Introduction
The 87-day reign of Pertinax in 193 CE, even before it ended in his assassination by the praetorian guard, was marked by two failed coup attempts. These involved members of the senatorial aristocracy. Via literary and epigraphic evidence, it is possible to construct a prosopographical framework which permits analysis of these failed coups, and to suggest that they represented a final, desperate gambit on the part of an alternative imperial line. I shall argue that the plots against Pertinax were mounted by a group of senatorial families with connections to Lucius Verus, and regional connections to each other in Africa. Through analysis and discussion of their attempts to seize the imperial power it is possible to reveal more fully the Antonine dynastic politics of the period, which were played out ruthlessly against a backdrop of internal instability.
Analysis of the events of 193 is preceded by a discussion of an incident much earlier in Pertinax's career. Around 170 his relatively smooth advancement, initially through the equestrian militiae and thence to a procuratorial career, hit an obstacle: the Historia Augusta records that he was dismissed from his post as a procurator in Dacia (Pert. 2.4). There is circumstantial and prosopographical evidence which indicates that this dismissal is connected by socio-political and dynastic factors to the events of 193, lending a broader context to the aristocratic rivalries of the period and their social as well as political origins. Following a brief outline of Pertinax's career up to 170 and the historical context of the events of the period (1), I will examine his dismissal around 170 (2) and the two unsuccessful senatorial conspiracies against him in 193 (3). I conclude with a discussion of the motivations for the attempted coups and their implications for our understanding of the political history of the late Antonine period (4).
1. Historical Context and Pertinax's Career up to 170
In the two decades after the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180, the imperial aristocracy endured a period of socio-political crisis. The contemporary work of Cassius Dio, recording the events he lived through, is characterised by an increasing anxiety and concern for aristocratic status and identity.Footnote 1 Herodian, from the vantage point of somewhere close to the middle of the third century, looks back at the same decades and portrays an imperial society in transition, uncertain and unmoored from previously held values.Footnote 2 The Historia Augusta – full of verifiable information for the Antonine period – transmits biographies larded with scandals and conspiracies.Footnote 3 This period of crisis, glimpsed in our sources, manifested itself in intrigues and plots against successive emperors. Lurking beneath these were Antonine dynastic politics, not always apparent but never absent.
Pertinax's career straddles this period, taking place mostly under Marcus, though by seniority – and survival – he was more prominent under Commodus. Before 170, he had mostly experienced success and promotion. After being trained as a grammaticus and finding little joy or profit in the profession, he requested the assistance of his father's patron, Hedius Lollianus, to gain a commission as a centurion. His request was at least partially successful: around 160, he took up the less stable but more prestigious post as the equestrian prefect of the cohors VII Gallorum equitata in Syria.Footnote 4 But his military career did not start well. Upon his arrival in Syria, he drew opprobrium for having used the imperial courier service without permission. As punishment he was ordered by the governor to travel on foot from Antioch to his post.Footnote 5 Soon after he arrived, however, simmering regional tensions came to a head. The Parthians in 161 removed the pro-Roman king of Armenia and destroyed a Roman legion.Footnote 6 Pertinax was commended for his service in the resulting conflict, reversing the inauspicious start to his career. From the Parthian War he was transferred to Britain around 165 to serve as a military tribune in the VI Victrix.Footnote 7 There are some indications of trouble in Britain at this time, and Pertinax was either retained in his original post or promoted, remaining in Britain in either case.Footnote 8 He was then moved to the command of an ala in Moesia c. 167, and continued his rise with a post as procurator in charge of the alimentary schemes along the via Aemilia around 168. This was followed in 169 by a position as the prefect of the German fleet.Footnote 9 He was then appointed the fiscal procurator in Dacia Apulensis, an important position with a commensurately high salary.Footnote 10 It was from this post that he was dismissed in late 169 or early 170.
