Shownotes Transcript
Hi Janina. Hi Emma. How you doing? Not too bad, how are you doing? Oh you know, surviving. Everything's on fire. Yeah, everything's on fire. Seems to be getting more on fire. Who knew how that that was possible? Yeah. But we're still here, we're still breathing. We're still here, we're still living our silly little lives. Yeah, doing our silly little things. Even though everything is...
bad and getting worse all of the time. Yeah. Yeah, we're living through a soft apocalypse, but that turns out that you can still read and write silly little books during that time. So... And also you just have to because for some reason, even though you're living through a soft apocalypse, you have to keep paying for being alive. They do make you keep paying for stuff. Yeah. I did read, so years and years ago, I read a book by a guy called Will McIntosh. I don't even know if it's still in print anymore, but it's called Soft Apocalypse. And...
And it has lots of kind of like vaguely stupid science fictional elements to it. But it's basically about a guy who graduates with an arts degree and they can't really get a job. And like and it's like him and his friends and just kind of like trying to get through life over the course of about 15 years. But gradually things just change.
keep getting like shitter and shitter and shitter until eventually they are living in a kind of roving gang of homeless people because they can it's not possible to stay in one place anymore because of climate change but like a lot of it is basically him being concerned about whether he's going to get laid yeah and then trying to make enough money to like pay the rent until eventually
their house doesn't exist anymore. And yeah, I think of that book a lot at the moment. Yeah, yeah. Turns out that's exactly what it's like. It turns out there was the most, apart from the fact that it has some like slightly strange stuff about eco-terrorists, largely very much what it's like. Yeah. But apart from that, here we are doing a fun little podcast. Doing a fun little podcast. And look, it could be the year of the four emperors. At least we're not living through that. Yeah.
I mean, maybe we are. We don't know. We're just on the first one right now. Anything could happen. We are.
Well, as we will see when I tell you about it in a minute, by the year, so the year before emperors, I'll explain who we are. We're History of Sexy. Yes. We're Emma and Janina. We answer questions from people. About history. About history, so that you don't have to do it yourself. And this week's questions, we've got two questions. One is from Jennifer, who said, what's the deal with 69 CE? Jennifer also said that her dad's middle name is Otho, which I'm so grateful for because he's my favourite one. And
And then someone called Jay just said Rex Factor Year of the Four Emperors. So we're going to combine those two into one big Year of the Four Emperors, 69 CE. Really nice of the Romans to have this dramatic year in the year 69 CE. I appreciate that. Yes, it is actually. Great comment. I'll tell you the other thing that I really love about the Romans, and obviously they didn't do this on purpose, but it pleases me inordinately that it happened. So they had a Year of the Four Emperors,
And then after that, about 150 years later, they had a year of the five emperors. And then about 50 years after that, they had a year of the six emperors. That's so nice. That's the bit. And it's so pleasing that they did it in the right order because it would be so annoying if like one of like the year of the six emperors had come before the year of the five emperors. Yeah.
I really appreciate the Romans for having their chaotic years organized so well. Yeah. They even do chaos in a slightly orderly manner. And for that, I appreciate them. If you're a person of the Roman Empire, this should be why. It's because they know how to count. Every so often, they did know how to count and did it all without a zero, bless them. Yeah.
But yeah, so that's what this is going to be. So what I'm going to do is this episode, I'm going to tell you what the hell the year of the Four Emperors was, what happened in 169 CE, what the deal was and kind of who these people are. And then...
We are going to come up, we are going to go through the four emperors and rate them on some various factors that I have invented. Inspired somewhat by Rex Factor, inspired somewhat by Totalius Rankium, who are a ranking podcast who started doing the Roman emperors. Then they did the Byzantine emperors. Then they did American presidents. I think they're doing pirates now.
but that's a nice pivot I like that yeah so they have um done some good jobs so
For reference, the Rex Factor factors, Rex Factor do for people who've not and why haven't you listened to Rex Factor? My personal favourite podcast. They started ranking English kings and queens, then they did Scottish and now they're doing consorts. And so their ranking, their factors are battliness, subjectivity. Which is how much you'd like to be a subject.
Yes. Scandal. How scandalous are they? Longevity. And then they have two objective factors. So those three are subjective in that each one, Graham and Ali give a rating out of 10. But then there's two objective factors, which are longevity and dynasty, not the programme, where...
um they're given an objective score based on how long they lasted and how many children survived them um and then totalius rancium do effectively the same thing so they have fightius maximus um opprobrium crazium i'm not gonna judge their latin uh successus ultimus um are there um
their subjective factors and then they have imagio facius and tempo completo good um as their objective factors um i'm not going to do objective factors because we're not here to be spoilers
And we're not here to be objective. Also, three of these guys last less than a year and fourth one lasts for 20 years. Yeah, so it's just straight up not going to be interesting. Like, you've got three blips and then a really long time. Three of them have no surviving children and one of them has two surviving children who both become emperor. So... Yeah. It would be a bit of a walkover. And...
