self-aggrandizement is an open question, but the grand permanence of the structure certainly convinced later ambitious men that a massive arch was a pretty sweet way to celebrate one's own eternal awesomeness.


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[Assistant] Napoleon certainly had the Arch of Titus in mind when he ordered the Arc de Triomphe built after his own great victory at Austerlitz in 1806.


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[Assistant] All of these public building projects helped stimulate an economy that had been drifting aimlessly for years. But of course, they were not going to pay for themselves.


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[Assistant] So, having undercut the Roman elite politically, Domitian next targeted them economically.


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[Assistant] And let his newly reformed and ruthlessly efficient bureaucracy loose on their bank accounts.


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[Assistant] He strengthened and extended imperial taxes and in the years to come would eventually resort to outright confiscation to help pay for his projects. And of course, the various military campaigns he initiated, which we'll get to in a bit.


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[Assistant] Now, if he were another man, Demission would have paid for everything without resorting to excessive taxation.


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[Assistant] Embers in the past had simply borrowed what they needed without regards for how they were going to pay it back.


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[Assistant] Besides, if the creditors did come calling, an emperor could simply devalue the coins he minted until he had enough nominal chunks of worthless metal to pay the specific amounts that everyone demanded.


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[Assistant] Demission had no interest in inflating his way into solvency though, and taking the opposite tack, he actually returned the silver ratio in a Denari back to the Augustan level of 12%.


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[Assistant] Roman currency was the standard in the Mediterranean at the time, and Domitian felt that it reflected badly on the emperor to have the coins he minted regarded as worthless jokes.


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[Assistant] The Roman economy on balance benefited from Domitian's fiscal policies, but they certainly did not help his popularity any.


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[Assistant] Helping his popularity even less than his tax policies was his hopeless quest to return the Romans to their traditional conservative family values.


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[Assistant] Legislating sex and morals had been hard enough for Augustus a century earlier, but Domitian's attempt to revive these least successful policies of the first emperor turned out to be an even more terrible idea.


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[Assistant] But the mission seemed dead set on reviving all things Augustine, even if it meant bringing back the much derided Lex Julia.


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[Assistant] In 85 AD, Domitian named himself censor in perpetuity, which gave him authority to legislate public morality.


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[Assistant] Adultery once again became a banishable offense and consorting with the Vestal Virgins became a capital crime.


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[Assistant] All of this turned out to be little more than spitting into a hurricane, and Domitian earned himself nothing but scorn for his trouble.


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[Assistant] The old ways were dead, threatening to execute people for cheating on their wives was not going to change that.


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[Assistant] But Demission forged on, and his efforts at re-establishing some semblance of public morality was not a total fool's errand.


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[Assistant] The Emperor also used his authority as censor to punish officials for bribery and corruption. Two real offenses with real consequences that had been overlooked for years, even by his own father.


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[Assistant] There was, as they say, a new sheriff in town, and even though he kicked up a lot of dust and made a lot of enemies over ultimately irrelevant sexual stuff, the government was never again as clean or honest in its dealings.


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[Assistant] The funny thing about all of this is that Domitian kept stepping on the same toes over and over again.


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[Assistant] It seems like anytime he had the opportunity to stick it to the nobility, he jumped at the chance.


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[Assistant] I'm not sure what the Senate did to elicit such contempt from the Emperor. I speculated about some stuff last time. But he really, really had it in for them.


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[Assistant] So much so, that it doesn't even seem like a matter of stepping on a few toes. More like the mission was walking right up to them and stomping down on their feet repeatedly.


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[Assistant] He cut them out of the political process, gouged them financially, policed their bedrooms, and shut down their lucrative kickbacks.


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[Assistant] In the end, I'm not sure why Demission hated the Senate so much, but I have no doubts about why they hated him so much.


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[Assistant] He even declared a limit to the amount of arable Italian land that could be used for vineyards. So to top everything off, Demission was also cutting down the booze supply. Is it any wonder then that he was finally stabbed to death?


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[Assistant] Beyond the aristocracy who uniformly hated him, Domitian was alternatively feared and liked and disdained and respected depending on who you talked to.


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[Assistant] But there was one segment of the population who really loved the man. Rank and file soldiers.


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[Assistant] The officers couldn't stand a mission, of course, for all the reasons I've mentioned and all the reasons I'll get to shortly. But the common legionary loved him.


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[Assistant] Why the great discrepancy? Because shortly after taking office, Demission issued a blanket pay raise for his soldiers.


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[Assistant] And it wasn't some cost of living increase either. No, the common soldier saw their paychecks increase by fully one third. A mind blowing sum that earned a mission their undying devotion for the rest of his reign.


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[Assistant] The elites could clamor for his head as much as they wanted, but after the pay raise, they were going to have a hell of a time convincing their soldiers to revolt.


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[Assistant] The raise caused a mission to backtrack on his fiscal policy sum, and he was forced to slightly devalue his coins after having so recently revalued them.


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[Assistant] But the compromise was a sound one, and Demission never really had to worry about the whole army rising up against him.


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[Assistant] There was a brief revolt of two legions in 89 AD, which we'll get to next week, but it was an isolated case and was quickly crushed by the intensely loyal armies that surrounded the malcontents.


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[Assistant] It was part and parcel of the triumphal celebration following the mission smashing victory against the chatty in 83 AD.


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[Assistant] The fierce Germanic tribe had suddenly risen up in revolt against Rome. Right around the time Domitian decided that it was high time he cemented his reputation as a great leader with an impressive military victory. It was actually pretty convenient how it all worked out.


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[Assistant] Demission just happened to be in Chatty territory conducting a census with a new legion he had recently formed, when, for no reason, and in stark contrast to years of peaceful coexistence, the dastardly Chatty attacked.