Turning to the wider historical context, in early 169 the emperor Marcus Aurelius returned to Rome from Aquileia, having organised the defences of northern Italy against the looming danger of invasion by the Marcomanni and the Quadi. His co-emperor and adoptive brother Lucius Verus had died on the journey back to Rome, shortly after their departure from Aquileia, near the modern hamlet of Altino.Footnote 11 This created something of a structural vacuum in the imperial family: Lucius had commanded wars in person on behalf of Marcus, and he was married to Marcus’ daughter Lucilla. Lucius’ death also meant that many of his connections lost prestige. There was now only one emperor and could be only one imperial household, one set of imperial amici and relatives. The fasti of the final years of Antoninus Pius’ reign and the eight years of Marcus and Lucius’ co-rule show numerous relatives of Lucius occupying the honoured position of consul ordinarius. After his death they are almost entirely absent.Footnote 12 It is true that counting consuls is a blunt instrument for constructing a definitive list of political winners and losers. What the fasti does demonstrate, however, via a glimpse from the summit of imperial society, is that individuals or groups close to Lucius received fewer official honours after his death. Their social and physical proximity – and, in the cases of members of Lucius’ family, their consanguinity – to the imperial power was reduced. This meant a loss of access to imperial beneficia, the cultivation of which was greatly assisted by personal connections to the emperor or his family.
In a politically integrated society such as imperial Rome, this was essentially a loss of socio-political status as well as a material loss. It was felt not only by the aristocratic connections of Lucius, but by their prominent freedmen as well.Footnote 13 The beneficiaries of these losses were new men: in 169, after Marcus returned to Rome, Lucilla was quickly re-married to a general of provincial equestrian origins, Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus. Importantly for the present context, Pompeianus was by early 169 a patron of Pertinax, who was at this time not especially prominent.
Late in 169 Marcus departed Rome and returned north. For the forthcoming campaigns he was probably based at Sirmium.Footnote 14 It is not clear when the fighting began in 170, but it was to prove a difficult year for Roman arms. The most likely course of events is that a Roman expedition across the Danube met with a heavy defeat. Subsequently Italy was invaded by the Marcomanni and Quadi, who laid siege to Aquileia in the latter part of 170.Footnote 15 Marcus and his army were in no position to oppose them, being out of place downriver while the invaders probably passed through Pannonia and into Italy. In the same period the Costoboci, descending from the eastern marches of the Carpathians, pillaged their way to Achaea through Moesia Inferior, Macedonia, and Thrace. They reached as far as Eleusis.Footnote 16
The situation in Dacia, where Pertinax would be based, was also volatile through the winter of 169 and spring of 170. Claudius Fronto was at this time the consular governor of Moesia Superior and Dacia Apulensis. This Pergamene veteran of the Parthian War had been rewarded for his service with a suffect consulship in 165 and was the governor of Moesia Superior in 168 when the governor of the united Dacian province, Sex. Calpurnius Agricola, vacated his post suddenly.Footnote 17 He perhaps perished from the plague or fell in battle; either fate underlines the danger of the opening years of the conflict. Claudius Fronto subsequently first assumed responsibility for Dacia Apulensis, and then later for the whole province. One of the other procurators of Dacia, M. Macrinius Avitus Catonius Vindex, initially took over the military responsibilities for Dacia Malvensis.Footnote 18 But the precarious situation in the region was once more emphasised by Claudius Fronto's own death in battle, probably in late 170. A commemorative inscription erected in Rome records a valiant death: ad postremum pro re publica fortiter pugnans ceciderit (‘He fell, fighting bravely to the last for the Republic’).Footnote 19 Other prominent men were also lost in the first years of the Marcomannic War: in 167–8 one of the praetorian prefects, Furius Victorinus, fell to enemy action or the plague, and before the end of 172 another praetorian prefect, Macrinius Vindex (the father of the procurator of Dacia Malvensis), fell in battle.Footnote 20
Pertinax's dismissal occurred in the midst of this period. As we have seen, he had been promoted to an important post as procurator for Dacia Apulensis. Although the position was nominally a fiscal one, his initial appointment was probably made in the knowledge that military action was likely in that region.Footnote 21 This was not the first time he had been transferred to an area in which serious trouble was expected. When he became prefect of the German fleet in c. 169, he had likely been responsible for the organisation and effectiveness of the provincial fleet as it transitioned from more civil and logistical functions and returned to a primary role of defence. Before that, his service in the Parthian War in c. 160–5, for which he had been commended and promoted, was probably strikingly similar: the re-organisation of the defences of Syria under the command of Julius Verus, following an earlier military catastrophe.Footnote 22 His appointment in Dacia, however, was cut short when he was removed from his post.
