Didius Julianus

The great-grandfather of Didius Julianus, who after Pertinax obtained the empire, was Salvius Julianus, twice consul, prefect of the city, and a jurist—which made him the more noble. His mother was Clara Aemilia, his father Petronius Didius Severus, his brothers Didius Proculus and Nummius Albinus, his uncle Salvius Julianus; his paternal grandfather was an Insubrian of Milan, his maternal from the colony of Hadrumetum. He was reared at the house of Domitia Lucilla, the mother of the emperor Marcus. He was chosen among the Board of Twenty by the recommendation of Marcus' mother; he was designated quaestor a year before the lawful age allowed. He obtained the aedileship by Marcus' recommendation. He was praetor by the recommendation of the same. After the praetorship he commanded in Germany the Twenty-second Legion, the Primigenia. Thence he governed Belgica holily and for a long time. There, when the Chauci, peoples of Germany who dwelt by the river Elbe, broke out, he withstood them with the tumultuary auxiliaries of the provincials, for which he earned the consulship by the testimony of the emperor. He also subdued the Chatti in war. Thence he received Dalmatia to govern and delivered it from the bordering enemies. Afterward he governed Lower Germany;

after this he earned the charge of the food-allowances in Italy. Then he was made defendant, through a certain Severus, a most distinguished soldier, on a charge of conspiracy with Salvius against Commodus; but by Commodus—because he had already killed many senators, and indeed noble and powerful ones, on charges of treason—lest he be too grievously burdened, Didius was acquitted, the accuser being condemned. Acquitted, he was again sent to govern a province. He then governed Bithynia, but not with that reputation with which he had governed the others. He was consul with Pertinax and succeeded the same man in the proconsulship of Africa, and was always called his colleague and successor—especially on that day when Julianus, betrothing his daughter to his kinsman, had come to Pertinax and made this known; he said: ". . . with due reverence, because he is my colleague and successor." For at once the death of Pertinax followed. When he had been killed, and Sulpicianus wished to be called emperor in the camp, and Julianus had come with his son-in-law to the senate, which he had heard was summoned, and had found the doors shut, and there had found two tribunes, Publius Florianus and Vectius Aper, the tribunes began to urge him to seize the opportunity. When he told them that another had already been called emperor, they, holding him back, led him to the Praetorian Camp. But after they came to the camp, since Sulpicianus, the prefect of the city, father-in-law of Pertinax, was holding an assembly and claiming the empire for himself, and no one admitted Julianus, who from the wall was promising vast sums, Julianus first warned the praetorians not to make him emperor who would avenge Pertinax; then he wrote on tablets that he would restore the memory of Commodus. And thus he was admitted and called emperor, the praetorians asking that he do no harm to Sulpicianus, because he had wished to be emperor.

Then Julianus made Flavius Genialis and Tullius Crispinus prefects of the guard, by the recommendation of the praetorians, and was surrounded by an imperial throng through Maurentius, who before too had attached himself to Sulpicianus. Indeed, though he had promised the soldiers twenty-five thousand each, he gave thirty thousand. Then, a military assembly being held, he came in the evening into the senate and committed himself wholly to the senate; and, a decree of the senate being made, he was called emperor, and earned the tribunician power and proconsular right, being enrolled among the patrician families. His wife too, Manlia Scantilla, and his daughter Didia Clara were called Augustae. Thence he withdrew to the Palace, his wife and daughter being summoned thither, who crossed over trembling and unwilling, as if they already foreboded the impending destruction. He made Cornelius Repentinus, his son-in-law, prefect of the city in place of Sulpicianus. Meanwhile Didius Julianus was in the hatred of the people, for this reason: that it had been believed that the correction of the times of Commodus was to be repaired by the authority of Pertinax, and it was held that he had been killed by the design of Julianus. And now those who had first begun to hate Julianus spread the report that on the very first day, the dinner of Pertinax being despised, he had prepared a luxurious banquet adorned with oysters and fattened fowls and fish—which it is established was false. For Julianus is reported to have been of such great frugality that he would divide a piglet over three days, a hare over three days, if anyone by chance had sent him one; and often, no religious scruple existing, he dined content with vegetables and pulse, without meat. Then he did not even dine before Pertinax was buried, and most sorrowful, on account of his murder, he took food, and continued the first night in wakefulness, anxious over so great a necessity.

