Pescennius Niger

It is rare and difficult that those whom the victory of others has made into tyrants should be well consigned to literature; and for this reason scarcely everything about them is fully contained in records and annals. For, first, those things which are great are corrupted, in their honor, by the writers; then other things are suppressed; finally, no great diligence is taken concerning their family and life, since it is enough to set forth their audacity and the war in which they were defeated and their punishment. Pescennius Niger, then, as some hand down, is said to have been of modest parents, as others, of noble ones—his father Annius Fuscus, his mother Lampridia, his grandfather a curator at Aquinum, from which the family drew its origin; which indeed is even now held doubtful. He was moderately educated in letters, fierce in character, immoderate in riches, sparing in his way of life; of unbridled lust toward every kind of desire. He long commanded maniples and came to many commands, so that he governed the Syrian armies by order of Commodus, chiefly by the recommendation of the athlete who strangled Commodus—as everything was then done.

After he had learned that Commodus was killed, that Julianus was called emperor and the same man killed by order of Severus and the senate, and that Albinus too had taken in Gaul the name and right of an emperor, he was hailed emperor by the Syrian armies which he governed—as some say, more in hatred of Julianus than in rivalry with Severus. To him, out of detestation of Julianus, in the first days of his rule, such favor was shown at Rome—by the senators at least, who also hated Severus—that, amid the stonings and execrations of all, men wished him good fortune, and the people acclaimed "him as prince, may the gods grant it, and him as Augustus." For the populace hated Julianus, because the soldiers had killed Pertinax and had called that man emperor against the people's will. Finally, on this account there were huge seditions. To kill Niger, moreover, Julianus had sent a chief centurion—foolishly, against one who had armies and could defend himself, just as if any sort of emperor could be killed by a chief centurion. And with the same madness Julianus had also sent a successor against Severus, now already prince; finally he had even sent Aquilius, a centurion known for the killing of generals, as if so great an emperor could be killed by a centurion. There was an equal insanity, finally, in that he is reported to have treated with Severus, by injunction, concerning the empire, so that he might seem to have forestalled the principate by law.

And the judgment of the people concerning Pescennius Niger appeared from this: that when Julianus was giving games of the circus at Rome, and the benches of the Circus Maximus had been filled without distinction, and a great wrong had been done to the people, by all with one consent Pescennius Niger was demanded for the protection of the city—out of hatred, as we have said, of Julianus and love of the slain Pertinax. When indeed Julianus is reported to have said that neither to himself nor to Pescennius was a long reign owed, but to Severus, who was rather to be held in hatred by the senators, the soldiers, the provincials, the populace—which the outcome of the matter proved. And Pescennius indeed had been a most close friend of Severus at the time when he was governing the province of Lugdunensis; for he himself had been sent to apprehend the deserters who, countless, were then harassing the Gauls; and because in that office he conducted himself honorably, he was most pleasing to Severus, so that Septimius reported about him to Commodus, asserting him a man necessary to the state; and in truth he was vigorous in military matters. Never under him did a soldier extort from a provincial wood, oil, or labor. He himself received nothing from a soldier; when he held a tribunate, he allowed nothing to be taken. For even as emperor he ordered two tribunes, who, it was established, had taken bribes for furloughs, to be stoned to death by the auxiliaries. There survives a letter of Severus, in which he writes to Ragonius Celsus, who was governing the Gauls: "It is a wretched thing that we cannot imitate the military discipline of the man whom we conquered in war. Your soldiers wander about; the tribunes bathe at midday; for dining-rooms they have cook-shops, for bedchambers brothels; they dance, drink, sing, and call this the measure of their banquets, when they have drunk without measure. Would these things happen, if any vein of ancestral discipline lived? Correct, therefore, first the tribunes, then the soldier, whom, as long as he fears, so long will you hold. But know—and this from Niger—that the soldier cannot fear, unless the tribunes and the commanders of the soldiers are upright."

These things about Pescennius said Severus Augustus. Concerning this same man, while still a soldier, Marcus Antoninus wrote to Cornelius Balbus: "You praise Pescennius to me; I recognize him; for your predecessor too called him vigorous of hand, grave in life, and even then more than a soldier. And so I have sent a letter to be read out before the standards, by which I have ordered him to command three hundred Armenians and a hundred Sarmatians and a thousand of our own men. It is your part to show that the man has come, not by canvassing—which does not suit our customs—but by virtue, to that place which my grandfather Hadrian, which Trajan my great-grandfather, gave only to the most thoroughly proven." Concerning this same man, Commodus: "I know Pescennius to be a brave man, and I have already given him two tribunates; I shall soon give him a command, when through old age Aelius Corduenus declines the service of the state." These were the judgments of all about him; but Severus himself too often said that he would have pardoned Pescennius, had he not persisted. By Commodus, finally, Pescennius was declared consul and set over Severus—and indeed when Commodus was angry, that Niger should obtain the consulship on the recommendation of chief centurions. In his own Life Severus says that, before his sons were of an age such that they could rule, when he was ill he had it in mind that, if anything by chance should happen to him, Niger Pescennius and Clodius Albinus should succeed him—both of whom proved most grievous enemies to Severus. Whence it appears what even Severus' judgment of Pescennius

