We shall now look more specifically at what a senator, a soldier, or {say) a tavern keeper in Rome may have wanted from his emperor. An initial caveat is, however, appropriate. Our record of such matters was not created by members of all these groups. It was only members of the senatorial and equestrian elite who created the record upon which our judgment must rest. Thus, we can detect the opinions of the soldiers or the Roman plebs only by gazing through the lenses provided by their social superiors. For present purposes, we shall simply assume that those are reasonably accurate.
Let us start at the top. Senators {and equestrians) expected their emperors to carry out the pragmatic essentials of the job as listed above. However, it would appear that in rating princes, the Roman elite tended to give most weight to matters of {what we would call) social conduct. The requirements had even, by the time of the Antonines, attained a nearly codified status. He who intended to be regarded as ‘‘good’’ had to behave in such a way as to display what could be summed up as ‘‘civility’’ {in Latin, civilitas - see Wallace-Hadrill 1982; and note Eutrop. 8.4.1, summarizing his praise for Trajan, thus: ‘‘He nonetheless surpassed his military glory with his civility and his moderation’’).
The path to a persuasive ‘‘civil’’ performance involved an intricate game of make-believe. Firstly, the ‘‘good’’ emperor had to pretend to refuse things: honors, special epithets, triumphs, etc. He might well, in the end, accept such offers; but he ought, in the first instance, to decline {cf. Herod. 2.3 on the elaborate game of refusal played by Pertinax when he was put up as emperor). Secondly, despite the fact that his rule was absolute, he was at least to feign subjection to the laws. Thirdly, the ‘‘good’’ emperor was routinely expected to display the qualities or virtues that Pliny sets out in his Panegyric, respect, restraint, mildness, and the like. In short, he who best pretended that something like the republic still existed, who best pretended that he was not an utterly supreme and absolute monarch, but instead, primus inter pares, was also he who would be recorded as a ‘‘good’’ emperor.
All of this can be perceived from a slightly different angle. The argument can be made that perhaps the single most essential thing underlying the Roman imperial form of government, and consequently the emperor’s very position, was a system involving the constant exchange of honor and honors. Proper doses of this ‘‘honor-currency’’ administered in the proper ways and at the proper times, can be argued to have kept the wheels of empire spinning. And within this ‘‘honor-community,’’ the emperor functioned both as chief dispenser and chief recipient. Thus, to be recognized as ‘‘good,’’ a prince had to play the game of honoring, and being honored, with aplomb. It is perhaps easiest simply to quote Jon Lendon on this matter,
Honor, whether used consciously or unconsciously, served to muffle the shouting of orders, the jingle of coins, and the screams of the tortured. Viewing the world in honor terms made ruling the empire easier and made living in it, and obeying it, more tolerable.
An iron tyranny seemed to give way to a golden commonwealth of honorable persons and cities. Gilt, we think; but the mirage was connived in by rulers and ruled alike. (Lendon 1997: 270)
What is perhaps astonishing to a modern audience is the force potentially wielded by the emperor’s perceived civilitas, or by honor, qualities which we might incline to view as part and parcel of a preposterous game of make-believe.
In any case, the sheer power of civility or honor among the Romans can be illustrated by taking into consideration another absolutely crucial matter for senators, namely, their personal security. We hear that all of the ‘‘good’’ emperors of our period promised never to kill a senator (or at least, not to do so without a proper trial). Emphasis is laid by our sources on such an oath having been taken by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Pertinax, and even Macrinus. On the other hand, Commodus, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla were excoriated for having killed many senators. Severus was even labeled the ‘‘murderer of so many and such illustrious men’’ (HA Sev. 13.8). Indeed, the manner in which that emperor supposedly swore not to kill senators is itself instructive. He is said to have forced the Senate to decree that he should not he allowed to murder members of that august body (Dio 75.2.1; cf. Herod. 2.14.3-4, HA Sev. 7.5). The whole matter of executing senators is perhaps nicely summed up in the question asked by Didius Julianus as he faced his own executioners. ‘‘But what have I done wrong? Whom (i. e., what senator) have I killed?’’ (Dio 74.17.5).