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[Assistant] Demission marched around for a year building roads and fortifications in chatty territory. Decided that with winter coming it was high time he declared victory and left. So he declared victory and left.


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[Assistant] He returned to Rome to celebrate the triumph he had been craving all his life.


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[Assistant] No one who knew anything about anything believed a mission had actually done anything to earn the triumph he threw for himself. He had what, skirmished with some random tribe and built some roads, and now was calling himself Germanicus? But the people loved it.


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[Assistant] Triumphs mean games and banquets and generous handouts.


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[Assistant] So they cheered their conquering emperor as he marched into the city at the head of his great parade.


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[Assistant] Demission, cheerfully basked in the glow of his adoring subjects.


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[Assistant] Never again would he be relegated to the back with the other family members. This was demission's time now.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, Tacitus representing the views of the aristocracy dismissed the whole display as a mock triumph.


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[Assistant] Real or mock, Domitian capped his celebration by announcing a pay raise for his brave soldiers. That at least was real enough.


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[Assistant] One possible side consequence of Demission's mock triumph was that Agricola, and yes, thank you for the pronunciation correction, it is Agricola, not Agricola, which yea, I agree, sounds like some kind of terrible hippie soda, so I'm sorry about that.


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[Assistant] Anyway, Agricola was possibly recalled from his post in Britannia because his real military success on the island cast a missions victory in a pretty pathetic light.


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[Assistant] Not long after Domitian's parade, messengers delivered the news that Agricola had defeated the combined Caledonian army of some 30,000 troops and stood poised to capture the entire island.


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[Assistant] There's no consensus about whether Agricola was recalled out of jealousy or whether it was more like a reward for seven years cold hard service in the north.


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[Assistant] But one way or the other, Agricola was back in Rome in 85 AD and effectively retired from public life.


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[Assistant] His had been one of the more successful careers of the first century, and he very nearly captured the whole of Britannia for the Romans.


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[Assistant] His work would be left permanently incomplete though, as the legions he had led were soon transferred to the Danube to help fight the growing Dacian menace, which unlike the chatty menace, was all too real.


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[Assistant] The Dacians lived in the Carpathian Mountains on the far side of the Danube and had been stirring up trouble for years.


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[Assistant] For the first time in his life, Domitian was about to deal with a real existential threat to the Empire.


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[Assistant] His response to the crisis offered a window into how the emperor really felt about war, defense, and imperial security.


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[Assistant] Whether he handled the situation properly is a matter of ongoing debate, but there is no doubt that the hawkish aristocracy, already chafing under demission your Lord and God, were appalled by his handling of the Dacian situation.


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[Assistant] The thing about demission is that he took Augustus' injunction about further conquest seriously and really believed that the primary function of the legions was now frontier defense.


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[Assistant] He didn't want to invade Germania. He didn't want to conquer Dacia. He didn't want anything to do with Scotland.


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[Assistant] He considered these efforts to be expensive boondoggles that would stretch the legions too thin, cost blood and treasure Rome couldn't afford, and ultimately leave the empire weaker and more vulnerable for the trouble.


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[Assistant] When it came to military affairs, the great legacy of Domitian was not some new territory added to the empire, or some great foreign enemy destroyed, but rather the expansion and strengthening of the Lymes Germanicus, the frontier fortification network along the Rhine and Danube rivers that kept the northern empire safe from invasion.


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[Assistant] Eventually stretching to nearly 350 miles, the fortification network grew to include 60 permanent forts and some 900 watchtowers.


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[Assistant] Demission would neither begin the project nor complete it, but he was committed to it wholeheartedly and poured money and manpower into the effort.


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[Assistant] The key line, the Limace Germanicus cut, was between the upper Rhine and the upper Danube.


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[Assistant] While the two great rivers offered a natural defense on their own against un-pacified tribes, the stretch of land between the headwaters of each was a dangerous weak point for the empire, and Domitian aimed to close that gap once and for all.


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[Assistant] Though his work would finally be completed by Hadrian, the time and effort Domitian expended was critical and helped pave the way for a century and a half of security along the northern border.


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[Assistant] But while Demission's efforts were critical, they were also criticized.


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[Assistant] High-ranking military officials and their civilian counterparts believed a mission far too passive in its military strategy.


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[Assistant] If the Empire was to be safe, it needed to defeat its enemies, not build a wall to keep them out.


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[Assistant] The fight needed to be taken to the source. It was no good to simply sit back until it was too late.


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[Assistant] What good was a watchtower if it only alerted Rome to an invasion force too strong to repel?


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[Assistant] Nason alliances between barbarian tribes needed to be nipped in the bud before they grew into something truly dangerous.


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[Assistant] Soldiers were trained to fight, not sit on walls staring into space. It was unnatural.


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[Assistant] The contrast in style came to a head in Dacia, where each side could reasonably claim the actions of the other detrimental to Imperial security.


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[Assistant] Ever since the year of the four emperors, the tribes beyond the northern frontiers of the Danube had grown more and more bold.


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[Assistant] The Roman world seemed too preoccupied to care about their raids into Imperial territory. And with each passing year, the tribes, including the formidable Dacians, acted with increasing impunity.


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[Assistant] They finally crossed the line and got Rome's attention in either 84 or 85 AD, when a Dacian army invaded Moesia and killed the imperial governor.


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[Assistant] Hot on the heels of his great victory over the chatty, Domitian personally led a force to Moesia to deal with the unacceptable affront to Rome's honor.


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[Assistant] Further signaling how seriously and how personally Domitian was taking the situation. His army included members of the Praetorian Guard and was led by his Praetorian Prefect, Cornelius Fuscus.