2. The Historia Augusta and Pertinax's Dismissal in 170
The HA hints at a political reason for Pertinax's dismissal. It records that he was removed by Marcus, who had grown to distrust him because of the crafts employed against him by a certain group (Pert. 2.4): inde ad ducenum sestertiorum stipendium translatus in Daciam suspectusque a Marco quorundam artibus remotus est (‘From there [sc. Germany] he was transferred to Dacia at a salary of two hundred thousand sesterces, but due to the manoeuvres of certain persons he was mistrusted by Marcus and dismissed’).Footnote 23 He was however shortly restored to favour by the efforts of Pompeianus, who required his military skills (Pert. 2.4–5). He proved himself a skilful commander and was enrolled in the senate. Later, after further military successes, the group (factio, 2.6) who had plotted against him was revealed, and he was adlected by Marcus to the rank of praetor. This was apparently both as compensation for his earlier unjust dismissal, and to recognise his continuing effectiveness as a commander (Pert. 2.5–6).
Before proceeding further, it is worth adding a caveat concerning the historicity of anecdotes in the HA. In the present case at least, some points may be offered in its defence. In every detail it is possible to check via recourse to other forms of evidence, the HA is almost always accurate concerning the particulars of Pertinax's career.Footnote 24 The Vita as a whole also falls into the period for which the author had access to a well-informed source or sources. On the question of Pertinax's dismissal, it is not possible from literary evidence alone to know who these enemies of Pertinax may have been, or what manoeuvres they employed against him to cause Marcus to distrust and dismiss him. It has been suggested that Pertinax was now prominent enough to become embroiled in aristocratic rivalries or was drawn in by the rivalries of his patron, Ti. Claudius Pompeianus, newly created the son-in-law of Marcus.Footnote 25 This is an eminently reasonable proposition; Pompeianus, who subsequently intervened on Pertinax's behalf, was almost certainly acquainted with him before this period.Footnote 26 As yet, no attempt has been made to identify specifically these rivals of Pompeianus and Pertinax, but there is prosopographical evidence which permits some further investigation.
Such evidence must be set in a broader context. Any political rivals of Pompeianus and Pertinax were probably motivated by socio-political factors as well as decreased influence at the imperial court. The death of Lucius and the subsequent re-marriage of Lucilla to Pompeianus represented a huge jump in prestige for the equestrian-born Pompeianus, and perhaps occasioned resentment among the aristocratic circles around Marcus. Dio, who usually passes over or plays down Pertinax's origins,Footnote 27 records that in 175 when Pertinax gained the suffect consulship his promotion occasioned sneering quotations from a tragedy by Euripides.Footnote 28 The HA records a similar sentiment concerning Pompeianus, who was considered by Lucilla and her mother Faustina to be an unsuitable husband on the grounds of age and status.Footnote 29 We thus glimpse through the HA and Dio a trace of the aristocratic hauteur that existed in the court of Marcus, perhaps recorded in the case of the HA via the writing of a procurator's son, Marius Maximus,Footnote 30 who was likely an important source for the Vita of Pertinax.Footnote 31 But in this period, military acumen was an asset that accelerated the promotion of certain individuals. Marcus was bound by necessity to make the best use of the commanders available, and he had shown himself willing to promote talented individuals and bring them into his court, if not always into his inner circle or family.Footnote 32 The dismissal of Pertinax shows that discontent perhaps existed among some elements of the court at this policy, and that even during a military emergency aristocratic sensibilities remained a political factor.
