Conclusions

We might summarize the situation with regard to family, soldiers, and the creation of emperors as follows. When Nerva was raised to the purple in 96, one could look back over roughly a century of imperial rule. In doing so, it must have been painfully evident that emperors had not been chosen according to any fixed principle. It must have seemed pretty clear that Augustus wanted his successors to come from his close family. This is what happened over several generations. However, as things turned out, those who influenced the choice were frequently not the ‘‘right’’ people, and several of those who had gained the throne did not rule ‘‘properly.’’ The machinations of family members and soldiers had too often resulted in bad emperors.

In any case, one result of this history may have been a planned, concerted effort at change. It is conceivable that, under Nerva and Trajan, a system was devised, whereby the selection and resultant adoption of a particularly suitable candidate by the reigning emperor would become the new method by which princes were created. On this scheme, family members were neither to make, nor to be made, the emperor. Nor, according to this plan, will the military have played a significant role in the process. In the end, the surviving evidence is insufficient to allow us to be certain whether all the talk of adoption was generated by necessity, since Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius all lacked a son, or whether it was the result of planning. Nonetheless, it is clear that, along with the influence exerted by family and the soldiers, for a period of time in the second century ce, ability, or suitability, played some role in the process of finding Rome’s first man.