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[Assistant] The Roman reinforcements were able to easily drive off the Dacians who were not about to tangle with an imperial army guided by the emperor himself.


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[Assistant] By the winter of 85, the Dacians were cleared out of Roman territory and a mission returned to Rome to celebrate his second triumph.


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[Assistant] Though there was still not much to celebrate, this triumph at least had a ring of truth to it, and Domitian was quite pleased with himself for how well his military career was shaping up.


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[Assistant] But this second triumph proved to be even more of a mockery than the first.


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[Assistant] The Dacians were not defeated by a long shot, and when Cornelius Fuscus, on his own initiative, crossed the Danube to mop up the remaining combatants, he led his legions to one of their worst defeats since the catastrophe in the Tudiburg Forest.


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[Assistant] In 86 AD, Phosgous led elements of four legions plus auxiliaries into Dacian territory, expecting little resistance from the splintered and feuding local tribes.


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[Assistant] Except that the Dacians weren't splintered and feuding at all.


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[Assistant] They had been united by a king who was to become known to the Romans as Decebalus, which translates roughly as he with the strength of ten men.


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[Assistant] Decebalus saw the Romans coming from a mile away and set an ambush at the narrow pass of Tappi. Fuscus blundered right into the trap.


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[Assistant] He watched in horror as the entire fifth legion was cornered and massacred and then watched in humiliation as the legionary standard of the praetorian guard was captured and hauled off by the enemy.


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[Assistant] Luckily for Fuscus, he did not have to live with the humiliation for long, as he himself was soon killed in the fighting.


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[Assistant] Back in Rome, the triumphed mission had celebrated now seemed like a cruel joke.


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[Assistant] He quickly returned to Moesia to oversee the reinforcement of the province.


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[Assistant] He divided the territory into two administrative districts and transferred three legions to boost the defenses along the Danube.


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[Assistant] Though he was convinced now more than ever that the legions work best as a defensive force rather than conquering adventurers.


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[Assistant] Commission understood that the annihilation of a legion and the capture of a standard, the Praetorian Guard standard nonetheless, could not go unanswered.


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[Assistant] In both 87 and 88, the Romans crossed the Danube to campaign against Decebalus.


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[Assistant] Though this time, they marched with far greater care than had been shown by Phoskis.


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[Assistant] In 88, the Dacians and Romans once again found themselves facing off at Tappi.


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[Assistant] Though this time the Romans did not stumble blindly into any traps, and De Cabo was soundly beaten.


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[Assistant] All would seem to be well for Domitian and the Romans. Their honor was restored and the enemy beaten.


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[Assistant] But unfortunately for Domitian, events elsewhere conspire to turn his victory into a bleeding sore.


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[Assistant] On January 1st, 89 AD, Lucius Antonius Saturnius, the governor of upper Germania, had had enough of demission and led his two legions in revolt.


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[Assistant] With this sudden crisis on the Rhine, Domitian was forced to conclude a hasty treaty with the Kabbalists that formally recognized Dacia as a client kingdom of Rome.


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[Assistant] To ensure that there would be no trouble after he left, Domitian accepted a controversial provision that sent money and artisans to Decebalus in exchange for peace.


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[Assistant] The money and men would be used by the Dacian king to bolster his own defenses and properly equip his growing army.


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[Assistant] The officer corps was already grumbling about Demission's cowardly obsession with roads and watchtowers.


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[Assistant] But for him to pay off an enemy like that was borderline dereliction of duty and they had a point.


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[Assistant] When Trajan decided to eventually crush Decebalus once and for all, he found the task far more arduous than it should have been, because of all the enemy fortifications built with Roman money.


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[Assistant] For the record, Dekeblis did control lucrative gold mines that bought and paid for most of his army.


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[Assistant] Lucrative gold mines that had far more to do with Trajan's decision to invade than abstract notions of defending Roman honor, by the way. But still, the optics of Domitian's treaty were terrible, and the deal with the Kabbalists soon became a political wound that refused to heal.


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[Assistant] Next week, we'll start with the revolt of Saturnius, which would prove to be a turning point in Domitian's reign.


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[Assistant] Prior to the uprising, Domitian was harsh but fair in his use of imperial power. But afterwards, the emperor would become far more paranoid and far more cruel.


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[Assistant] Though in the end he would execute for treason no more men than the lovable, huggable Uncle Claudius, the last years of Domitian's reign would nonetheless go down in history as a reign of terror.


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[Assistant] Eventually, a conspiracy of court officials would determine that they had better kill the Emperor before he killed them. And on September 1896 AD, Domitian finally met the violent end that he had always suspected would be his to meet.


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[Assistant] Demission's autocratic reign was approaching the decade mark when it finally ran into some serious blowback.


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[Assistant] There had been mumblings and grumblings from day one, but thus far, his loyal bureaucracy and his loyal troops had forestalled any major attempts at revolution or coup.


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[Assistant] But on January 1st, 89 AD, exactly 20 years after Vitellius' revolt along the Rhine, two legions stationed in Upper Germany, led by their provincial governor Lucius Antonius Saturninus, refused to renew their oath to demission, and the Roman world once again stood on the brink of civil war.


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[Assistant] No one had forgotten the horror of 69 AD, and from the outside, Saturninus' revolt looked eerily similar to the Vitalian rebellion.


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[Assistant] Hadn't Kicena lead two legions on the upper Rhine in revolt? And hadn't that spark been carried down the river until the whole of the Rhine legions stood opposed to the legal emperor in Rome? And hadn't that led to self-destruction on a scale not seen since the days of Octavian and Antony?


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[Assistant] But this time, things would turn out differently, partly due to the widespread loyalty Demission had earned from the Legions, in contrast to the bitter hatred they had directed at Galba.