The fourth guy, Vespasian, already has a bit of a lead in that everybody had to be nice to him. So the rest of them are already fighting from behind. And I decided to come at it from the perspective of the Roman Senate, basically. Like, what would they want in a Roman emperor? So I've come up with Virtus or Virtus, which is...
manly kind of virtue in war like how good are they as a leader in war and how good are they on the battlefield do they have like military successes and what's their like masculine virtue like um so that also is like discipline and um like being a man essentially like it's a real patriarchal thing um
Then we've got beneficia, which is bread and circuses. How nice are they to the people around them? Are they generous? Are they harsh? Do they kill any senators? Do they slaughter hundreds of innocent civilians? That kind of thing. Or do they build a lovely palace or build a lovely aqueduct for everyone to enjoy? Yeah. So that's beneficia. Then pietas. Mm-hmm.
which is basically how respectable and honourable are they? Do they live up to the values of Roman piety? Are they good to their family? Are they outgoing?
you know, are they being violent? Are they being, are they shagging? Are they spending all their time eating? Are they outstanding members of the community? Or are they wee dickheads? Are they modest and stoic and approachable? Or are they swivel-eyed men wearing silk dresses and 79 gold chains? LAUGHTER
Great. And then the final one, which is the kind of Rex factor one, is Imperium, which is would I follow them into battle and risk everything to support their claim to the throne? Great. Yes. Perfect. This is very good. I'm excited. Okay. So you're excited. Good. So we're going to do, at the very least, we're going to talk about it and I reckon we'll do Galba today and then we'll do the other three next time. Great. But we shall see. We might be able to do both though. So what happened? What happened?
Picture the scene. 68 CE. So we have to start early because the year of the four emperors really starts almost a full year before the year of the four emperors. And it starts in March 68, around about the birthday of Agrippina the Younger. It's potentially on purpose because the governor of central Gaul, whose name is Julius Findex, was a great friend of Agrippina the Younger. Mm-hmm.
and loved her very much and was very much part of her kind of political faction and her friendship group. And if you remember, and those people who have read my book will know, Nero murdered Agrippina and then had her declared an enemy of the state. And Vindex never really forgave him for this. But more than that, he also very much never forgave him for being an actor. It is one of the worst things you can do.
It really is. And if you were to boil down or at the very least, like the reported claims as to what the problem with like the problem that Vindex has with Nero is that he's acting, he's on stage and he's giving it his all. They were kind of grossed out when Nero was playing music on stage. But as soon as he started being in plays, he made himself like actively disgusting. Yeah.
Romans thought that actors were basically sex workers. They were infamies. They were excluded from the legal system in every way. Most of them were enslaved. They were very much considered to be like the dirt worst people. Like just devoid of honour and devoid of respectability. I mean, just like today's.
Yeah, very similar. This is exactly how actors should be treated. If you're going to go around lying to my face... Look, I went to drama school. I know what actors are like. Indefensible. You'd not trust them either. LAUGHTER
That's why you ended up directing instead. Very sensible. Keep control of these people. You can't control them. There's no controlling actors. No. Yeah, so this genuinely upsets a lot of people of the kind of senatorial class at
that they are expected to watch Nero acting on stage, which is an inherently dishonorable activity, acting as a slave, acting as a woman, like pretend crying, wearing the masks, doing all of it. And then 20 minutes later, they're expected to pay homage to him and kiss his hand and...
and act as though he is the most honourable person in the entire empire. And they just can't square those two things. And it really hurts people's masculinity that they are expected to pay, give respect to an act. And that really is his big problem, that and the Agrippina thing. I mean, yeah, equally important. Murdering your mother and being an actor. Yeah.
Being an actor. Both disgusting. Both revolting. Yeah. He did try to overthrow him once before in 59, just following Agrippina's death. So he kind of has, it's almost to Nero's credit that he kept Vindex around and kept giving him power over armies because he probably shouldn't have. But Vindex doesn't want to be emperor himself.