But as soon as it grew light, he admitted the senate and the equestrian order coming to the Palace, and addressed each one—as his age was—as either brother or son or father, most ingratiatingly. But the people on the Rostra and before the senate-house assailed him with great abuse, hoping that the empire which the soldiers had given could be laid down by him. They made a stoning too; as he was going down with the soldiers and the senate into the senate-house, they imprecated curses upon him; as he was performing the sacred rites, they wished that the offering might not be favorable. They threw stones too at him, though Julianus always wished to pacify them with his hand. Having entered the senate-house, he spoke calmly and prudently; he gave thanks that he had been chosen, and that both he and his wife and his daughter had received the name of Augusti. He received the name of Father of his Country too; the silver statue he refused. As he went from the senate to the Capitol, the people stood in his way, but by iron and wounds and the promises of gold pieces, which Julianus himself showed on his fingers to give them assurance, they were removed and driven off. Thence there was a going to the spectacle of the circus. But the benches of all being occupied indifferently, the people doubled their abuse against Julianus; they called Pescennius Niger, who was already said to be reigning, to the protection of the city. All these things Julianus bore calmly, and through the whole time of his reign he was most mild. The people, moreover, inveighed most vehemently against the soldiers, who had killed Pertinax for money. Many things, therefore, which Commodus had established and Pertinax had abolished, he restored, to conciliate the favor of the people. Concerning Pertinax himself he did neither ill nor well—which seemed most grievous to very many. But it was established that, on account of fear of the soldiers, there was silence concerning the honor of Pertinax.

And Julianus indeed feared neither the British armies nor the Illyrian; but Niger he had ordered, a chief centurion being sent, to be killed, fearing especially the Syrian armies. So Pescennius Niger in Syria and Septimius Severus in Illyricum, with the armies over which they presided, revolted from Julianus. But when it was announced to him that Severus had revolted, whom he had not held as suspect, he was thrown into confusion and came to the senate and obtained that Severus should be declared a public enemy; a day too was appointed for the soldiers who had followed Severus, beyond which, if they were with Severus, they would be held in the number of enemies. There were sent, moreover, legates of consular rank by the senate to the soldiers, who should persuade them that Severus be rejected, and that he be emperor whom the senate had chosen. Among the rest there was sent as legate Vespronius Candidus, an old man of consular rank, formerly hateful to the soldiers on account of his harsh and mean command. There was sent as successor to Severus, Valerius Catullinus, as if a successor could be given to him who already held the soldiery for himself. There was sent, moreover, the centurion Aquilius, known for senatorial murders, to kill Severus. Julianus himself, moreover, orders the praetorians to be led out to the field and the towers to be fortified; but the soldiers, idle and dissolved by urban luxury, he brought forth most unwilling to military exercise, so that they hired substitutes for the work which was prescribed to each.

And Severus indeed was coming toward the city with a hostile column, but Didius Julianus accomplished nothing with the praetorian army, which day by day the people both more hated and laughed at. And Julianus, suspecting Laetus to be a supporter of Severus—though through him he had escaped the hands of Commodus, ungrateful for so great a benefit—ordered him to be killed; he ordered Marcia too to be killed along with him. But while Julianus did these things, Severus seized the fleet of Ravenna; the legates of the senate, who had promised Julianus their aid, went over to Severus. Tullius Crispinus, the prefect of the guard, sent against Severus to bring out the fleet, was repulsed and returned to Rome. When Julianus saw these things, he asked the senate that the Vestal Virgins and the other priests, together with the senate, should go forth to meet the army of Severus, and, holding out their fillets, should plead—preparing an empty thing against barbarian soldiers. Yet, as Julianus was doing these things, Plautius Quintilius, a man of consular rank and augur, contradicted him, asserting that he ought not to reign who could not resist his adversary with arms; with whom many senators agreed. Wherefore, angered, Didius sought soldiers from the camp who should force the senate to obedience or cut it down. But this plan was displeasing, for it was not fitting that, since the senate had judged Severus a public enemy for Julianus' sake, it should endure that same Julianus as a foe. Wherefore, by a better counsel, he came to the senate and asked that a decree of the senate be made concerning a partnership of empire, which was at once done.