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[Assistant] But also partly due to a heaping shovel full of luck.


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[Assistant] Have there not been an early thaw? Who knows what would have happened?


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[Assistant] Unfortunately, we're never going to know the full story behind Saturninus' rebellion, but it seems that the governor had been planning his revolt for some time and had probably made contact with like-minded senators back in Rome.


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[Assistant] We're never going to know because once the uprising was put down by Lapius Maximus, the governor of Lower Germany who was first on the scene, the victorious governor burned all of Saturninus's correspondence before Domitian arrived.


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[Assistant] It is likely that the letters implicated all of Saturninus' fellow travelers, and Maximus, having done his duty and put down the revolt, had no wish for the aftermath to turn into a bloodbath.


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[Assistant] All that we really know is that Saturninus had made some kind of deal with the chatty, the same chatty Domitian had used as his triumphal prop six years earlier. And the two legions under Saturninus' direct command were supposed to be reinforced by a strong Germanic army to help them make their stand against Domitian.


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[Assistant] The Emperor responded quickly to the crisis, ordering Maximus to take all action necessary to quell the revolt, while he himself led a contingent of Praetorians north to deal with the situation.


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[Assistant] To help ensure victory, Domitian also ordered a legion from Spain to march in on the double.


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[Assistant] The Legion arrived well after the danger had passed, but the unblinking loyalty of the Legion's commander, a one Mr. Marcus Ulpius Traianus, earned the commander the gratitude of demission, who put the man history knows as Trajan on the fast track to his own date with Imperial destiny.


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[Assistant] Saturninus' army was on the Roman side of the Rhine, perhaps stuck on perpetual watchtower duty, which may have helped spurn the restless governor. And his plan was for the chatty to cross the frozen Rhine before the rest of the Roman world had a chance to react.


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[Assistant] But the luck of the Flavians returned with a vengeance, and in the middle of January, an unheard of early thaw turned the stable and thoroughly frozen Rhine River back into a rushing torrent.


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[Assistant] The chatty were trapped on the far side and Saturninus was suddenly left to face the full brunt of imperial reprisal with only two legions at his back.


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[Assistant] Just 24 days after the revolt began, Saturninus and his legions surrendered to Maximus.


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[Assistant] As I said, Maximus took the treasonous governor of Upper Germany into custody and then proceeded to burn the paper trail that had led to the uprising.


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[Assistant] Who knows what friends, relatives, associates or otherwise Maximus was protecting, but he certainly did history no favor by destroying all the evidence.


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[Assistant] Saturninus and his officers were executed, and the two rebellious legions were sent to the front along the Danube.


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[Assistant] Maximus was awarded the governorship of Syria, and Trajan was elevated to a consulship in 91, followed by key appointments to governorships in Moesia and along the Rhine. I think we all know where his star is headed.


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[Assistant] The year after the revolt, Domitian decided to serve a term as consul himself. And as his colleague, he made the surprising choice of an influential, but quietly so man, named Marcus Coxius Nerva.


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[Assistant] Obviously, serving as the consular colleague of an emperor was incredibly prestigious and not lightly awarded, so scholars have been left to wonder what Nerva did to earn such an honor.


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[Assistant] Some have speculated that he may have had a hand in uncovering Saturninus' plot, buying the Emperor valuable reaction time. After all, Nerva had been instrumental in uncovering the Pisonian conspiracy against Nero the generation before. So maybe the old hand had once again put his ear to the ground and delivered the Imperial House from ruin.


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[Assistant] This probably relies too much on his role in uncovering the earlier conspiracy in its attempt to say that the consulship was a reward for uncovering the latter conspiracy. And really, we may need to look no further than nervous uncanny ability to survive regime change to explain what he was doing at so prominent a position.


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[Assistant] It takes a man of rare political skill to survive such turbulent times unharmed.


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[Assistant] Is it really so remarkable that he would one day find himself the consular colleague of an emperor? Or that one day he would simply find himself emperor?


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[Assistant] Marcus Nerva was born November 8, 30 A.D. into an Italian family that had risen to prominence as the Principate was taking shape.


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[Assistant] His family was not elite Roman nobility, but more and more such distinctions were becoming irrelevant.


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[Assistant] Vespasian's family was not from Rome proper either, and soon enough, the empire would see its first provincial emperor in the aforementioned Trajan.


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[Assistant] Nerva's grandfather had been a friend of Tiberius and accompanied the emperor to Compre, while his father had risen to the rank of consul under Caligula.


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[Assistant] Nerva himself eschewed the conventional curses on him and seems to have had no interest in a military career, content instead to wield behind the scenes political influence as an advisor to the emperor of his own day, Nero.


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[Assistant] In this capacity, he earned Nero's eternal gratitude for the central role he played in uncovering the Pisonian conspiracy, and the Emperor rewarded him with unprecedented triumphal regalia, an honor usually reserved for military victories.


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[Assistant] While skillfully navigating his way around Nero's Imperial Court, Nerva at some point ran into Vespasian, and the two struck up a friendship.


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[Assistant] When Nero committed suicide, I think any reasonable bookmaker would have put Nerva down as a staunch Othonian.


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[Assistant] Not only was his sister married to Otho's brother, but most of Nero's court wound up in Otho's corner anyway during the civil wars, and Nerva was certainly a member of Nero's court.


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[Assistant] But Nerva ignored these obvious loyalties and decided early to back Vespasian should the latter heed the calls to enter the ring.


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[Assistant] This friendship and support allowed Nerva to become one of the few members of Nero's inner circle to transition to the inner circle of the Flavians, which he did so in fine style by being named a consul ordinarii in 71 AD.


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[Assistant] And that's the prestigious one, remember, that Vespasian usually reserved for members of his own family.