He doesn't declare himself emperor. What he wants is for the Senate to get rid of Nero and to choose another emperor from their membership. Raises up the legions of central Gaul. He gets the governors of Spain and Portugal, which is Hispania and Lusitania, on board and
He has quite a... That's like huge armies that are on his side. Nero sends in troops to fight him and defeat him, and they successfully win. So the troops of Upper Germany go and win a decisive battle, destroy all of the legions of Central Gaul, and Vindex kills himself because it's over. He's lost. The rebellion is over. And...
theoretically this was a wild success for Nero but Nero is an idiot and quite a stupid man and just somehow manages to turn this enormous success into a wild failure and
Like genuinely impressive how he does this. So this is by this time it's May. The troops in Germany kind of get a bit overexcited. Nobody likes Nero. And so they offer their leader, Virginia. Yes, they like will support you if you want to march on Rome. And he says no. And they go, oh, go on. And he says no again. Word gets back to Nero that this has happened, that.
that they have made this offer and that Virginius has said no. And instead of him being like, thank God I have a loyal person there in charge. Like, I'm so lucky. Let's go on with life. He freaks out, panics so badly that a rumour spreads that he has fled to Egypt. All of his troops, the Praetorian Guard desert him because he's fucking it up so badly just in person. And on the 8th of June, the Praetorian Guard returns
has basically lost track of where Nero is and falsely announced that he has fled to Egypt, at which point the Senate declare him a public enemy. He's actually about 300 metres outside of Rome. Just a really short stroll away. Yeah. He's actually just in a guy's house, very close. When he hears that he's been turned into a public enemy, he kills himself. Sure. With his last words allegedly being, ''What an artist the world has lost in me.''
Poor Nero. Imagine if he hadn't been emperor. He would have had such a nice time just being an actor. He would have been. And I do think that he didn't want to be emperor. He didn't really enjoy being emperor. Once he discovered acting, he took it very, very seriously, which everybody thinks is preposterous. And he really cares and he really trains. And yeah, he could have been an actor in Greece and he would have been so happy. But instead, he had a stage mum and was born into the wrong family. It's a real shame.
It's a real sad story, honestly. But he, yeah, so he somehow managed to just, on a personal level, receive the news of a success so badly that he turned it into a personal defeat without any more loss of blood except his own. It is impressive, really. I mean, it is. In the meantime, the governor of Hispania, whose name is Galba, has declared...
declared himself emperor in this he has invented a soon to be very very popular pastime of roman generals declaring themselves emperor but he was the og um
He declares himself emperor and basically the news arrives in Rome that he has done that approximately the same time that the Senate have believed that Nero has run away to Egypt. And so they declare him emperor on the 10th of June, 68. So that is when his reign starts. He's like, cool, great. This is brilliant. Gabra is a 73 year old man who has just sort of been tooling about
being powerful like since the reign of Tiberius really and nobody particularly hates him nobody particularly loves him he's just a guy sure and so he announced himself emperor everyone's like cool okay he's one of us this seems fine I don't see how this can go wrong he then spends like four months taking his soldiers very slowly from Spain to Rome and dealing basically with
It takes some time for that news to percolate around the place. Not everyone is thrilled about it. There's a guy in Egypt who cuts off the corn supply. That has to be dealt with. But he kind of gradually comes back. He only has to fight one small battle against some random lads who are still supporting Nero, which he wins fairly easily because they're not even soldiers. Arrives in Rome. Everybody's like pretty happy. Everybody has supported him. And everyone's like, OK, fine.
The Nero thing is over. That seems fine. This last, this kind of, I would say it's not enthusiasm particularly. Everyone's a bit freaked out. Yeah, but like quiet acceptance. Yeah, it's quiet acceptance. It's like, okay, this has happened. Nero's gone. We're all pretty happy about that. Let's move on to the next stage. Galba, nice to meet you. What are your plans? And he says, lovely to meet you. My plans are to identify the worst possible thing I could do in every situation and immediately do it.
What is the thing that would upset you the most if I did it? Because I'll add that to my to-do list. His whole thing is basically being like his self-image is that he is an old-fashioned, disheveled,
disciplinarian republican guy who like takes no bullshit and he's got no time for this imperial nonsense and there'll be no quarter under his rule like he's going to take things back to bare bones discipline never a good sign when someone wants to take things back to anything no so he basically wants to take things back to this imaginary time when everybody was well behaved he wants to make from great and
Yeah. And he largely went to make Rome great again by...
Just pissing everybody off. So the first thing he does is he refuses to pay the Praetorian Guard or any of the legions who have supported him what's called the Donatio. So this is like a by now fairly standard payment. Claudius invented it. Nero had done it as well. Like giving every soldier a bit of money to say thank you for your support. Sure. A wee bonus. And to...
Yeah, exactly. It's like a wee coming to power bonus. And everybody very much expects it this time because they've literally fought for him. Yeah. And several of the officers who had encouraged their men to join the rebellion had basically promised this and been like, look, you know, if you join in, you're going to get a Donatio. A wee money. Yeah.