Then the omen which Julianus had made for himself, when he received the empire, came into the minds of all; for when a consul designate, giving his opinion about him, had thus pronounced, "I judge that Didius Julianus ought to be called emperor," Julianus suggested, "Add 'and Severus'"—which surname Julianus had assumed for himself from his grandfather and great-grandfather. There are, however, those who say that there was no plan of Julianus to cut down the senate, since the senate had decreed so great things in his favor. After the decree of the senate, Didius Julianus at once sent one of the prefects, Tullius Crispinus; he himself, moreover, made a third prefect, Veturius Macrinus, to whom Severus had sent a letter that he should be prefect. But that the peace was feigned, and the murder of Severus charged to Tullius Crispinus, the prefect of the guard, both the people said and Severus suspected; finally Severus preferred to be an enemy to Julianus rather than a partner, by the consent of the soldiers. Severus, moreover, at once both wrote to very many at Rome and secretly sent edicts, which were posted up. There was, besides, in Julianus this madness, that he did very many things through magicians, by which he thought either the hatred of the people might be soothed or the arms of the soldiers checked. For they sacrificed certain victims not in accordance with Roman rites and chanted profane incantations, and those things which they say are done before a mirror—into which boys, with their eyes bound and their head charmed, are said to look back—Julianus did; and then a boy is said to have seen both the coming of Severus and the departure of Julianus.

And Crispinus indeed, when he had met the advance guards of Severus, was killed by Severus, at the instigation of Julius Laetus. The decrees of the senate too were overturned. Julianus, the senate being convened and their opinions sought as to what needed to be done, learned nothing certain from the senate; but afterward, of his own accord, he ordered gladiators to be armed at Capua through Lollianus Titianus, and called Claudius Pompeianus from Tarracina to a partnership, because he had been the son-in-law of an emperor and had long commanded soldiers. But he refused this, replying that he was old and weak in his eyes. Soldiers from Umbria too had gone over to Severus; and Severus had indeed sent ahead a letter in which he ordered the killers of Pertinax to be preserved. In a short time Julianus was deserted by all and remained in the Palace with one of his prefects, Genialis, and his son-in-law Repentinus. At last it was brought about that the empire should be taken from Julianus by the authority of the senate, and it was taken away, and Severus was at once called emperor, while it was pretended that Julianus had destroyed himself with poison. Yet men were sent by the senate, by whose care this same Julianus was killed in the Palace by a common soldier, imploring the faith of the Caesar—that is, of Severus. Having obtained the empire, he had emancipated his daughter, a patrimony being given her, which was at once taken from her along with the name of Augusta. His body was returned by Severus to his wife Manlia Scantilla and his daughter for burial, and was carried into the monuments of his great-grandfather, at the fifth milestone on the Labican Way.

These things indeed were charged against Julianus: that he had been a glutton, that he was a dicer, that he was practised in gladiatorial arms—and that he did all these things as an old man, though before, as a young man, he had never been disgraced by these vices. He was charged too with arrogance, although he had been most humble even in the empire; but he was, on the contrary, most courteous at banquets, most kindly in his rescripts, most moderate toward liberty. He lived fifty-six years and four months; he reigned two months and five days. It was reproached in him especially that he had himself made those, whom he ought to have ruled by his authority, presidents over himself for the governing of the state.