At this point more specific speculation may be advanced regarding the incident itself: Pertinax was dismissed, according to the HA, because of manoeuvres against him by certain persons, who are also subsequently called a faction or group (factio, 2.6). If such persons succeeded in making Marcus suspicious of Pertinax's character or abilities, it follows that they had some manner of influencing the emperor. With the evidence available the attempt to identify these persons is yet worthwhile, and we find the same confluence of families and connections which are central to the events of 193, which are analysed below in sections 3 and 4.
At Marcus’ side as comites Augusti in 169–70 were several prominent aristocrats. These are Dasumius Tullius Tuscus, Pompeius Sosius Priscus, Pontius Laelianus Larcius Sabinus, and probably Julius Verus.Footnote 33 Of these individuals, it is unlikely that Julius Verus was part of the group who caused Marcus to distrust Pertinax's conduct or character. Under his command, Pertinax had been commended for his service in the Parthian War. There is also little circumstantial evidence for opposition on the part of the aristocratic general Dasumius, though his imperial connections may have rendered him hostile to new men on a socio-political level. His connections are, if nothing else, a clear contrast to those of Pompeianus or Pertinax.Footnote 34 He may serve here briefly as a broader example, too: if it is sometimes difficult to quantify and define the extent of the influence of the aristocracy on or within the imperial court, it is fair to suggest that aristocratic generals possessed not only the traditional currency of rank and ancestry, but also the capabilities and connections required to obtain influential positions, formal and informal. For the remaining two comites of Marcus in 169–70, Pompeius Sosius and Pontius Laelianus, it is possible to suggest some strands of hostility towards Pompeianus and Pertinax.
Q. Pompeius Sosius Priscus
The connections of Pompeius Sosius and Pontius Laelianus to each other,Footnote 35 and Pompeius Sosius’ connections to Lucius, suggest that they suffered a loss of prestige and influence due to Lucius’ death in early 169. Each is worth examining in turn. Pompeius Sosius was consul ordinarius in 149 and the comes of Marcus in 169–70. His father, Pompeius Falco, was suffect consul in 108 and was Hadrian's first governor of Britain in 118, an important post.Footnote 36 His son was the famously polyonymous consul ordinarius of 169.Footnote 37 Pompeius Sosius’ ancestry shows a similar pattern to that of Dasumius: the rise of a family through an ancestor favoured by an emperor. Pompeius Sosius’ career, however, is dissimilar to Dasumius’, and it exemplifies the problem in estimating the influence of aristocrats. He does not seem to have served in a military capacity, but he is an attested comes of Marcus, and his son was one of the consules ordinarii for 169. His daughter, Pompeia Sosia Falconilla, was married to the son of his fellow comes, to whom we will turn below.Footnote 38 Pompeius Sosius was clearly a prominent individual in the workings of the imperial court, and Champlin has suggested convincingly that his son was married to Ceionia Fabia, a sister of Lucius.Footnote 39 By this argument he would be her second husband, after Plautius Quintillus.Footnote 40
Pompeius Sosius, Pontius Laelianus, and their connections
There are some indications that Ceionia Fabia herself was politically active. She certainly gained an imperial marriage for her son Peducaeus Quintillus, probably before 176,Footnote 41 and is alleged to have suggested a marriage between herself and Marcus after the death of the Faustina; a marriage that would, in fact, fulfil the original design of Hadrian of some forty years before (Marc. 29.10). The HA records also that she had earlier incurred the enmity of Lucilla due to her influence over her brother Lucius (Verus 10.3–4). Although it is difficult to date the marriage of Ceionia Fabia and Pompeius Sosius the younger precisely, there are two reasons to suppose that it almost certainly occurred before 169, in which year Pompeius Sosius would, on this argument, feel keenly the loss of his close connection to Lucius. First, the last record of Ceionia's first husband, Plautius Quintillus, is in his consulship, which was in 159. Secondly, and more importantly, the son of Pompeius Sosius the younger's marriage to Ceionia Fabia, Q. Pompeius Sosius Falco, was consul ordinarius in 193. Assuming for the third generation of a consular family a consulship suo anno, this allows a date of birth c. 161, which suggests a marriage by c. 160. In 169, then, the death of Lucius represented for this family a sharp loss of prestige: in January, Pompeius Sosius the younger had opened the year as consul prior and as the brother-in-law of an emperor.Footnote 42 There is a suggestion too that his wife Ceionia Fabia held great influence with her brother Lucius. His father was a comes of the emperors. Within a month, however, Lucius was dead, and some months after Marcus returned to Rome Lucilla was married to Pompeianus.