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[Assistant] Nerva spent the next two decades attached at the hip to the Flavian court, acting as a historically undocumented, but still powerful member of the regime.


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[Assistant] Indeed, after his console ship in 71, he doesn't really pop up again until 90 AD, when he is suddenly awarded the honor of serving as Domitian's colleague in the console ship.


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[Assistant] We'll probably never know what role, if any, Nerva played in uncovering Saturninus' rebellion, or whether it had anything to do with the consular appointment.


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[Assistant] They could be that after the failed uprising, Domitian wanted to reassert firm control over the Empire and took as his partner the only man he could trust without reservation.


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[Assistant] A man who had served as an advisor and mentor since Domitian's lonely days in Rome after being left behind when his father and brother went to fight the Jewish war.


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[Assistant] After the rebellion, Domitian more than ever needed to surround himself with men he could trust.


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[Assistant] After all, Maximus had taken it upon himself to burn all the evidence in Saturninus' tent before the Emperor and his agents could look at it.


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[Assistant] Who knows what names would have popped up as additional conspirators, or fellow travelers, or officially neutral but secret nod-winkers.


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[Assistant] As is so often the case after failed assassinations or coups or rebellions, demission couldn't help but grow more paranoid and suspicious.


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[Assistant] Which members of that senatorial delegation are plotting to kill me? Which of my provincial governors are secretly building anti-imperial alliances?


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[Assistant] How many of my slaves would stab me to death to earn their freedom?


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[Assistant] Distrustful by nature. Demission's paranoia accelerated through the 90s A.D.


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[Assistant] He was not blind to what was happening to him though, nor was he blind to the public's perception that their emperor was jumping at more shadows lately and with harsher consequences.


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[Assistant] The problem, as Demission saw it, was not that he was paranoid for no reason, but that he had every rational right to be paranoid because conspiracies did exist against his life that needed to be uncovered.


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[Assistant] Suetonius reports that Domitian lamented angrily that no one believes in murderous secret plots against the emperor unless the emperor turns up dead. Domitian was caught in a trap and he knew it.


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[Assistant] Stay vigilant and be accused of paranoid tyranny or lighten up and die.


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[Assistant] A prudent survivor, Demission decided he could live with the former if it meant that he would live.


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[Assistant] After the events of 89 AD then, there was a sharp uptick in treason trials, the old imperial weapon of last resort that had been abandoned by his father and officially outlawed by his brother.


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[Assistant] It would be neat and clean to say that the revolt caused a mission to revive the practice. But over the course of his reign, he'd already killed a handful of senators for treasonous activities. And his decidedly reactionary take on free speech had dramatically increased the scope of what would be considered treasonous activities.


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[Assistant] In the last five years of his reign though, Domitian killed about 20 men of senatorial rank and confiscated the property of dozens more.


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[Assistant] Banishments and executions came with disturbing regularity, and it was during this time that Demission's reputation as a bloodthirsty tyrant was really cemented. To a man, the Senate feared and loathed him.


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[Assistant] Some were afraid of being falsely accused or being deliberately set up by personal enemies, while others were afraid that their very real attempts to overthrow the Emperor were going to be discovered.


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[Assistant] Demission, meanwhile, was stuck trying to sort through rumors, innuendo, and vague shreds of evidence, convinced that everyday might be his last if he didn't get to them before they got to him.


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[Assistant] In 96 AD, Demission finally struck too close to home and his own court officials turned against him, determining that none of them were safe as long as Demission remained alive.


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[Assistant] Supposedly, this last plot was hatched after Demission executed one of Nero's old freedmen, who had once upon a time helped Nero escape the palace, and then helped the outlaw emperor commit suicide.


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[Assistant] Citing the crime of not doing enough to protect his former master, Domitian had the freedmen killed, even though the man had been serving as an imperial secretary for years.


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[Assistant] The convoluted rationale and cross loyalties in the story cast doubt on how much of this version of events is true.


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[Assistant] Whether or not the man actually returned to imperial service, for example, or really, whether Demission had him killed at all.


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[Assistant] But his alleged death is cited by Suetonius as the catalyst for Domitian's Chamberlain Parthenius to organize an assassination in 96 AD.


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[Assistant] Most of Who Knew What remains pure speculation, but the three men we know for sure that we're in on the plot were Parthenius himself, his freedman Maximus, and an attendant to one of Domitian's nieces named Stephanus.


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[Assistant] Maximus was to be the inside man in the palace, making sure that the right doors were locked and the right doors were unlocked, and making sure that on the day of the deed, the sword to mission kept under his bed would be removed.


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[Assistant] Stefanus was to be the actual assassination, and in preparation for his attack, he faked an arm injury so everyone would get used to seeing him around with his arm in a sling.


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[Assistant] With his presence in the palace never suspicious, as he was in the direct employ of the Imperial family, and his injured arm now old news to the Praetorians watching over the Emperor, Stephanus was able to then hide a dagger in the bandages and come and go as he pleased.


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[Assistant] The legend then goes that Domitian had long been particularly agitated around noontime, as an astrologer had once told him that that was the time of day that he was destined to die.


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[Assistant] So he was in the habit of constantly asking what time it was until the hour of his demise passed so he could relax and go about his business without the fear of death hanging over his head.


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[Assistant] But on September 18, one of his servants who was in on the plot lied to the emperor and told him it was well past noon when it was in fact just reaching that hour.


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[Assistant] Content that he was going to live at least one more day, Demission let down his guard and retired to his personal quarters to sign some paperwork.


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[Assistant] When Stefanus arrived and demanded an audience with the Emperor, claiming that he had uncovered a plot against the Emperor's life, Domitian let the boy in to hear what he had to say.


