The Histories

Galba (3 BCE-69 CE) was the first of the four emperors to rule in 69 CE. Galba was born into a wealthy family and spent most of his life climbing the cursus honorum, eventually becoming governor of the Spanish province Hispania. In 68 CE, a rebellion broke out against Nero in Gaul, which prompted Galba to also rebel. Once Nero died by suicide, Galba became emperor. This may be the most important impact that Galba had on Rome. By overthrowing Nero, Tacitus states that Galba revealed the “well-hidden secret of the principate” (5): that emperors could gain power from outside Rome. It was this knowledge that caused the later civil wars. As emperor, he had to contend with further rebellions and a nearly bankrupt treasury because of the excesses of Nero. His rule rapidly became unpopular because the financial situation compounded his stinginess, his reliance on corrupt advisors, and his uncompromising attitude, which led to brutal executions. He was also already in his seventies when he became emperor, meaning that his decision of who to appoint heir was one of the most important of his reign. His choice of Piso is among the first events that Tacitus covers and therefore is presented as a key inciting incident in the period “rich with disasters” (3). It was this choice that offended Otho and the Praetorian guard, leading to Otho’s rebellion and Galba’s murder, the first regime change in the text.

Tacitus’s presentation of Galba is as an imperfect but principled ruler who was unable to prevent the civil wars that followed his death but did have a better character than later imperial candidates. Galba is described as “lacking in vices rather than endowed with good qualities” and is presented as someone who would be a good emperor, “but then he took power” (32-33). While Galba was principled, Tacitus stresses that these principles led to a dangerous inflexibility, which eventually caused catastrophe for the Romans. His unwillingness to distribute money among the Praetorians allowed for the rise of Otho and thus exacerbated the chaos that the Romans were facing. The influence that his advisors held over him further weakened his rule, as it created an evident hypocrisy in Galba’s personal stinginess with public funds and his advisors’ corruption. Thus, through Galba, Tacitus demonstrates the multifaceted demands of performing well as a Roman emperor.

Tacitus places his own views on the need for the principate in Galba’s mouth. In Galba’s speech to Piso, he expresses that he is personally a supporter of the Senate but that he acknowledges the need for the empire to be ruled by one man. Tacitus also stresses his need for imperial adoption of the best man available to guarantee the Romans good rule. This again shows Tacitus’s mixed assessment of Galba, as he held fundamentally sound principles but lacked the skills to identify the best available man and ensure that he maintained power.

Otho (32-69 CE) is the second of the four emperors that Tacitus covers. Otho’s early life was defined by his friendship with Nero. Both had similarly extravagant tastes, and other Roman writers such as Suetonius present Otho as an effeminate man who cared too much for his personal appearance. His relationship with Nero soured because of Otho’s wife, Poppaea Sabina. Tacitus states that she married Otho purely to get close to Nero, who soon forced Otho to divorce her so that he himself could marry her. Nero then effectively exiled Otho to the Spanish province of Lusitania, where he governed capably, yet he harbored a grudge against Nero. He quickly joined Galba’s revolt because of this and hoped that his support would secure his place as heir. When Piso was declared heir, he launched a coup that led to him becoming emperor. His entire reign was focused on combatting the rebellion of Vitellius. When his forces lost the initial confrontation, Otho decided to die by suicide to stop further fighting.

Tacitus presents Otho as a man of contradictions and contrast, most evidently exemplified by his two most notable actions being “utterly appalling” and “heroic” (91). Regarding this, Tacitus refers to his overthrow of Galba and his suicide, but the change in his character seems to come with his ascension to the imperial rank. Before this, Tacitus shows him as a vainly ambitious man who was defined by “extravagance which would have burdened an emperor” (16). While Galba was viewed as good candidate for leadership until he became one, Tacitus shows Otho as someone who gained what support he had through “tricks which tend to stir up simple people” (17), such as complaining about the demands that Galba put on them. Once he had succeeded in his coup, many feared that between him and Vitellius, the empire would be ruled by one of “the two most despicable men in the whole world” (33). However, despite these low expectations, Otho “did not sink into a lethargic state of hedonism” once emperor and, in fact, energetically conducted a defense of his crown (46). His conduct in the civil war was notably superior to that of Vitellius. While Vitellius acted lazily and was led by an active army, Otho marched with his soldiers and eschewed his usual pleasures (though he was not able to exercise the authority over them that a stronger leader might). His transformation was capped off by his noble death by suicide (a common feature of Roman literature), which spared his soldiers’ lives. This can be contrasted with the ignoble end of Vitellius, who was dragged out of the palace while hiding to be killed by a crowd.