You're going to get some gold. It's going to be great. Uh, unfortunately Galba disagrees. He says, I'm not used to buying armies. I levy them and he won't pay them a single penny. Immediately army hates him. Yeah. Yes. Uh, the second thing he does is he just starts executing people. He executes a bunch of Praetorian guards. If you felt didn't support him heartily enough, he executes a bunch of people who had been like friends with Nero. Uh,
He executes anybody. He starts purging the armies in various places that he felt hadn't enthusiastically embraced him enough. And he places heavy taxes on towns that he thought hadn't been enthusiastic enough when he had visited them. Sure. Great. So really, really kind of making himself very popular. Yeah. Yeah.
You can tell you're going to be a great leader when you have to kill people for not liking you. Yeah, people love that. Yeah.
He then, the one person that he doesn't kill is a guy called Tigellanus, who is the one guy that everybody wants dead. Who is like Nero's kind of partner in crime at the end of his reign. Doesn't kill him. And the final thing he does, which alienates all the people who aren't really political, but are kind of powerful, like powerful families, is he forces everyone who ever received a financial gift from Nero to pay it back. Wow. That's...
That's like, he just wanted to fuck this up. He was just deliberately was like, how can I be the most loathed man in all of Rome? Yeah. In the shortest possible amount of time. Yes. So basically everybody is just like one by one going down the line. Every single potential load of supporters are alienated. Mm-hmm.
And he's kind of like dry and short in person. Like when he talks, he's just like, like he's not charismatic at all. So the people don't really like him. He won't put on any games or anything like that. So he just basically fucks up everything. He comes in as like an old fashioned disciplinarian. Everyone was like, I don't remember asking for that. I remember asking for just not being killed, actually. Thank you. Just trying to live my life. Yeah.
Yeah. So he arrives in Rome in October. On the 1st of January 69 CE, the beginning of the year for emperors, he proclaims himself consul. This is his first, this is going to be his consulship. And everybody in the empire, all of the troops and all of the magistrates swear an oath of allegiance to Galba. Except Galba.
the legions in Germany who refuse. They are led by a guy called Vitellius. They refuse to take an oath of allegiance against him, declare Vitellius emperor and begin to march on Rome. Sure. Seems fair. This is a big, big army. They are probably the biggest in terms of the amount of men they have and certainly the amount of fighting that they do. So this is quite frightening. He panics. Galbo has a panic and he thinks that the best thing that he can do is adopt
a young man because he convinced himself that the fact that he is 73 is the problem and he has no children. I mean, it is a problem. It is. Political life is not for you when you're in your 70s anymore. You had your turn. Your generation had your turn. Step back. Yes. Move away. Move away. Yes.
So he's like, OK, obviously the problem here is that I'm quite old. People are worried I'm going to die. And they're going to like what I need to do is adopt a young son, cool young man as a son. And that cool young man will be able to go and fight this battle for me. So he adopts a guy called Pizzo.
who everybody seems to like and everybody's kind of broadly fine with that. Everyone, all of the sources are very nice about it. This doesn't really calm the legions particularly because they never find out about it because his choosing Piso as a successor alienates his other primary ally, who is a guy called Otho. Otho had been the governor's
governor of Lusitania. He had supported Galba for the whole time, largely because he wanted to get revenge on Nero, who he hated for stealing his wife. Sure, seems fair. And he had put quite a lot into Galba's bid, and he really thought that he would be chosen as the successor. When he is not, everything
Evidence that everything that Galbraith did as emperor was the worst possible choice. He pretty much immediately gathered all his allies, went to the camp of the Praetorian Guard and got himself proclaimed emperor. On the 14th of January, he declares himself emperor. On the 15th of January, Galbraith is killed in the forum when a mob overturns his litter and his head is cut off. Great.
Okay, excellent work. Yes. Efficiently done. So that is our first emperor of the Year of the Four Emperors. He lasts 15 days. Technically, he is the longest lasting because he has six and a half months. Before the 15 days. But six of those months, yes, are not in the Year of the Four Emperors. So first two weeks of the Year of the Four Emperor are Galbraith.
15th, Otho is accepted as emperor by the Senate. Otho is an interesting guy because he was like really good friends with Nero for a long time in the kind of early part of Nero's reign. They were like young lads together in their early 20s. And Nero persuaded Otho to marry a woman called Poppea so that...
Otho could take Pepea to parties so Nero could have sex with her. Oh, great. Yeah, sure. That's exactly what you want. Just bros being bros.
Yeah. So basically, because Nero was married to Octavia, he was kind of polite enough at the time to not have an over affair with another free elite woman, which would have been like too much of a scandal. So instead he, but he really wants to have an affair with Pepea and she's quite intimate. So he gets Otho to marry her so she can come be around his house all the time. And it kind of looks okay because she's with her husband. Yeah.