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[Assistant] Unaware that the plot Stefanus was about to reveal was, you know, the one he was planning to execute right then and there.


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[Assistant] Once he was close enough to the Emperor, Stephanus pulled the dagger out of his sling and stabbed a mission in the groin.


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[Assistant] But Demission was not going to be an easy kill, and having survived the initial attack, he managed to fend Stephanus off for several minutes before further accomplices rushed in and overwhelmed the wounded Emperor.


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[Assistant] Suetonius reports that at least four other men helped Stephanus inflict seven fatal stab wounds on Domitian, who finally collapsed on the floor, dead at the age of 45.


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[Assistant] The only concession the dead emperor was afforded was that his ashes were eventually deposited in the Flavian temple rather than simply being scattered to the four winds.


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[Assistant] He had ruled the empire for 15 dictatorial, but more or less successful years, and would be remembered as a monster.


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[Assistant] Questions have long abounded about who else was in on the final plan to kill Demission.


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[Assistant] Cassius Dio implicates his wife Dometilla, and others have accused the Praetorians of purposeful apathy, if not outright complicity.


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[Assistant] Further, the Senate's sudden announcement the next day that Nerva, man of the political shadows, was their unanimous choice to serve as the next emperor, has raised more than a few ancient and modern eyebrows about his involvement in the plot.


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[Assistant] I think we can safely say that in their conduct both before and after the assassination, that Dolmatilla and the rank and file Praetorians probably knew nothing of the plot.


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[Assistant] However, one of the Praetorian prefects, Cytus Patronius Secundus, was probably aware of what was unfolding and did nothing to prevent it.


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[Assistant] But it also seemed that he did nothing to bring any of the guardsmen under his command into his confidence.


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[Assistant] Nervous involvement is far cloudier as he shied away from the public eye.


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[Assistant] He was well connected enough to have eyes and ears everywhere, so it seems reasonable that he may have known something.


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[Assistant] And the speed with which he was confirmed as heir to the throne suggests that someone may have approached him directly about whether he would be willing to dawn the purple.


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[Assistant] But his years of loyalty not just to the Flavians, but to the Imperial House in general, seem to belie such suspicions.


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[Assistant] But then again, he did let all the conspirators go without so much as a slap on the wrist, so who knows.


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[Assistant] With Nerva in place, the Senate then let 15 years of simmering anger explode in a series of edicts, officially damning Domitian's memory.


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[Assistant] His name was taken off all the public monuments and buildings he had constructed over the years, and statues or reliefs that bore his likeness were re-carved to look like Nerva.


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[Assistant] The goal was to pretend as if demission never happened, just as Augustus had once tried to pretend that Mark Antony had never happened.


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[Assistant] But the law banishing demission from the collective memory worked no better than it had for Augustus. And even in Rome itself, it was difficult to keep everyone on the same revisionist page.


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[Assistant] Out in the province, it was an utter impossibility and in the legions, it was downright dangerous to even suggest it.


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[Assistant] The rank and file still loved emission, and they screamed for blood when his murder was announced.


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[Assistant] When the assassins were let go, they howled for vengeance. And for the entirety of his brief reign, Nerva would have difficulty exerting any kind of real influence on the troops for having allowed such a betrayal.


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[Assistant] Next week, things will get so bad for Nerva that the Praetorians will actually besiege the palace and take him hostage, demanding, among other things, the literal heads of Domitian's assassins.


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[Assistant] As I've said a few times, Domitian wanted to usher in nothing less than an Augustan Renaissance. And during his time in office, he certainly matched the breadth and depth of the First Emperor's interests.


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[Assistant] Just as with Augustus, Demission did not limit himself to war and politics.


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[Assistant] Demission attempted to follow the blueprint laid down by Augustus. After all, it had worked out great the first time around.


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[Assistant] But unfortunately, he never did have the personal gravitas to pull it off.


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[Assistant] Romans of all stripes had scoffed when Augustus tried to implement his conservative morality laws.


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[Assistant] The reception, when Demission tried to revive them, was a healthy belly laugh.


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[Assistant] When Augustus put his foot down after the disaster in the Tudibird and declared an end to Roman expansion and a reorganization of the legions into a defensive force, his commanders obeyed.


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[Assistant] Augustus' military credentials were, after all, impeccable.


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[Assistant] But when the more or less civilian demission hewed the identical line, he was accused of cowardice, dereliction of duty, and worse.


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[Assistant] He had done nothing to earn the respect of his officers, and generals openly vented their frustrations.


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[Assistant] Even though, had the order come from Augustus, they would have hopped too without question.


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[Assistant] Augustus was able to do much because he was Augustus, and Domitian's difficulties stand as living proof of the First Emperor's unique talents.


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[Assistant] Demission forever battled on, but his Augustan renaissance was doomed to failure, as long as Augustus himself was not around to make it work.


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[Assistant] Next week, we'll begin the smooth transition from the Flavian dynasty to the so-called Nervan Antonine dynasty, which will control Rome until the assassination of Commodus nearly a century hence.


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[Assistant] This new dynasty will be populated by the men Gibbon famously dubbed the Five Good Emperors. And during their time on the throne, the empire will reach its peak culturally, economically, and geographically.


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[Assistant] In addition to their own unique talents, the Five Good Emperors are collectively remembered for the wisdom they showed in picking their successors.


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[Assistant] Rather than relying on their own possibly deficient biological sons, they chose to adopt men of merit who would rule the empire as well as they had.


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[Assistant] The example they set in this regard is often lauded as basically the pinnacle of enlightened politics and noble sacrifice in the name of civic virtue.


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[Assistant] The only problem with this is that until Marcus Aurelius, none of the emperors of the Nervan Antonine dynasty actually had biological sons to pass power onto.