The Pompeii Sosii were thus no longer connected directly to the imperial family, and resentment directed at Pompeianus through the year 169 is a possible consequence. Pompeius Sosius the elder, the consul of 149, did remain a comes of Marcus when he returned to the north of Italy in the autumn of 169, indicating that the family retained for the moment some influence and prestige. This was of the traditional and patrician kind, more elusive in strictly evidentiary terms: no great military commands, but consulships suo anno for father and son (and eventually grandson), and a high place in the imperial war-time court. But this manner of informal position depended to a large extent on the cultural and political weight of traditional rank and proximity to the emperor, and these factors were affected by the death of Lucius and the onset of the Marcomannic wars. The primacy of traditional rank – and of Lucius’ relatives – faded by necessity in the years of constant war and attrition. Proximity to the emperor, a great currency of influence, depended more and more on the exigencies of circumstance rather than the socio-political rituals of the senate and aristocracy in Rome.
M. Pontius Laelianus Larcius Sabinus
The position of Pompeius Sosius’ close connection, Pontius Laelianus Larcius Sabinus, was at first glance similar to that of the aristocratic general Dasumius. Pontius Laelianus had previously governed both the Pannonian provinces on either side of a consulship in 144, then Syria, and had also been an active comes of Lucius in the Parthian War. For the present purpose, his direct ties to the Pompeii Sosii are the focus. His son, cos. ord. 163, governed Moesia Superior under Marcus and Lucius, and was married to Pompeia Sosia Falconilla, the daughter of his fellow comes in 169–70. Pontius Laelianus’ son, in other words, was the brother-in-law of the consul of 169, and the son and son-in-law of comites of the emperor. Not much is known of his grandson (thus the son of the consul of 163, grandson of both of the comites of 169–70), Sosius Laelianus Pontius Falco. He was admitted to the salii Palatini in 170 and replaced in 171 by Hedius Rufus Lollianus Gentianus (the son of Pertinax's former patron, who will enter the discussion more fully below).Footnote 43 It is not clear whether the younger Sosius Laelianus was replaced due to death or advancement.
The ties between the Pontii Laeliani and the Pompeii Sosii thus predate 163 (supposing the consul of 163, M. Pontius Laelianus, to be married by the time of his consulship, as was usual). Considering the above connections, an explanation of Pertinax's dismissal in 169–70, then, might run thus: the Pontii Laeliani and the Pompeii Sosii, connected by marriage, after the death of Lucius (who was the brother-in-law of Pompeius Sosius the younger) opposed the elevation in late 169 of a parvenu such as Pompeianus into the highest circle of the imperial family and Marcus’ court. Both families felt Pompeianus’ rise sharply: the Pompeii Sosii in particular would lose influence and prestige by the death of Lucius, being no longer directly connected to the imperial family. Their close connections the Pontii Laeliani may have felt similarly confronted by Pompeianus’ elevation. Subsequently they, and perhaps others as well, used their proximity to Marcus – socio-political, cultural, and physical – to move against Pertinax, by this year a known protégé of Pompeianus. As a result of this aristocratic opposition, at some point around late 169 or early 170, Marcus dismissed Pertinax from his procuratorial post. However, due to the growing military emergency in the north, Pompeianus was able to use his influence with Marcus to recall Pertinax, already a decorated officer and administrator, to assist him in the salvation of the overrun northern part of Italy.