Tacitus’s presentation of Otho is by no means positive. He frequently adds negative qualifiers to Otho’s more praiseworthy actions, likely because he was unwilling to separate his imperial governance from his earlier days with Nero and his role in increasing the chaos of 69 CE. However, he does provide a more nuanced view of Otho’s character than his more roundly negative depiction of Vitellius. Potentially, this is because Vitellius was a direct enemy of the Flavians, meaning that his enemies garnered better treatment from the Flavian-aligned Tacitus.

Vitellius (15- 69 CE) was the penultimate man to become emperor in the Year of the Four Emperors. Vitellius was from a well-established but obscure family from Southern Italy. His father was a preeminent figure in Rome who held the posts of censor and consul, which, along with Vitellius’s friendships with Tiberius and Caligula, helped advance his career. Vitellius achieved several important posts (though Tacitus claims that none of this was due to his own skill) and eventually was placed in charge of the army in Germania Inferior by Galba (roughly around modern-day Cologne). Once here, he ingratiated himself into the army through his generosity toward them. After this, he led a rebellion against Galba, though Tacitus frames him as largely passive in this. In Tacitus’s telling, several Rhine legions spontaneously rejected Galba’s rule, and the legionary commanders Caecina and Valens led them in swearing loyalty to Vitellius. The legions themselves were eager to bring the war to Italy quickly, while Vitellius’s army sluggishly followed, focused on lavish banquets. It was also Caecina and Valens who won the war against Otho for him in northern Italy, and they governed Rome for him. Vitellius is consistently presented as solely concerned with living an extravagant life. In power, his tyrannical character was further revealed as he ordered numerous executions for political enemies or personal slights. His laziness and violence are argued to have infected his once fierce legions, until they had been critically weakened and could be defeated by the Flavian forces. Once this war did break out, Vitellius seemed to have taken little decisive action, entrusting the war to his untrustworthy general, Caecina. To cap this off, he did not give up power as Otho did. Tacitus presents his authority as too low to override his supporters, who refused to allow him to surrender. Instead, the final days of his reign saw the burning of Capitoline Hill, which Tacitus calls the “most lamentable and appalling disaster to befall the state of the Roman people since the foundation of the city” (169). Eventually, Tacitus concludes, “It was undoubtedly in the public interest that Vitellius was defeated” (178).

Tacitus’s presentation of Vitellius as the most unworthy of the Roman rulers in this year is unsurprising. As the direct enemy of the Flavians, it aligned with Tacitus’s biases to make their rise seem necessary and for the good of Rome despite the violence it brought. This does not mean that Tacitus was concocting the character of Vitellius, as other sources of the age corroborate the general picture that Tacitus paints, but it does explain Tacitus’s focus on Vitellius’s vices.

Vespasian (9-79 CE) was the eventual victor in the Year of the Four Emperors. Vespasian had a relatively humble origin, coming from an equestrian family (wealthy but not of the senatorial rank) and having a stagnated career. Upon the ascension of Claudius, he joined the military, where he successfully led a portion of the invasion of Britain. He was then forced to retire because of the enmity of Claudius’s wife. He remerged and became governor of the African Province, where he ruled well. He again lost imperial favor during Nero’s reign by falling asleep during one of Nero’s lyre recitals but was still respected enough to be tasked with winning the First Jewish-Roman War. He did well in this role, confining the Jewish forces to Jerusalem and a few small strongholds before he was distracted by the civil war.

Vespasian spent the first months of his reign in Alexandria, eventually arriving in Rome in mid-70 CE, after his supporters had performed the necessary violence to secure his regime. This allowed him to present himself as bringing peace, a theme that his propaganda repeatedly emphasized. He further stressed this theme because of the Roman victories of the Jewish rebels and Batavians in his reign. A notable aspect of his reign was the financial reforms and new taxes that he imposed. The Roman state, nearly bankrupted from Nero and then the succession of civil wars, was in dire need of cash, which he raised in large quantities. This increased his reputation as greedy but helped stabilize the Roman economy. He died in 79 CE after 10 years of rule.

Tacitus has largely positive things to say about Vespasian, doubtless because (as Tacitus admits) his career was started by him. Tacitus describes Vespasian as a “born soldier” who eschewed luxuries (63; unlike his competitors for the imperial seat). He also describes Vespasian as being equal to the virtuous Roman generals of the past except in his greed. Admitting this fault allows Tacitus to present himself as impartial while still generally praising the emperor. Otherwise, Vespasian is shown to be hesitant to engage in a civil war until Mucianus convinces him that it is good for the Roman state and that he is divinely sanctioned as a ruler, “proven” through his miraculous healings and a prophecy. Vespasian was thus presented as the man meant to rule Rome even if he was not necessarily a perfect man. As emperor, Tacitus says that Vespasian was the only man who “changed for the better” while in office (33), suggesting that he was immune to the corrupting influence of power.