So he agrees to that, he does that. He then falls in love with Papaya and...
and kind of tries to stop her from having, persuade her not to have an affair with Nero anymore. Instead, what happens is Nero murders his mother, murders his wife, marries Poppea, forces her to divorce Otho, marries Poppea, and then effectively exiles Otho to Lusitania. So the reason that he has been governor in Lusitania for a decade is that Poppea
He was sent there to keep him away from his wife. You know how whenever you see a warning sign or a warning label on a product, it's because someone has done that thing and had disastrous consequences as a result? This is, I feel like, the origin story of Bros Before Hoes. Yeah, it is.
Unfortunately, Otho found out that he was very much not the bro that he thought he was. He was merely a patsy. And so he has hated Nero ever since and he has joined the rebellion in order to get his revenge. But he is very, very rich.
And he is kind of considered to be one of Nero's gang of shithead layabouts. Sure. And everybody thinks that's what he's going to be when he's emperor. But the second that he becomes emperor, he kind of turns into quite a good emperor, actually. He is not there long enough to really achieve much, but...
but he suddenly kind of snaps to attention almost. And a very similar thing you get with Titus, who's not in this, but who is known to be kind of very dissolute, a big gambler, a big drinker, has a long running affair with Berenice, Berenike, Berenice,
Princess of Judea and then the second he becomes emperor he just like snaps to attention and just bins off all of the like layabout behaviour and just becomes Prince Hal to Henry V exactly story exactly tale as old as time it is exactly yeah unfortunately people didn't have Shakespeare so they didn't have that to
What a shame. If only we could have seen that play back in time, everything would be different. A lot. I think in large part because Otho doesn't get a lot of time, everybody kind of thinks he's faking being quite a good administrator and quite a good emperor. And like he immediately, like everyone that Galba has taken money away from, he gives it back.
Like everyone, like he kind of does a load of reparation stuff for what Galba has done. Unfortunately, he is immediately slimy because like 15th of January, he becomes emperor. 16th of January, he sits down and has a look at the kind of like papers, the kind of what am I dealing with here? And he finds out about the rebellion in Germany, which he had not known about. Right.
Awkward. Or he hadn't known really like what the whole, like how bad it was. And his immediate thing is like, ah, fuck. He writes a letter to Vitellius and is like, okay, I'm the emperor now. You don't need to swear allegiance to Galba. So we're going to assume that the whole thing has been a terrible misunderstanding. And, you know, you can go back to doing what you were doing and everybody will be friends. And Vitellius writes a letter back saying, it's so nice to see that you're keeping my seat warm. Yeah.
I'm going to be in Rome any minute. Can't wait to have a nice conversation with you when you take your correct seat. And they kind of from then on get more and more tense until like within a couple of weeks they're sending each other letters where they're like, well, you're a filthy degenerate cunt.
And just accusing each other of, like, it escalates quite rapidly into each describing each other as, like, a horrible degenerate. Beautiful. Vitellus is still marching his troops towards Rome and is getting close to Italy. And by March, so, you know, five, six weeks later, it becomes clear that there is going to be a war, that this is a battle that's going to have to happen. So...
Otho raises troops. He has all of the troops of Dalmatia, Pannonia, Moesia, which is across the Asiatic, that kind of Croatia area, on his side. At this point, just to stir the pot a little bit, a false Nero appears and starts travelling around Syria claiming that he is Nero and he has arrived. I love a fake. I love a fake king or a queen. Yeah.
It's always delightful when one pops up. It's always delightful. There's a couple of fake Nero's. One almost gets the Parthians to invade. So they go to war. They've both got big legions. They meet at the Po River in northern Italy. And they have a couple of skirmishes and small battles in which Otho comes out on top.
Every time he's doing quite well, he has the Praetorian Guard. He's got good bunch. However, both Vitellius and Otho seem to be very keen for there to be a decisive battle. Like they don't want to be doing skirmishes back and forth and have this go on for ages. They want. So on the 18th of April, they face off against each other. They fight.
They come to a battle just kind of in Cremona in Italy, and it is a defeat for Otho, but not a decisive defeat. His troops break and run, but the Vitellian troops don't chase them, really. They're spared. They pretty much all make it back alive. It's not a great victory or a great defeat. It is just, it's really a skirmish. But Otho...
has convinced himself that this was a decisive battle. And this is why he's my favourite one. Otho hates the fact that he is at war. He hates the fact that he is at war against Romans. And he literally says, like, the throne is not worth this to me. Yeah. Like, my life is not worth all of these lives. And I think that...
it is better if this ends here. And so then the 19th of April, he took his own life. He stabbed himself in his bedroom in order to end the war. And for this, he is remembered by the Romans as like probably the most glorious thing that any emperor ever did. Sacrifice yourself for your people.