was. If we believe Severus, Niger was eager for glory, feigned in life, base in character, of advanced age when he seized upon the empire; from which he reproaches his ambitions—just as if Severus came younger to the empire, who shortens his own years, since he reigned eighteen years and died in his eighty-ninth. Indeed Severus sent Heraclitus to take possession of Bithynia, and Fulvius to seize Niger's grown sons; nor yet did Severus say anything about Niger in the senate, though he had already heard of his reign; he himself, moreover, set out to settle the state of the East. So much only did he do as he set out, that he sent legions to Africa, lest Pescennius should seize it and press the Roman people hard with famine; for he seemed able to do this through Libya and Egypt, neighbors of Africa, though by a difficult journey and voyage. And Pescennius indeed, as Severus came to the East, held Greece, the Thracias, Macedonia, many illustrious men having been killed, calling Severus to a partnership in the empire; by whom, on account of those whom he had killed, he was, together with Aemilianus, declared a public enemy. Then, fighting through Aemilianus against the generals of Severus, he was defeated; and when Severus promised him a safe exile if he would withdraw from arms, persisting, he fought again and was defeated, and near Cyzicus, fleeing around a marsh, he was wounded, and thus brought to Severus and at once

dead. His head, carried about on a pike, was sent to Rome; his sons were killed, his wife slain, his patrimony confiscated, his whole household destroyed. But all these things were done after the rebellion of Albinus became known; for before, he had sent both Niger's sons and his mother into exile. But the matter flared up in a second civil war—nay, now a third—and he became harsher; then it was that Severus killed countless senators and received from some the name of the Carthaginian Sulla, from others of Marius. He was of ample stature, comely in form, with hair turned back becomingly toward the crown, of a sonorous voice, so that, speaking in the field, he was heard for a mile, unless the wind was against him; of a modest countenance and always ruddy; with a neck so dark that, as many say, from it he received the name of Niger; in the rest of his body white and rather stout; eager for wine, sparing of food, wholly ignorant of the act of love except for the begetting of children. Finally, he even undertook certain rites in Gaul, which by public consent they always decree are to be celebrated by the most chaste men. We see him painted in mosaic, in the curved colonnade of the Commodian gardens, among the most intimate friends of Commodus, carrying the rites of Isis; to which Commodus was so devoted that he both shaved his head and carried Anubis and performed all the halts of the procession. He was therefore an excellent soldier, a singular tribune, an outstanding general, a most severe legate, a distinguished consul, a man conspicuous at home and abroad, an unfortunate emperor; finally, he could have been

of use to the state under Severus, a grim man, had he been willing to be with him; but he was deceived by the perverse counsels of Aurelianus, who, betrothing his daughters to Niger's sons, made him persist in his claim to empire. This man was of such authority that he wrote, first to Marcus, then to Commodus, when he saw the provinces being overturned by the easy changing of administrations: first, that no successor should be given before a five-year period to a provincial governor or legate or proconsul, because they laid down their power before they knew how to administer it; then he urged that no new men should come to the governing of the state apart from military administrations, so that assessors should administer in those provinces in which they had served as assessors—which afterward Severus and many thereafter maintained, as the prefectures of Paulus and Ulpian prove, who were on the council of Papinian, and afterward, when one had served in the office of records, the other of petitions, were at once made prefects. This too was of his counsel, that no one should serve as assessor in his own province, and no one should administer except a Roman at Rome—that is, a man born in the city. He added, moreover, salaries for the councilors, lest they should burden those whom they assisted, saying that a judge ought neither to give nor to take. Toward the soldiers he was of such strictness that, when in Egypt the frontier troops asked wine of him, he replied, "You have the Nile and you seek wine?"—since the sweetness of that river is so great that the dwellers near it do not seek wine. Likewise, when those who had been defeated by the Saracens were in tumult and saying, "We have not received wine, we cannot fight," he said, "Blush! Those who conquer you drink water." Likewise, when the Palestinians asked that their tax be lightened on the ground that it was burdensome, he replied: "You wish your lands to be lightened of tax; I, indeed, would even wish to tax your air."

Finally, the prophet of Delphic Apollo, in the greatest commotion of the state, when it was announced that there were three emperors—Severus Septimius, Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus—being consulted whom it would profit the state to have rule, is said to have poured forth a Greek verse of this kind: "Best is Fuscus, good the African, worst the White man." From which it was understood that Fuscus, by the prophecy, meant Niger; the African, Severus; and the White man, Albinus. Nor was there lacking another inquiry, by which it was asked who would obtain the state; to which the oracle replied with another verse such as this: "The blood of the White and the Black living creature shall be shed; the empire of the world shall a Punic man rule, having set out from the city." Likewise, when it was asked who would succeed him, it is said to have replied likewise with a Greek verse: "He to whom the gods grant to have the name of Pius"—which was not at all understood until Bassianus received the name of Antoninus, which was the true sign of Pius. Likewise, when it was asked how long he would reign, it is said to have replied in Greek: "Twice ten times shall he mount the Italian sea with ships, if yet one raft shall cross the deep." From which it was understood that Severus would complete twenty years.