With Vespasian’s reign, Tacitus begins to conclude his theme The Instability and Societal Upheaval brought by Successive Crises (though this is cut off prematurely by the abrupt end to the work). He presents the Senate as fundamentally right in their belief that the civil war had “purged the whole world of evil run its course” (182). Vespasian’s reign stopped the civil wars and then ended the Batavian and Jewish conflicts, bringing peace throughout Rome. It is notable that in this writing, Tacitus echoes the Flavian propaganda theme of peace and Roman victory. This demonstrates the influence of the Flavian messages in Tacitus’s writing.

Titus (39-81 CE) was Vespasian’s eldest son and eventual heir. Little is known about Titus’s early life, but Suetonius states that he was brought up in the imperial court of Claudius and that he showed military promise from a young age. As an adult, he took part in military campaigns in Britian and married several times, but none of these marriages lasted. He then struck up a romance with the Jewish princess Berenice that was to last for a long time. During the reign of Galba, he was sent to give Vespasian’s respects, but when he learned that Galba had been killed, he returned to his father in Judea. Titus was then an influential part of Vespasian’s revolt as he helped Vespasian and Mucianus reconcile, meaning that they could combine forces against Vitellius.

While Vespasian went to Rome, Titus was charged with ending the Jewish rebellion. He besieged Jerusalem for seven months and then broke into the city, brutally sacking it. Large amounts of treasure were brought back to Rome, and Titus was celebrated for the victory. The triumphal arch built to commemorate this still stands in the Forum. In Rome, Titus acted as consul often and was appointed commander of the Praetorian Guard to ensure that they did not rebel against his father. He also brought Berenice to Rome, where they lived together before the Romans made their dislike of her clear and he was forced to send her away. After Vespasian died, Titus succeeded him to the throne, where he was a well-liked emperor during his short reign. He fell ill and died in 81 CE (with some writing that he was poisoned by his brother).

The Histories cuts off before the reign of Titus, but Tacitus presents him as honorable and well liked, presumably laying the groundwork for a positive depiction of his regime. He stresses Titus’s role in the successful start of Vespasian’s imperial challenge and notes his loyalty to his brother (though Tacitus evidently disliked Domitian). Through Titus, hints at how the rest of Tacitus’s work played out can be observed. It appears that Tacitus rated the first two emperors highly and would praise them to create a contrast with Domitian.

Domitian (51-96 CE) was the youngest son of Vespasian and the third and final emperor of the Flavian dynasty. Domitian seemed to spend his youth largely in Titus’s shadow, not gaining the same military renown or playing a significant role in the civil war. Following the civil war, he was given the rank of Caesar and was officially in charge of Rome before Vespasian arrived. However, Mucianus was the true leader. Throughout the rest of Vespasian and Titus’s reigns, Domitian played largely ceremonial roles in government. During this time, it seems like he became prejudiced against the Roman Senate. When his brother died (which was potentially caused by Domitian), he became emperor officially. He openly acted to reduce the powers of the Senate and became personally involved in many government decisions. Most ancient Roman historians focused on this, emphasizing stories of his cruelty and persecution of Senators. Modern revisionists have since noted that for many outside of the Senatorial class, Domitian’s reign seemed to have brought relative stability and prosperity to Rome. However, he did not court the class who wrote history and was eventually assassinated, marking the end of the Flavian dynasty.

Tacitus’s writing shows a clear disdain for Domitian, in whose reign Tacitus may have been partially complicit. Tacitus presents Domitian as disloyal, militarily inept, and morally bankrupt. This interpretation is shown through his statement that before Vespasian was in Rome, Domitian was “already playing the part of an emperor’s son by his rapes and adulteries” (181). Tacitus presents this as becoming so infamous that Vespasian got word about it from Egypt, and it was only Titus’s loyalty to his brother that saved Domitian. Domitian, Tacitus argues, was not similarly loyal, as he put out feelers to Cerialis on supporting his own rebellion against his father. Tacitus hints at the tyranny of Domitian’s reign by having a Senator ask, “Do you imagine that Nero will be the last of the tyrants?” (210), and stressing the need to speak out against people regardless of their rank. In other works, Tacitus implies that he personally failed to speak out. In this, he places a retroactive warning of what should have happened during the reign of Domitian.

Domitian is ultimately portrayed as someone who could be entirely corrupted by power because they had no original virtue. Tacitus’s personal hatred of the man colors this description, and it also is demonstrative of the vitriol that was directed against Domitian following his reign.