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[Assistant] Nerva had to adopt Trajan, who had to adopt Hadrian, who had to adopt Antonius Pius, who had to adopt Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, because between them, there was not a biological son to be found.


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[Assistant] So while it was a remarkable run of capable men, and they all deserve credit for their eventual choices and errors, we should not pretend that they were purposely refusing to hand power to their biological errors.


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[Assistant] The first chance one of them had to pass the throne on to a son took it. And that decision is where Gibbon finally landed in his search for the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.


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[Assistant] The last thing I'll mention before I go is that I recently recorded a short interview about the history of Rome for BBC5 radio's Pods and Blogs series that should be airing this Tuesday night.


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[Assistant] If you're interested, I've posted a link to the interview at thehistoryofroam.typepad.com, but you can also get the episode on iTunes by searching for pods and blogs.


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[Assistant] I will note, however, that I haven't actually heard the final cut of the interview, so if it turns out that I sound like a damn fool, then I'm going to erase the link and deny the whole thing ever happened.


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[Assistant] Political chaos and its bosom buddies, violence, destruction, and death, had brought the family to power 25 years before, and now, with no heir to speak of, the sudden murder of the emperor stood ready to open the door to another round of bitter civil war.


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[Assistant] But no one had forgotten the horrors of 68 and 69 AD, least of all the Senate. And the elites in Rome moved quickly to find someone, anyone to rally behind before the provincial general started dreaming imperial dreams. But finding the perfect candidate would not be easy.


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[Assistant] Preferably, he would be an ally of the Flavians. So it could be plausibly argued that the new emperor did not necessarily represent a break with the previous dynasty.


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[Assistant] He should also be an older man, so that if, in their haste to find a successor, they picked a bad one, at least they would not have to live with their mistake for long.


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[Assistant] And if they could scrounge up a childless old man, that would be best of all.


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[Assistant] Everyone agreed that finding an emperor now, now, now, was the most important thing, and that unanimity was needed to make the choice stick.


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[Assistant] But unanimity now could be achieved best if every senator could imagine that his own preferred candidate would eventually be adopted by whatever old childless man they brought in now.


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[Assistant] Finally, since they had just chafed for a decade and a half under demission, it would be best if they brought in a man without strong military credentials or an independent political base.


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[Assistant] The Senate wanted back in the game, and they weren't going to get back in if they brought in someone who could just go right back to ignoring them.


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[Assistant] All of these parameters were cross-triangulated, and the man whose name popped up was long-time Imperial advisor Marcus Nerva.


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[Assistant] Past 60, the staunch Flavian was old enough not to last too long on the throne, had no sons to pass power onto when he died, had spent his life avoiding the political limelight, and had no military record to speak of.


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[Assistant] Nerva would buy the political establishment time to work through their rivalries and alliances peacefully without needing to resort to violence. Nerva had never even hinted that he wanted the job, but he too remembered the year of the four emperors.


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[Assistant] Within hours of Demission's death, he accepted the Senate's acclaim.


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[Assistant] If it meant keeping the peace, the man who had spent his life in the shadows was more than willing to step into the light.


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[Assistant] They had just fired their first shot in a bid to emerge from the political wilderness, and it felt good.


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[Assistant] Since the dawn of the prince of it, their role in the succession process had always been to rubber stamp decisions that had already been made, whether by the previous emperor, the praetorian guard, or the legions in the field.


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[Assistant] For the first time, the Senate, all on its own, was choosing the man who would rule the empire.


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[Assistant] The reign of Domitian was unquestionably the nadir of senatorial power. And now that he was dead, they believed that they were rapidly approaching a new zenith.


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[Assistant] He declared an end to treason trials and promised a blanket moratorium on executions of men of senatorial rank.


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[Assistant] He freed Demission's political prisoners, returned confiscated property, and recalled dozens from exile. Having undone much of Demission's damage,


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[Assistant] Nerva then went further and vowed to bring the Senate back into the political fold.


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[Assistant] They would no longer be a social club without purpose or responsibility.


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[Assistant] The Senate had never been a good barometer of anything other than what extremely rich men in Rome thought about things.


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[Assistant] It was a sure bet that if a man was the Senate's preferred candidate, then he was going to run into difficulties elsewhere.


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[Assistant] And indeed, all the things that recommended Nerva to the Senate caused him problems everywhere else during his 16 months in power.


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[Assistant] Being old and childless was not necessarily a problem, but his total lack of military experience and the fact that the public at large had no idea who the heck he was, yeaah, those things were going to come back to haunt him.


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[Assistant] Political power is a zero-sum game, so while the Senate gloried in having chosen Domitian's successor, the two other institutions that had grown accustomed to having the final word on such matters, the Praetorian Guard and the Provincial Legions, developed quick and healthy grudges at having been left out of the process.


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[Assistant] Nerva then exacerbated the situation by letting Demission's killers go free. A move that the Senate applauded, but the troops hated.


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[Assistant] When Domitian's loyal soldiers heard the news that the only punishment handed out was the dismissal of Secundus as Praetorian Prefect, they couldn't believe their ears.


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[Assistant] Nerva attempted to placate them with a generous donative upon ascending to the throne, issued to both the Praetorians and the rank-and-file soldiers, but it was not nearly enough to dampen their outrage.


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[Assistant] Here was some random, probably corrupt, puppet of the senate, thinking he can just murder our emperor and then drop a few coins around and make everything all better. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Does he even know which end of a sword to hold?


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[Assistant] For the rest of his short reign, Nerva would barely even try to exert influence over the legions, and his relationship with the army could never be described as anything better than strained.


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[Assistant] The new emperor did somewhat better with the public at large, but his quest for popularity led the empire into shaky financial territory that would only really be resolved by the sound policies of Trajan, who was a firm believer in the seize your neighbor's massive gold and silver deposits to pay for everything school of economics.