Yeah, literally. I mean, that is the sort of person... You don't want someone who wants to be in power so much they'll do anything for it. You want someone to be in power who just thinks...
that they can do things well and if them being there is a problem then they're not going to be there like that's yeah and he he like basically just doesn't he you know he literally says my life my power is not worth this many deaths and it's not worth a single one more so that's the end of that for this he wins over like basically the love of all of his troops who are left behind and quite a lot of Vitellius's as well and Vitellius when he gets the news is a bit like oh okay
Anti-climactic. So he is now seemingly the sole emperor of Rome. So it's the 20th of April. We're now on to our third emperor. That's a pretty impressive run.
Just powering through some impris. We are powering through. He tootles down to Rome. He arrives. He's brought with him all of his soldiers who kind of upset everybody by being around in the... They don't like it when there are soldiers in the city, particularly, and there's a lot of German soldiers in the city in trousers and shit, and Romans don't like that, particularly. Yeah.
He also has a reputation which he does nothing to dispel for being a massive glutton. Like he loves food.
Food is his primary thing that he enjoys. He holds massive feasts and he seems to primarily be interested in talking about food and when he is next going to get some food and what new food he could eat. This is relatable. And now he's the emperor and it's a lot of new food. And he kind of...
He does some decent reforms, which everybody kind of praises him for, but everybody's kind of squicked out by his lifestyle, like the fact that he has... He also, and this is something that I personally hold against him, he has this freedman who he has been basically holding captive as a sex toy for his entire life. Great. Which the Romans don't complain about, but I hold it against him. Yeah, that's not what you want. Yeah. So I think that...
They probably would have been fine in Rome. The West is basically fine with him. Who knows what would have happened? But what occurred was that in June, Vespasian, who is at that time leading the war in Judea, so what's called the Jewish War, which has been going on since 66, begins with a revolt of the Jews and doesn't end until 70. Mm-hmm.
and the destruction of the Second Temple. But he has been persecuting this war throughout the Roman province of Judea, and he's very popular, and basically his troops have persuaded him to declare himself emperor. So he does. It feels like everyone's doing it, you know? Yeah. At this point, it's become a bit of a trend. It's like a TikTok viral. It's like the ice bucket challenge of the Roman world.
Except it's not raising money for worthy causes at all. No, only for the coffers of already quite rich men. So by July, he has convinced the armies of Syria, Egypt, Dalmatia, Illyricum, like loads of places in the east to support his cause. And this kind of interesting thing about Vespasian, he hasn't come himself to Rome. He's sent some other people. Sure.
You get a guy for that. You get a guy for declaring himself emperor. He instead has gone to Egypt to deal with some situations in Egypt. And so he sends some armies. They manage to make it again to Italy. And in July, they in August, they make it to Italy.
Vitellius sends his most loyal commander, the one who had fought the battles against Otho, to go and deal with the situation. His name is Caecina. And Caecina gets there and immediately tries to defect. A great sign. Yeah. Vespasian troops won't have him. They're like, no. No.
Don't want you. So he just ends up sort of in the middle with nobody wanting him. Everything falls apart fairly rapidly from there. There's more skirmishes. It happens broadly the exact same place on the River Poe. And eventually there is a decisive battle at Bedricum where Vespasian's troops defeat Vitellius's quite quickly.
And everybody breaks and flees. There's much slaughter. Bodies are piled up all over the show. There's an attempt to try to rally some troops in Gaul that fails because nobody likes Vitellius anymore. In Rome, Vitellius agrees to abdicate. And he says, I will. I'll just step down. Turns out I don't. And he is not as committed to this as perhaps Otho was because he's like, oh, I'll step down. And then the Praetorian guards say, no, you won't. And he goes, okay, fine.
Sure. Silly me. A real like, if you want me to, I will. Yeah, I mean, if I must, then I will stay emperor. So the whole story is that the Praetorian guard won't let him. And they're like, well, I can think of like three ways he can get out of this. Like one, stab himself. Two, let the Praetorian guard stab him. Everyone here knows how to do a stabbing. If the Romans know anything, it's how to stab a guy. Yeah.
Yeah, like you're just not trying very hard. So what occurs is that in early December, Vespasian's troops arrive outside of Rome. They storm Rome and there is some terrible battles on the streets of Rome. The Cassius Dio says that 50,000 people died, generally knock a zero off at like, but still that's quite a lot of people dying in a tight city. A lot of buildings are destroyed, including the Temple of Jupiter Capitulinus.
