With the death of Nero by his own shaky hand, the ill-sorted,
ill-starred Iulio-Claudian dynasty came to an ignominious end, and Rome
was up for the taking. This was 9 June, AD 68. The following year,
commonly known as the Year of the Four Emperors, was probably one of
Rome's worst. Nero's death threw up a critical question for the Empire.
How could a new man occupy the vacant throne in Rome and establish a new
dynasty? This situation had never arisen before, since in all previous
successions the new emperor had some relation to his predecessor, but
the psychotic and paranoid Nero had done away with any eligible
relatives. And how might a new emperor secure his legal position and
authority with regards to the Senate and to the army, as well as to
those who had a vested interest in the system, the Praetorian Guard? The
result was that ambitious and unscrupulous generals of the empire fell
into a bloody power struggle to decide who had the right to wear the
imperial purple. Tacitus, in his acid way, remarks that 'one of the
secrets of ruling had been revealed: an emperor could be created outside
Rome'. This was because imperial authority was ultimately based on
control of the military. Thus, to retain power a player in the game of
thrones had to gain an unshakable control over the legions, which were
dotted along the fringes of the empire. Of course, this in turn meant
that the soldiers themselves could impose their own choice. Indeed, it
turned out that even if an emperor gained recognition in Rome, this
counted for nothing in the face of opposition from the armies out in the
frontier provinces. It was to take a tumultuous year of civil war and
the death of three imperial candidates before a fourth candidate could
come out on top, remain there, and establish for himself a new dynasty.
Nic Fields narrates the twists and turns and the military events of this
short but bloody period of Roman history. Nic Fields, is a former Royal
Marine turned classical scholar and now full-time military historian.
Among his many previous works are Roman Conquests: North Africa (2010)
and The Spartan Way (2012), both published by Pen & Sword.
