Let us
suppose that instead of going through the wearisome 4-yearly process of holding
primaries and then a presidential election, the American constitution was set
aside and the office of President was announced on eBay as being available to
the highest bidder. It would certainly take nothing like as long, although some
might claim that the arrangement lacked a little something in terms of
democratic endorsement! Could it happen? Well, something very similar did
actually happen in the year 193, during a turbulent period in the history of
the Roman Empire .
Wanted: a
successor to an unworthy Emperor
The emperor
Commodus had proved to be a latter-day Caligula, in that he had become emperor
at a young age (20 in the case of Commodus), had allowed his unworthy favourites
to have far too much influence, and had led a thoroughly debauched life
including fighting as a gladiator, demanding to be worshipped, and eventually being
murdered by people who feared for their own lives were he to live any longer.
One
consequence of his reign was that the Praetorian Guard, the troops under the
direct command of the emperor who were supposed to be an elite fighting force and
the emperor’s personal bodyguard, had become ill-disciplined and more
interested in acquiring personal wealth and living the good life than anything
else.
When Commodus
was removed in December 192, the new emperor, Pertinax, had a very different
attitude and sought to lick the Guard into shape with a regime of enforced
discipline. He was from an older generation, aged 66 at his accession, who had
originally been a schoolmaster and then a soldier, rising through the ranks
from centurion to general. Although the new approach was no doubt welcomed by
many in Rome, who were sickened by the downward moral spiral of Commodus’s
imperial court, the Guard foresaw their privileged and luxurious lifestyle
coming to an end and were determined not to let that happen. Consequently,
Pertinax was murdered after a reign of less than three months’ duration.
What would
the Praetorian Guard do next?
The
Praetorian Guard now faced a dilemma. Once news reached the outer reaches of the
empire that the post of emperor was again vacant, new candidates were declared
for the post, these being military men who were far more likely to resemble
Pertinax in their attitude towards military discipline than Commodus. The Guard
needed a new Commodus, who would lavish favours upon his closest aides, but how
was such a one to be found?
Somebody then
came up with a brilliant idea, or so it must have seemed at the time. The
person who would pay them most for the job should be the new emperor. Their
loyalty was up for sale, and bids would now be accepted.
An auction is
held
Two bidders
soon appeared on the scene. These were Flavius Sulpicianus, a prefect of the
city, and Didius Salvius Julianus, a senator (aged about 60, pictured above on a coin) who had held
various military and civil posts and grown to be enormously wealthy.
The conduct
of the auction was somewhat farcical, because Sulpicianus was inside the army
camp, having gone there to try to placate the troops, and Julianus was on the
outside, having learned about the auction while at a banquet and persuaded by
his wife and daughter to go along and make a bid.
It would
appear that the soldiers were not prepared to allow a senator to enter the
camp, so he stood at the gate and shouted his bids, these being relayed back
and forth by the soldiers standing inside the gate. The process was therefore
not unlike a modern auction in which one of the bidders is in the room and the
other is on the telephone, with an employee of the auction house announcing the
bids on his behalf.
What was
being debated was not so much the value of the imperial office as the size of
bribe that the candidates were prepared to offer the members of the Guard. It
was therefore an utterly corrupt and despicable procedure. Sulpicianus’s final
bid was 20,000 sestercii per man, but Julianus topped it to bid 25,000
sestercii, at which the guards threw open the gates and declared Julianus to be
the new emperor.
Not such a
good idea after all
If we take on
board the fact that the pay for a legionary at this time was around 1,300
sestercii a year, this offer represented an enormous bonus, and it had to be
multiplied by the number of men in the Praetorian Guard, which could have been
something like 2,000. Even given the vast reputed wealth of men like Julianus,
the size of this sum puts into perspective his desire for the imperial honour.
However,
having achieved the crown, he must have started to regret his decision quite
soon afterwards. The Senate was forced to accept the decision of the Praetorian
Guard, although clearly with great reluctance. The people of Rome also thought
that this was an extremely shabby procedure, such that Julianus was given no
respect whatsoever, with insults and even stones being thrown in his direction
as he passed by.
Things were
to get even worse for him as the troops of Septimius Severus approached Rome
Julianus
offered to share the empire with Severus, but the latter would have none of it,
instead offering a deal to the Praetorian Guard to be lenient with them if they
gave up the murderers of Pertinax to face justice. This was clearly their
safest bet and the one they accepted. The Senate was also emboldened to declare
their loyalty to Severus and pass a death sentence on Julianus.
Julianus was
killed in his palace by a member of the Guard that had organised his purchase
of the empire less than three months previously. Severus executed the guards
who had killed Pertinax, and then disbanded the Praetorian Guard altogether,
later reconstituting it from a fresh beginning.
The
experiment of auctioning the imperial office had been a dismal failure that besmirched
the honour of Rome, and it was not an idea that was ever repeated.
© John
Welford
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