Vitellius spends quite a lot of time hiding in various places around the palace and it's said that when he is eventually found he is hiding inside a doorkeeper's like nook and he has piled up like mattresses in front of the door. Imagine
Imagine being that guy when you know that your predecessor was like this noble suicide because he didn't want any more fighting. And then you are so craven that you not only let people fight for as long as they will, but you hide in a closet with a bunch of mattresses. Yes. Like you're not even out there like leading the charge or anything or fighting for your own power. Yeah.
Killing yourself. Anyway, so they manage to find Vitellius, they arrest him, and they kind of horribly execute him by throwing him down the Gamolian stairs and then beheading him. And he dies on the 20th of December, 69 C. So Vespasian really just gets there at the last moment to claim his spot. He gets the last 11 days. LAUGHTER
So the last 11 days, the Senate immediately accepts Vespasian as emperor because they are wimps. They're just like every time a guy turns up in their vicinity and says, I'm the emperor now, they go, oh, OK. What are we going to do? Yeah, well, I don't see that I have anything to... He's not there. He's still in Egypt. He's in Egypt until July 70. OK.
Like, he does not turn up for ages. But 69th, 20th of December, he is proclaimed emperor by the Senate, which is, like, the only way that you get to, like, definitively say that you are the emperor is if the Senate has agreed it. And that is the final 11 days nobody manages to declare themselves emperor in the last week and a half. And then failing to get there under the last week, they just give up and we have just Vespasian. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
And then we have Vespasian for, yeah, like three decades. Yeah, it really was just one year where anyone could do it if they wanted. But once that year was over, forget about it. There is another attempt, I will say, that in January 70, the German troops have another go. And a guy who claims to be the descendant of Julius Caesar sort of declares himself emperor. But that's defeated kind of fairly quickly by Vespasian's son-in-law.
And it doesn't really trouble anybody. And it's like me saying I'm the emperor. Nobody's particularly bothered by it. And then this begins the Flavian dynasty, which goes to last for almost 50 years. Mm-hmm.
So, and that is the year of the four emperors, which is primarily the year of two emperors. Yeah. And two guys who managed to squeeze in for two weeks at the beginning and at the end. Yeah. Which is good for them, I suppose. And like, you have to be grateful to them because if they hadn't done that, then two emperors just isn't as exciting. Like, that couldn't happen to anyone. No, the year of the two emperors is just...
I mean, an emperor dies in March, another one becomes emperor the next day. That's the year of the two emperors. Yeah, any year an emperor dies is the year of the two emperors. Yeah. This is one of the best documented periods of Roman history because it really stressed people out quite a lot. Because this is, up until this point, Roman emperors have been a member of a single family. Mm-hmm.
And Augustus was very, very clear and very, very stressed about there being a line of blood descent from him to his successor to the next successor. This is the thing, you need some sort of organised system into how someone becomes a leader. And once you've decided not to be a republic...
and to be some form of a monarchy instead, then you have to keep that hole because either you're voting or it's inherited or it's chaos. Like there's no other option. There's no other option. Yeah. Augustus did his best, I will say. He kind of sets up
a system that works for him because he's very, very aware of it. So he trained at every point in his reign, he is training a successor and has a clear line of succession from him should he die. Yeah, which is part of your job if you're in leadership. I don't care whether you are like the manager of a retail shop or if you are the president or emperor, part of your job is to make sure there is someone to take over from you
I get really intense about this right now because of all the Democrats who are holding on to power and then dying in office and leaving, like, contributing to the rapid spiral of disaster. Get out of the way. Plan for your ability to get out of the way. Yes, and they...
The rest of the Julio-Claudian emperors don't really learn this. Or when they do, they don't really learn it particularly well. So, like, Claudius is the only other person who attempts to do the same thing, which is to have princes of youth to be giving gently hand, like, giving powers to a clear successor, which is Nero. So, which is why, apart from the fact that he is murdered, the transition of power to him is quite non-violent. Yeah.
up until the end there it's fine apart from the fact that Claudius dies violently the acceptance of Nero is very bloodless and easy and everybody's fine with it because he has set up Nero clearly to be his successor but Nero is very young he's 19 when he becomes emperor he's only like 37 when he dies and
And he's not really interested in ruling, so he never does this. He has no surviving children and he executes all of his cousins. So he, instead of kind of setting up a clear line of succession, should anything happen to him, he deliberately gets rid of everybody. He just kind of salts the ground behind him.
Yeah. And Tiberius does the exact same thing. It just happens that he can't, there are so many of them at the time when Tiberius is doing it that he doesn't manage to get rid of every member of the family. But they have been slimmed down a lot by the time of Nero. And so when Nero gets rid of his last cousins like Retelius and all these guys who are kind of loosely related, there's no one left. Yeah.