On the surface, then, the execution of senators might seem to be a more objective measure for judging emperors than trying to evaluate their virtues or ‘‘civility.’’ And yet, appearances deceive. On the one hand, ‘‘good’’ emperors did put senators to death. We have observed Hadrian’s actions with regard to L. Julius Ursus Servianus. he died when he got in the way of the emperor’s aspirations for the succession (see above, p. 131). Moreover, Hadrian had several senators of consular rank murdered just at the start of his reign. There was criticism of this, but Hadrian survived it, to become one of the canonical ‘‘good’’ emperors (Birley 1997: 87-9). And what makes the whole business even more disturbing is the fact that upon closer inspection, the ancient outcry regarding senators put to death by (e. g.) Severus or Caracalla must be taken with a grain of salt (see respectively Alfoldy 1968 and Sillar 2001).
In short, a ‘‘good’’ emperor, despite the fact that he executed senators, might remain ‘‘good,’’ whereas a princeps judged on the same grounds to have been ‘‘bad,’’ turns out perhaps to have been less bloodthirsty than he was portrayed by ancient authors. The seemingly rock-solid category for judgment of such matters begins to wobble, and we are cast back upon the mechanisms of ‘‘civility’’ and honor, in our search for that which made senators happy (or not) with emperors.
But what of soldiers? And what of the plebs? There is no doubt that both of these groups expected tangible benefits from emperors, and that when such emoluments were not forthcoming, there could be trouble. Nonetheless, for both soldiers and their civilian peers, matters of style carried much weight. Indeed, here, as in various other areas, we can observe the percolation of ideals held by the aristocracy down to the lower orders of society (Lendon 1997: 89-103).
Where the soldiers were concerned, an emperor needed to comprehend and take part in the ritual of being a soldier; to become, as it were, a ‘‘fellow-soldier.’’ For example, by wearing clothing inappropriate to the military realm, an emperor might immediately and irrevocably alienate his troops (cf. Herod. 5.2.4-5). But beyond this, he had to appear as a particular kind of‘‘fellow-soldier’’; he had to don the mantle of a certain, proper kind of aristocratic military officer. Emperors who did not meet their soldiers’ requirements in these more subtle fashions, ran the risk of being toppled - or relegated to categorization as ‘‘bad’’ (Campbell 1984: 417-27; Lendon 1997: 252-65).
As for the plebs, they too could be much impressed, or irritated, by the manner in which emperors ruled. For example, the princeps who did not appear at the games, or who, when he did appear, read correspondence, without glancing at the action, would find little favor. On the other hand, the emperor who presented himself stripped and ready to fight as a gladiator was a great embarrassment (Herod. 1.15.7). Especially important for us, however, is the fact that a significant development in the relationship between the plebs and the princeps appears to have occurred precisely in the reigns of Nerva and Trajan.
Nerva begins a pattern of courting the plebs that was trendsetting for the remainder of our period (Brennan 1990 [2000]). In addition to this, the denarii produced by the mint at Rome reveal a sudden, new interest in advertising the emperor’s virtues (the most prominent are equity, piety, courage, generosity, foresight, and modesty). Indeed, the argument can now be made that it is possible ‘‘to see both the mint and Pliny (i. e., his Panegyric) as mirrors of some larger, discursive shift that took place around the beginning of the second century’’ (Norena 2001: 156). This shift fits very well chronologically with the new importance of the emperor’s civilitas. In other words, if we can assume that the coins minted in Rome were intended for an audience that went well beyond the limits of the senatorial and equestrian orders, then the dialogue about imperial virtues must be seen as a matter of import also for those who sat in the less prestigious theater seats (for a diagram of the socially determined seating in the theater, see B. D. Shaw 2000: 389) - and, for that matter, to those camped in the misty forests of Germany, or in the sands by the Euphrates.
To summarize: there were practical tasks that emperors were expected to see to. They had to care for the city of Rome. They were responsible for protecting the Roman Empire, both physically, and in terms of its honor. In doing this, the proper princeps would become, in a particular way, a soldier. Beyond these matters, the judge’s seat had become, by the second century, a place where an emperor was expected frequently to be seen. So much for a ‘‘job description’’ of princeps. But hovering over and governing all of this was another set of expectations, and these were most influential in the final evaluation of the quality of any emperor’s time on the throne. ‘‘Good’’ emperors were those who knew how to wrap themselves in civilitas, and to use the currency of honor in the appropriate ways. The man who failed at these tasks could only be perceived, hence recorded, as a ‘‘bad’’ emperor.
World History