These things, Diocletian, greatest of Augusti, are what we have learned about Pescennius from many books; for not easily, as we said at the beginning of the book, does anyone consign to books the lives of those who either were not princes in the state, or were not called emperor by the senate, or, killed too quickly, could not come to fame. Hence it is that Vindex lies hidden, that Piso is unknown, that all those who either were only adopted or were called emperor by the soldiers—as Antonius under Domitian—or, quickly killed, laid down their life together with their usurpation of empire. It follows now that I should speak of Clodius Albinus, who is held as a kind of associate of this man, because they both rebelled equally against Severus and were by the same man defeated and killed. Concerning him himself, neither do sufficiently clear things survive, because the same fortune was his as Pescennius', even if his life was quite unlike. And lest we seem to have passed over anything of those things which pertain to Pescennius—although they can be learned in other books—concerning this man the prophets told Septimius Severus that he would come into Severus' power neither alive nor dead, but that he must perish beside waters; which some say Severus himself said, from the astrology in which he was skilled. Nor was truth absent from the responses, since that man was found half-alive beside a marsh.

This man was of such severity that, when he had seen certain soldiers drinking from a silver cup in time of campaign, he ordered all silver to be removed from campaign use, with this added, that they should use wooden vessels—which indeed stirred up against him the hatred of the soldiers. For he said it could happen that the soldiers' baggage might come into the power of the enemy, and that the barbarian nations should not make themselves more glorious by our silver, since other less suitable things seemed to belong to enemy glory. Likewise he ordered that no one should drink wine on campaign, but that all should be content with vinegar. Likewise he forbade bakers to follow the campaign, ordering the soldiers and all to be content with hardtack. Likewise, on account of the plundering of a single cock, he ordered ten messmates, who had eaten the one taken, to be beheaded; and he would have done it, had he not been begged by the whole army, almost to the point of fear of a mutiny; and when he had spared them, he ordered the ten who had together shared in the theft to pay the provincial the price of ten cocks apiece, with this added, that throughout the whole campaign no one in a mess-group should make a fire, lest they should ever take freshly cooked food, but should feed on bread and cold water, sentinels being posted to see to it. Likewise he ordered that soldiers about to go to war should not carry gold or silver coins in their belt, but should commit them publicly, to receive after the battles what they had given—adding that to their children and wives, or at least their heirs, what each had given should be returned, lest any of the booty should come to the enemy, if fortune should chance to do anything adverse. But all these things, given the dissoluteness of the times of Commodus, were unfavorable to him; finally, even if there was no one who seemed in his own times a stricter general, such examples worked rather to his ruin while alive than when dead, when both envy and hatred had been laid aside.

The same man, in every campaign, before all the others, took military food before his tent, nor did he ever seek for himself the favor of a roof, either against the sun or against the rains, if the soldier had none. So much only, finally, in time of war, the rationing demonstrated to the soldiers, did he reckon for himself and his slaves or messmates as much as was carried by the soldiers, since he loaded his own slaves with the ration, lest they should walk free and the soldiers laden—and this was viewed by the army with a sigh. The same man swore in an assembly that, as long as he had been on campaigns and as long as he should still be, he had acted and would act no otherwise than as a soldier, having before his eyes Marius and such generals; nor did he ever hold any other tales than about Hannibal and the rest of such men. Finally, when, after he had been made emperor, a certain man wished to recite a panegyric, he said to him: "Write the praises of Marius or of Hannibal or of any best general now dead, and tell what he did, that we may imitate him. For to praise the living is mockery, especially emperors, from whom things are hoped, who are feared, who can grant publicly, who can kill, who can proscribe." But he himself wished to please while alive, and to be praised even when dead.

Of the princes he loved Augustus, Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, Pius, Marcus, calling the rest stuffed with straw or poisoned. But most of all, in histories, he cherished Marius and Camillus and Quinctius and Marcius Coriolanus. When asked, however, what he thought of the Scipios, he is reported to have said that they were fortunate rather than brave; and that their domestic life and youth proved this, which in each had been less attractive at home. Among all it is established that, if he had obtained power, he would have corrected everything which Severus either could not or would not amend—and that without cruelty, nay, even with mildness, but military, not relaxed and foolish and ridiculous. His house is seen today at Rome in the Field of Jupiter, which is called the Pescennian. In it his image stands in a three-apsed hall, set up of Theban marble, which he had received, made in his own likeness, from a band of Thebans. There survives too a Greek epigram, which in Latin has this sense: "The terror of the Egyptian soldier, Niger stands forth, huge, ally of the Thebaid, wishing for the golden age. Him kings, him peoples love, him golden Rome; he is dear to the Antonines and to the empire. He has the name Black; black we ourselves have formed him, that the form might agree with you, O metal." Which verses indeed Severus was unwilling to have erased, when both his prefects and the masters of the offices suggested this to him, adding: "If he was such a man, let all know whom we have conquered; if he was not such, let all think that we have conquered such a one; nay, let it be so, because he was such."