Birthday Greetings #61

Some people inherit empires, the throne passes from father to son in a seamless transition while the collection of thugs, chancers and freakshows collectively described as the aristocracy look on approvingly.  Others make use of the access to sharp pointy things that high rank in the army provides to promote themselves a little further than perhaps their predecessor expected.  Still others sleaze, manipulate and cut deals which result in them slithering onto a jewel crusted throne despite the fond hopes of various other candidates.  Finally there is the occasional guy just wandering blamelessly past minding his own business when a bunch of people throw a purple robe at him and say something like, "Congratulations your majesty, try not to piss off the army."

As an example of the last category our current birthday boy is a little hard to beat.  Happy birthday to Marcus Coeccius Nerva Caesar Augustus, more commonly known to us as Nerva.  He was a Roman emperor and his principal qualification for the job seems to be that he was in the vicinity when his predecessor came down with an acute case of assassination.

Nerva's background is somewhat obscure.  Of course by "obscure" I mean obscure for a high ranking member of the Roman establishment who had already held a consulship and was a member of the senate.  I don't mean obscure like the bulk of the Roman population of whom we know nothing and care less.  Still Nerva's background is a little "grey".  He didn't follow the usual "course of honour" for a high ranking nobleman but nevertheless he seems to have been if not at the centre of power then just slightly adjacent to the centre of power for much of his adult life.  He survived Nero, the Year of the Four Emperors and then in turn Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.  None of them thought he was worth killing.  All of them seemed to trust him.  When you consider that a lot of these people wound up killing each other its entirely possible that someone who could persuade each and every one of them that he was on their side while maintaining enough anonymity so that he wasn't purged by the succeeding administration was a very dark horse indeed.

Nerva's immediate predecessor was Domitian who got himself murdered by a conspiracy that Nerva appears to have had no part in.  But then Nerva appears to have had very little part in anything yet at the time of the killing he was a senior senator with two consulships under his belt.  Possibly attempting to explain the choice historians have pointed to the fact that he was elderly and childless and could be considered a "safe pair of hands".  Nerva increased his popularity with the senate by promising not to have any of them killed unless, you know, he really had to.

Possibly a quiet non entity (or someone who could produce a reasonable facade of quiet non entityness) was exactly what the empire needed while everybody calmed down and got over Domitian who by all accounts was a bit of psycho.  Nerva certainly made all the right noises; no more treason trials, fortunes confiscated by Domitian were returned, exiles were invited to come home.  This coupled with tax relief and a public works programme seemed designed to get people feeling a bit happier about Nerva on the throne.  Unfortunately all of this cost money which couldn't be completely defrayed by Nerva auctioning off Domitian's old furniture.  As a coherent economic policy a garage sale wasn't considered to quite cut it.

In addition to financial woes there was a certain amount of murderous anarchy going on.  This was basically the Roman equivalent of political debate but it was starting to get out of hand.  While Nerva had abolished treason trials he hadn't stopped informers from operating.  The result was a free for all of everybody denouncing everybody else while simultaneously trying to cover their own arse and reassure anyone who listened of their own undying loyalty (although who to was sometimes a little difficult to discern).  Finally the army in the form of the Praetorian Guard stepped forward and pointed out that senatorial opposition notwithstanding they had rather liked Domitian and would Nerva please hand over his killers for hideous retribution followed (if it was considered necessary) by a fair trial.  Nerva refused.  The Praetorians insisted.  Their method of insisting included laying siege to the palace that Nerva was currently living in.

The histories point out that Nerva caved, handed over the murderers and adopted a well liked and popular soldier as his heir.  That's true; on the other hand he is pretty much the only person the Praetorians disliked who emerged from a meeting with them with all of his blood still in his body.  There was something about this guy.  Anyway the handover of the killers and the adoption of Trajan (a wine happy pederast from Spain) as his heir pretty much settled everything to everyone's satisfaction.  A few months later Nerva died of natural causes (a stroke followed by a fever.  As far as we can tell it wasn't a sword stroke) and Trajan took over in a seamless transition while the collection of thugs, chancers and freakshows collectively described as the aristocracy looked on approvingly.