Crisis of the last Antonines

The Crisis of the Last Antonines refers to the period of rule under the last Antonine emperor, following the era of the Five Good Emperors. The reign of Emperor Commodus plunged the Empire into a deep crisis, raising questions about its very survival.

As in many crises within the Roman Empire, the Praetorian Guard played a central role—this was the name Rome retained for the steel walls surrounding tyrants. Ten cohorts (seven thousand men) were enough to ensure the ruler's security and maintain his regime. Their task was to guard the state's security, for which they were well paid. If the head of state perceived a threat to the borders, he sent the Guard there. We have seen several Praetorian Prefects heroically fall on the Danube. But when power was locked away on the Palatine, turned into a brothel, these seven thousand men performed only police functions. In this case, such excessive force could only cultivate fear, justifying its existence. Repressions would escalate and ultimately collapse under their own weight.

Certainly, the much larger army could have easily brought the privileged corps of Italians and Dalmatians to order, especially since it was envied. Its generals (Perennius had to leave them in place) were competent men whom Marcus Aurelius had found among the senators or introduced into the Senate. Only they could hold Britain and Spain, where unrest had resumed, secure the frontier from the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube, and maintain control in the East. This was a nursery of potential emperors: Helvius Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and Septimius Severus. When the time came, they would act. But at that moment, the lawful power was with Commodus, and they were all interested in staying away from Rome, monitoring events among the soldiers they were gradually turning into loyal clients. Perennius calculated the risks and benefits of keeping them in their posts. He intended to replace these patricians with men of his own class—legatees from the equestrian order. On his first attempt, he died, seemingly by accident. Yet no legion entered Rome, as such a sacrilege would mean the state was already falling apart. Besides, which general would allow another to pass? All precedents of this kind had been suicidal.

Emperor Commodus, 2nd century CE

Did the people, who soon saw their emperor turn into a gladiator, stop treating him with the adoration they had when he returned in triumph in October 180? Commodus arrived on his chariot, so handsome and radiant that almost no one noticed he was embracing Saoterus and kissing him on the lips. The "short-lived love of the Roman people" that Tacitus spoke of could last as long as the emperor called them to spectacles where he personally killed a hundred lions with a hundred arrows. But one day, for fun, he shot at the spectators, and the tide immediately turned. Still, nothing changed until his concubine Marcia, who was also in danger, ordered his assassination. Only then did the people recall all his transgressions.

Finally, the political forces represented by the aristocratic Senate, which still held the highest administrative posts, wealth, clientele, and legitimacy, could not be ignored. In the past, this class had often been decimated for its fierce, if not courageous, resistance to the emperor. Now, it faced destruction again, but in a more ignominious way. Moreover, it was due to the senators' mistakes that Commodus' pathology worsened in the second year of his reign. In 182, Lucilla, angered by losing her first place in protocol to her new sister-in-law Crispina, instigated a conspiracy. Although Lucilla's second marriage was to a "new man," Pompeianus, her father had preserved the privileges of Augusta for her, and after Faustina's death, she became the first lady of the Empire. She easily found co-conspirators among the senatorial youth who despised Commodus. Together with her lover and cousin, Ummidius Quadratus, she decided to kill her brother. The assassin was to be Claudius Quintianus, another of her lovers, and a nephew of Pompeianus (who did not live with his wife and was undoubtedly unaware of the plot). They acted in mid-182.

At the appointed time, Quintianus, among the courtiers awaiting the emperor, stood at the entrance to the circus and rushed at him with a dagger, pathetically exclaiming, "This is from the Senate!" But the bodyguards immediately seized him. He only managed to scratch Commodus, who suffered a nervous shock from which he never recovered. Quadratus, Quintianus, and several others were executed; Lucilla was exiled to Capri and later killed. Perennius then had only to eliminate his rivals, starting with Tarrutenius Paternus. Commodus placed the Senate under his personal supervision and eventually handed it over to the control of his friends—gladiators. From that point on, only his inner circle could remove him, but like a cornered beast, he managed to pit one favorite against another for a long time.

By what hidden mechanisms did these harem intrigues and personal vices—about which the Roman populace knew little, the provincials nothing, and the legionaries refused to hear—ultimately destabilize the Antonine Empire? Should we believe, as some modern historians do, that they have no relation to the economic crisis that began under Marcus Aurelius, to the social unrest (Gaul was terrorized by "great brotherhoods" of bandits), or to the military anarchy that would become chronic by the century's end? This would imply that moral factors in public history are not primary. The dullness of Commodus, the rage of his sister, and the depravity of eastern adventurers shook the order in Rome and affected the entire system of Imperial governance. Starting from the revulsion or fear honest officials felt toward the corruption of power, irresponsibility gradually paralyzed the immense apparatus. The Empire was fortunate that Marcia—Commodus' concubine, a Christian freedwoman—put an end to this madness when Marcus Aurelius' associates: Pertinax, Pompeianus, and Septimius Severus, could at least attempt to restore the system.

History does not stop, but the history we encountered at the height of the hopes of the Annius Verus clan ends here. There were no more Antonines. Pertinax and four more emperors would be elevated and deposed by the Praetorians, destroying each other until only one remained standing: Septimius Severus. The Afro-Syrian dynasty would replace the Hispano-Gallic Roman one, which had ruled for ninety-four years.

Crisis of the last Antonines

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