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[Assistant] It wasn't that Nervous started out as some delusional tax cut and spend executive, but eventually, that's where his policies took him.


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[Assistant] He wanted to ease the heavy tax burden Demission had saddled the empire with, while simultaneously expanding social welfare programs, which yeaah, doesn't usually add up to fiscal success.


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[Assistant] For a man who was not exactly known outside the halls of the Imperial Palace, Nerva was acutely aware of the need to generate some goodwill and fast, and he kicked things off in fine style by announcing a one-time bonus payment of 75 denarii per citizen to celebrate his ascension to the throne.


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[Assistant] He then went further and began using imperial money and property to extend land grants to the poor and lower middle class.


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[Assistant] Then, over the course of his first year in office, he tried to alleviate the heavy financial burdens Demission had laid upon them all, by exempting rich and poor alike from various tax schemes Demission had dreamed up.


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[Assistant] Everyone was starting to dig the new guy. Lower taxes and more stuff is definitely a recipe for political popularity, and Nerva was just getting started.


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[Assistant] But the new emperor also understood that lower taxes and more stuff is not just a recipe for political success, it is also a recipe for economic disaster. And he at least tried to get some of his new programs to pay for themselves.


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[Assistant] Previous emperors had issued free grain allotments, but these programs were started and stopped at will, leaving a level of social insecurity that Nerva wanted to end for good.


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[Assistant] Plus, he figured if he could entrench his new elementary system into the fabric of society then his legacy would be secured.


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[Assistant] But after all the tax cutting, the treasury was running low.


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[Assistant] So Nerva decided to get into the business of issuing loans for land purchases in Italy. What does that have to do with a social welfare program?


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[Assistant] Well, in addition to encouraging greater land ownership, men who took out loans from the state were required to pay 5% interest directly back to their local municipalities, payments that would underwrite Nerva's new welfare system.


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[Assistant] But in the end, Nerva was adding too much to the debit side of the ledger without making up for it on the credit side. And within a year, the fiscal situation looked grim.


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[Assistant] So Nerva and the Senate turned to the politician's best friend for dealing with one's own policy blunders. They formed a blue ribbon commission to study the problem and make recommendations.


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[Assistant] But the commission turned out to be more than simply an instrument of public relations. And it actually came back with some effective ways to cut costs and raise revenues.


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[Assistant] For one thing they reported, Domitian had inaugurated myriad games and banquets and festivals, all designed to foster public goodwill and show off the recently completed Coliseum in all its glory.


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[Assistant] He was able to pay for it all because he was taxing the Dickens out of everyone. But when Nervous shut down Domitian's various revenue streams, the games became a black hole for Imperial money.


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[Assistant] The commission recommended severely limiting Domitian's festival calendar down to the necessary religious observances, and NERVA immediately took their advice.


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[Assistant] The commission also noted that in addition to the mounds of bejeweled riches he hoarded in the palace,


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[Assistant] Demission had also been in the habit of building marvelous solid gold and silver statues of himself.


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[Assistant] Does the Empire really need gold statues of Domitian laying around, or do you suppose we could melt them down and put all that gold and silver to better use?


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[Assistant] Turning the old statues into coins only got the emperor so far though. So Nerva then held public auctions to purge the palace of Domitian's treasure.


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[Assistant] Finally, they raised enough money to get the Empire's financial situation back on track, at least temporarily.


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[Assistant] But of course, canceling games and melting down statues are one time only fixes.


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[Assistant] Which would have been a problem for Nerva had he been in office any longer. But by the time the bill came due again, he was dead.


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[Assistant] An economic crisis invented and resolved. Nerva, breathe the sigh of relief.


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[Assistant] It is easy to feel a bit sorry for the old man. He had spent his life behind the scenes offering advice, helping to find problems and running small meetings.


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[Assistant] At no point had he been the man making the decisions, or the man who had to deal with the political backlash when things went awry, or the man who was expected to control the herd of cats that was the Roman Senate.


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[Assistant] For example, having promised the Senate that they were essentially exempt from political punishment,


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[Assistant] He placed no restrictions on their own pursuit of political vendettas, and the body quickly turned on itself in a maelstrom of accusations and counter accusations over past offenses.


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[Assistant] Unwilling to come down hard on the one part of the political system who really supported him, Nerva allowed the Senate to run amok.


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[Assistant] prompting one member to observe that the tyranny of demission was perhaps superior to the anarchy of Nerva.


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[Assistant] The Emperor simply did not have a firm executive mindset. And soon, everyone, friends included, came to see him as weak and ineffective.


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[Assistant] When a coup masterminded by a senator named Calpurnius Crassus was exposed and Nerva refused to execute the plotters, it was not seen as a generous act of forgiveness in the mold of Julius Caesar. It was instead seen as the lame response of a weak man who refused to stand up even for himself.


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[Assistant] For the Praetorians, who had been ticked off since Nerva refused to properly punish Domitian's assassins, the situation was fast becoming untenable.


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[Assistant] Old resentments were finally combined with enough new resentments to trigger revolt among the guardsmen.


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[Assistant] Nerva had never been their choice, and in the past year, he had done nothing to show them that he was anything but a spineless puppet of the Senate.


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[Assistant] But they were not interested in hacking their emperor to pieces. At least not yet.


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[Assistant] As he was obviously not a madman like Caligula or Nero.


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[Assistant] Mostly, they just wanted to remind him that the Senate may have placed him on the throne, but the Praetorians kept him there.


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[Assistant] It was important for Nerva to understand that whoever said that the pen was mightier than the sword had clearly never been stabbed to death in the middle of the night.