Though admittedly speculative, such a reconstruction makes sense of the anecdote in the HA in a socio-political and historical context. The more direct and dramatic evidence of 193 explored below may be drawn on in support, though it stands readily enough on its own as a dynastic drama, unfolding amidst the confusion following Commodus’ assassination. At any rate, the same families who had good reason to oppose Pompeianus and Pertinax in 169–70 formed a core of open senatorial opposition to the new emperor during his brief reign in 193.
3. Two Senatorial Conspiracies against Pertinax in 193
The 23 years between Pertinax's dismissal in Dacia and his short reign in 193 were difficult ones for the imperial aristocracy. The rebellion of Avidius Cassius, the recurring plague, the seemingly endless Marcomannic wars, and the purges and executions which marked the reign of Commodus: all of these had combined to shatter their sense of security. Pertinax himself had survived and prospered, however, even as old acquaintances and erstwhile allies alike were pulled down by the swirling political currents.Footnote 44 In 192 he served his second consulship as ordinarius alongside Commodus, who was rapidly reaching the apogee of his hostility to the senatorial aristocracy. Tensions apparently reached a head when the incoming consuls for 193, Erucius Clarus and Pompeius Falco (the grandson of Pompeius Sosius the elder, the son of the consul of 169, and the nephew of Lucius Verus), discovered that the emperor planned to have them killed. Events moved swiftly and, in an atmosphere of danger and confusion on the final day of 192 and the first day of 193,Footnote 45 Commodus was assassinated and Pertinax claimed the imperial power with the consent of the senate.Footnote 46
The Incident of Maternus
Opposition to Pertinax, who was apparently despised by the praetorian guard, manifested itself almost immediately. The guard on the third of January attempted to lead Triarius Maternus, a senator of some distinction, to their camp. The goal was apparently to invest him with the imperial power. This rather confusing attempt at a coup, recorded only in the HA, fizzled out when the man in question fled, apparently quite naked, to Pertinax (Pert. 6.4–5). He then departed from the city, or was exiled.Footnote 47 This was the first of two apparent unsuccessful coups against Pertinax, and both seem connected to the opposition of a section of the senatorial aristocracy. Prosopographical work restores some meaning to the participation of Maternus in this somewhat farcical incident. Champlin has reconstructed the stemma of the family: Maternus was the uncle of Erucius Clarus, the consul ordinarius of 193, through his sister, Pomponia Triaria, who had married Erucius Clarus’ homonymous father, the consul ordinarius of 170.Footnote 48 Pomponia's son – that is, the Erucius Clarus who was the consul ordinarius of 193, and thus Maternus’ nephew – was married to the sister of his colleague in the consulship, Pompeius Falco. Sosia and Falco were then the granddaughter and grandson of the comes of Marcus in 169. Sosia's identity and family are adduced by Champlin on the basis of an inscription from Diana Veteranorum, dedicated to the son of the Erucius Clarus, who was consul in 193.Footnote 49 This marriage thus places the Erucii among the connections of Lucius.Footnote 50 For his part, Erucius Clarus’ brother-in-law Falco was the centre of the next attempted coup against Pertinax, to which we now turn.
