Birthday Greetings #59

Happy birthday to Publius Helvius Pertinax Augustus more commonly known (now at any rate) as Pertinax.  Pertinax was the first emperor in the period that would become known as "The Year of the Five Emperors".  Already you can tell that things aren't going to turn out well.  But before Pertinax wound up wrapped in "the noblest winding sheet of all" he had quite a staggering career progression.

Pertinax was the son of a freed slave and from there sank to the level of grammar teacher before persuading somebody with clout to give him an officer's commission in a legionary cohort.  Fortunately for Pertinax there seemed to be an abundance of wars for him to prove his competence, against the Parthians mostly but also front line stints in Britain and the Danube frontier.  Pertinax proved himself hard and competent and promotions and membership of the Senate followed.  One can almost imagine the more traditionally minded senators muttering "Ex-slaves, fine but a grammar teacher?  Is this what the Senate has been reduced to?"  The answer was "yes".

Still Pertinax seemed fit to redeem the reputation of grammar teachers everywhere.  A suffect consulship followed plus governorships and an increasing role in the Senate.  One event should have given him a little warning of things to come.  He was sent to Britain as governor largely because the army there was murderous, mutinous and ill disciplined (murderous was all right and ill disciplined could be tolerated but mutinous was a bit of a problem).  Pertinax attempted to restore stern discipline.  The soldiers took it quite well in the circumstances, they attacked him and his bodyguard and left him for dead.  Not taking the hint Pertinax recovered and redoubled his attempts to discipline the troops.  He was actually forced to resign on the grounds that the troops had lost faith in him.

Still this didn't damage his career too much and he wound up as proconsul of Africa and followed that up by becoming Urban Prefect of Rome.  Urban Prefect was a good job to have if you were ambitious, particularly if the emperor was mad, hated or just careless.  The current emperor, Commodus, was an interesting blend of all three.

Whether Pertinax was involved in the subsequent plot is unclear but after Commodus was strangled to death by his wrestling partner (a term that may or may not be a euphemism) it was Pertinax who turned up at the Praetorian camp measuring himself for laurel wreaths and purple cloth.  This time it was the Praetorians who failed to take the hint.  What the world's most mutinous, disputatious, arrogant pack of thugs in uniform thought they were doing elevating a strict disciplinarian to the imperial throne is anybody's guess but it didn't take them long to realise it was a mistake.  Eighty six days to be precise.

Sadly for Pertinax when it came to not hint taking he was the absolute master.  Despite his experiences in Britain he made a concerted attempt to reimpose discipline on the Praetorians.  If that wasn't bad enough he undertook currency reform, tried to reform the grain supply and generally overdosed all the sleazy, devious, brutal corrupt vermin hanging around Rome on reform.

Frankly he was lucky to last eighty six days.  At the end of that time the Praetorians stormed into his palace and killed him very dead indeed.  The lack of an immediate successor indicates that for once the Praetorians hadn't been bought but were acting on their own account.  This left them with the embarrassing position of having an empire with no emperor.  Somewhat belatedly they started casting around to see if anyone wanted the job.  Necessary qualifications included being rich enough to bribe the crap out of them and being stupid enough to want the job in the first place.  Strangely they found two, they selected the higher bidder and gave him the job.  He lasted sixty six days.