And so there are no real proper Julio-Claudians who can take over. And he hasn't given anybody any of the tribunician power, any of the imperium, any of the layers of power that are required to be emperor, which is what Augustus kind of thought that they should do. And so all that is open is for other people
What Galbus realises is that Augustus took the throne with an army. And if Augustus did that, then that means that the throne is open to anybody with an army. And whether he consciously realises this or whether he just hits upon it, he exposes the flaw that the system...
is a military dictatorship. And if it's a military dictatorship, then anybody with a military can have it. And as soon as he exposes that, every other guy with an army, which is a lot of them around the empire, can have a wee go. Which is why every time...
you get a crisis of succession, you get every guy who leads more than two legions declaring that they are the emperor. Because... Because they've got the power to make it happen. Yeah, and because the Senate...
were fucking wimps and went along with it and had no power to stand up to it. The Praetorian Guard does not answer to them at all. They don't have their own army. They have no power. Every time a guy with a sword comes in and says they're the emperor, they just roll over and show their bellies. And they were the only people who could have...
stopped it, but the guys with armies are senators. So everybody in the Senate is really thinking, well, next time it might be me who's in charge of Germany. Yeah. So this is the point at which the actual system of what the Roman Imperium is now.
cracks open so everybody can see that it's a military dictatorship open to everybody with an army and nobody tries to fix that, really. It's just an example of the fact that any system of governance is inherently fragile. Like, it rests on a balance between the power of office and the people who are governed because there are always going to be more people
being governed yeah so like yes it's it's there is no perfect system if you miss no there isn't for long enough then someone will topple it and the roman system was particularly poor because in order to be a decent emperor you have to keep
kind of various sets of people happy. And it is quite challenging to do that. You need to keep the armies happy and the Praetorian Guard a part of that and they have their own interests. You need to keep the Senate happy and they have their own interest. You need to sort of keep the people happy. They're not going to overthrow you, but if you lose their sympathy, then it's going to give other people ideas. And you need to keep your court happy and your court...
are like simultaneously the imperial family the imperial familia so the enslaved and freed people in the family like Domitian is killed by a freedman who is being investigated for embezzling laughter
Like just real petty. Yeah. And you need to keep those people happy as well. So it's a real balance of how you do this. And it's incredibly hard. And a lot of them resort to just trying to terrorize people. Yeah. And very, very few men have the balance of skills that you need to be able to do it. Yeah. And none of these guys did, as it turned out.
Except maybe Otho, but we'll never know. Yeah, poor Otho. Poor Otho. Yeah. Okay, so that is the deal, what happened in 69. Yeah. So next time we're going to go through the four emperors. And do some ratings. And rate them, exactly. And decide who we think the best one is. With the caveat that one of them gets significantly better press than the others. LAUGHTER
Perfect. That's great. Yes. Any thoughts so far? I mean, you really can't... I think on the rankings as you have established them, Otho just doesn't really get a chance to compete, you know? Yes. Yes. He definitely shows some good masculine, noble qualities. He's going to do well there. But yeah, it's...
I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to get into it properly. Yeah, we'll have to get into it properly. I'm going to try... I've opened up immediately that Otho is my favourite. Yeah. Which I hopefully will balance out the fact that Vespasian is every historian's favourite.
And the other two, I'm trying to be open with my biases. Yeah, yeah. And hopefully people will forgive me and people can tell me their favourites. And I will say, yeah, but what about Otho though? What about poor sweet Otho? Poor sweet Otho. Who accidentally fell in love with his wife. I've been right.
And he was punished for that. And then he just didn't want anyone to get hurt. He had a real horror of civil war and he just didn't want anyone to get hurt. He just felt real sad about it. And I think that's laudable. Yeah. Yeah. What a nice man. But anyway...
That's for next time. He does do some less nice stuff in his youth, which we'll come to. We'll come to that. But that's for next time. Where can people ask us questions and things, Janina? You can ask us questions and things at historyofsixty.com. There's a little wee form you can fill out to request a topic.
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Kat doesn't have any time or brain. No. Outside of that. But soon, when that is done, we will do another. After the end of June. After the end of June, we will do another bonus episode on something. Yes. Yeah. And if you support for over five pounds, then you get a sticker from my very own hands. And at any level, you get our eternal support and love. Yeah. And yeah,
Yeah, I think that's about it. I will say that I have a History of Sex t-shirt which says History is Hot on it and I wore it to a beer festival and three people stopped me to tell me how much they like my t-shirt. So if you wish to have people stop you to tell you how much they like your t-shirt, you can buy a History of Sex t-shirt. I get more compliments on that t-shirt than I think any other t-shirt that I own. That's beautiful. That's how cool you can be if you have a History of Sex t-shirt. Until next time then, Janina.
Bye.