Lucius’ connections
Laetus and Falco's Attempted Coup
When Pertinax was initially saluted as emperor by the senate and thanked Laetus, Falco accused him of being tainted by the crimes of Laetus and Marcia (Pert. 5.2): Qualis imperator es futurus, hinc intellegimus, Laetum et Marciam, ministros scelerum Commodi, post te videmus (‘From this we understand what sort of emperor you will be, we see behind you Laetus and Marcia, the agents of Commodus’ crimes’). It bears repeating that Falco was the nephew of a deified emperor, and his reported remark bears directly upon the manner of Pertinax's accession. Pertinax's reply was relatively mild for such an accusation, suggesting that Falco's youth meant that he did not understand what had been required to survive under Commodus.Footnote 51 Subsequently Falco made another complaint about Pertinax in the senate, and this is followed by the strange account of the attempted coup (Pert. 10.1–10). Falco's involvement is curious. He was, according to the HA, volens imperare, and seemed to be motivated by nothing other than his own ambition (Pert. 10.1). Dio reports that he was in fact selected by Laetus and the praetorians as a replacement for Pertinax because of his family and wealth (Dio Cass. 74.8.2). If Laetus were involved it suggests he had turned against Pertinax, underlining the fast-shifting political currents in 193. The plan was apparently to bring Falco to the camp while Pertinax was away at Ostia, inspecting the grain supply. The HA likewise reports that Pertinax took a great interest in the grain supply (Pert. 7.6). This is not surprising given the events of previous years.Footnote 52 Commodus’ proposed trip to Africa, reported as false for the purposes of extracting money under the guise of travel expenses, has been linked by Hekster to a concern for the grain supply from Africa.Footnote 53
There is no reason, then, to doubt a basic outline of the conspiracy: while Pertinax was away at Ostia, Falco had some part in an attempted coup. In a corrupt passage in the HA, one of Falco's slaves attempts to claim the palace as if he were the son of Fabia and an unknown man, but his absurd claim is unsurprisingly disregarded. He is recognised as a slave belonging to Falco, punished, and returned (Pert. 10.2–3). At this point the guilt of Falco by association seems to be assumed by the senate – but Pertinax shows him mercy.Footnote 54 The HA also notes that there existed rumours that Falco's knowledge of the plot was questionable, and there were furthermore stories that his slaves had made up the charges (Pert. 10.7).
However, as Champlin noted, the account in the HA makes little sense unless the slave were claiming the palace on behalf of his master Falco, by announcing that his master was the rightful heir.Footnote 55 This seems to be the only explanation for a story that is unbelievable not merely by its fanciful nature, but by its own lack of internal logic. This lack of logic derives from the textual problems of the passage, which are severe. The suggestion that the palace was claimed on behalf of Falco, rather than by a slave belonging to him, might permit Champlin's reading that Falco was Fabiae Sosique filius, ex Ceioni Commodi familia (‘a son of Fabia and Sosius, from the family of Ceionius Commodus’), and is one basis for his suggestion that Falco was the son of Ceionia Fabia by her second husband.Footnote 56 On this argument, this second husband was the consul of 169, Pompeius Sosius the younger, whose full nomenclature ran to over 30 names. Strong prosopographical evidence is adduced in support.Footnote 57
Dio's account of the episode, via Xiphilinus, is more straightforward. Pertinax returns in haste from Ostia, having been warned of the plot. Speaking to the senate, he exaggerates the donative he gave to the soldiers and blames the freedmen for the penury of the state coffers (74.8). It was a politic choice to conciliate the senate, but it further alienated the praetorians and the imperial freedmen, present in large numbers on this occasion. Presumably there was also a discussion of Falco's plot on this same occasion, not preserved in the epitome. Dio's report as it exists implies the connection between the discontent of the soldiers and the palace freedman on the one hand, and Laetus and Falco on the other. The senate, on the point of declaring Falco a public enemy, is forestalled by Pertinax requesting mercy (74.8).
