With Nero died the last of the Julio-Claudians. He had no obvious successor within the family and the imperial throne was there to be fought over. Autocratic rule was now the established order, no one proposed any alternative system of government, and the senate did little more than react to events. Galba threw away his advantage. He was slow to reach Rome, refused to spend money to consolidate his position, and offended almost every potential supporter. By early 69 the legions along the Rhine had revolted and declared their own candidate for the throne, the governor of the province of Lower Germany, Aulus Vitellius. In Rome, however, one of Galba’s leading supporters, Marcus Salvius Otho, the governor of Lusitania and, incidentally, former husband of Nero’s Poppaea, was so frustrated by events, especially when a younger senator was proposed as Galba’s heir, that he won over the Praetorian
Guard, who proclaimed him emperor, and then used the Guards to assassinate Galba in the Forum.
It now looked as if the bad days of the republic were back with two rival army commanders fighting over the spoils of the empire. With the Julio-Claudian dynasty extinguished there was no other way of determining the succession. The conflict between Vitellius and Otho appeared to be shaping up as one between east and west. Vitellius had the support of Spain, Gaul, and Britain, Otho of Italy, Africa, and the east. In the event the war ended quickly. Vitellius’ troops invaded Italy and defeated Otho at Cremona in April. Otho committed suicide. The senate dutifully proclaimed Vitellius emperor.
In his turn, however, Vitellius threw away his victory. He never built up any support beyond the legions of the Rhine and yet another contender was allowed to come forward. This was Titus Flavius Vespasianus. The background of Vespasian’s family was modest. His Italian grandfather had been a centurion, his father a tax collector in Asia. Nero had appointed him commander to suppress the revolt in Judaea precisely because his provincial origins made him an unlikely rival. Yet Vespasian had already had a dazzlingly successful career, first as a commander in the invasion of Britain, then as consul, and subsequently as governor of Africa. He was first proclaimed emperor by the prefect of Egypt but he found the border legions of the Danube and Syria and his own legions in Judaea and Egypt rallying to him. He made his way to Egypt knowing that he could exert pressure on Rome through threatening its grain supply.
Meanwhile the legions of the Danube had taken the initiative. They marched down into Italy, defeating Vitellius’ army almost at the same spot where Vitellius had defeated Otho. In a passage worthy of Thucydides, Tacitus details the appalling slaughter the victorious troops unleashed on the town of Cremona. They continued on to Rome, where civil war had broken out between the supporters of Vitellius and those of Vespasian. The Praetorian Guard, whose fickle allegiance was now to Vitellius, was wiped out and peace was finally restored by one of Vespasian’s supporters, the governor of Syria, Mucianus, who had arrived in Italy with his legions. Mucianus’ allegiance had been won by the existence of Vespasian’s two sons, the elder of whom, Titus, had already made a name for himself. Here was the possibility of dynastic stability. Vespasian was in his turn recognized by the senate, but showed what little respect he had for their role by dating his reign from his proclamation by the troops in Egypt. In a decree the senate meekly accepted that everything that had already been enacted by Vespasian should be legally binding.
What perhaps was most remarkable about the political struggles of the year 69 was how little they shook the institutions of the empire. Vespasian was a usurper, ‘an emperor’, in Tacitus’ celebrated phrase, ‘made elsewhere than at Rome’, but he fitted without difficulty into the imperial framework. There is no evidence of any hesitation in the way the senate granted him the rights of the earlier emperors to convene and make proposals to the senators and to put forward the magistrates for formal acceptance by the increasingly impotent popular assemblies.
World History