Falco's Connections and the Link to 169–70
The roots of Falco's disdain for Pertinax may acquire some context from the events of 169–70. As we have seen, Falco was the grandson of the comes of Marcus in 169, and the son of the consul of 169.Footnote 58 As discussed above, there are some reasons to believe that his father and grandfather had, a generation earlier, conspired to have Pertinax dismissed from his post in Dacia. At a minimum, given the family's connections to Lucius, they had certainly lost prestige in 169 and witnessed the concomitant rise of Pompeianus and Pertinax. Falco, in addition to his connections to the rivals of Pertinax in 169–70, was also the nephew of Lucius through the second marriage of his influential mother, Lucius’ sister Ceionia Fabia. He was thus a cousin to one Plautia Servilla, who was in all likelihood the daughter of his maternal aunt, another sister of Lucius, Ceionia Plautia.Footnote 59 Plautia Servilla's husband, in turn, was Q. Hedius Lollianus Gentianus, the son of Pertinax's former patron. This Hedius Gentianus, on a different occasion – perhaps galled at the imperial status of the son of his father's former client – rebuked Pertinax in the senate for breaking a promise, and Pertinax defused the situation without rancour (Pert. 7.7): denique aggressus eum Lollianus Gentianus consularis, quod contra promissum faceret, necessitatis rationem accepit. (‘Finally, having attacked him because he had broken his promise, the consular Lollianus Gentianus accepted Pertinax's reasoning of necessity’).
Importantly, Falco's ancestry gives his opposition to Pertinax a dynastic and familial context. His imperial connections through his relatives undoubtedly enhanced his suitability as a prospective alternative emperor. At his accession in 193, the connections of Lucius who had schemed against Pertinax and his patron in 169–70 witnessed his rise to the imperial power. Considering Pertinax's close connection to Pompeianus, who in 193 had signalled his approval of Pertinax's accession, those who had the most to lose from his accession were the connections of the other branch of the dynasty. These again were the very same families who had lost the most through the death of Lucius and the rise of Pompeianus in 169: the connections of Lucius and the Ceionii. Falco, whose precise role in the attempted coup of 193 is unclear, was possibly seen by Laetus as a plausible alternative to the less tractable Pertinax.Footnote 60 The rationale for Laetus’ selection of Falco (and perhaps also the role played by the seemingly hapless Triarius Maternus) can best be understood by considering Falco's family connection to Lucius, which conferred perhaps a sufficient sheen of legitimacy. This consideration also lends credence to Dio's account of Laetus’ scheming; Laetus, on this reading, did more than choose a prominent consular of impeccable ancestry. Rather, he made use of Falco as a living blood relative of a deified Antonine emperor. The choice of Falco was perhaps important to counter Pertinax's own credentials as a loyal servant of Marcus’ dynasty. Moreover, Pertinax was always careful to appear humble in his dealings with the senate, and Falco's prominent dynastic connections may also help explain the leniency that Pertinax, not wishing to be seen as another Commodus, extended to him after the failure of the conspiracy.Footnote 61
The Wider Prosopography of the Conspiracies against Pertinax in 193
The two conspiracies against Pertinax in 193 are strange affairs. The accounts of both contain odd details and corrupted texts, and prosopography offers the best way to make some sense of them. The two conspirators – ambitious men, dupes, or willing tools – are linked through Erucius Clarus, the consul ordinarius of 193. Maternus was his uncle, Falco his brother-in-law. It is from the connections of Falco himself that a fuller picture of the opposition to Pertinax may emerge. The two coups begin to take shape through the Pompeii Sosii and their connections, and the events of early 193 represent the final gambit of the Ceionian nobility.Footnote 62
At this point we may extend Champlin's prosopography. A network of Lucius’ connections is linked to the last survivors of a provincial African network. Networks such as this one, deriving from both family ties and shared provincial origins, are an obvious feature of Roman imperial (and mutatis mutandis republican) society, and indeed of any society with a formal or informal oligarchy. They form a foundation for socio-political interaction and relations, within the aristocracy itself and between the aristocracy and the emperor. It is usually better to consider them as loose networks, composed of acknowledged and retained links that could survive and adapt to disruption and setbacks, rather than cohesive political factions. This was required on an individual and network scale to thrive under Commodus.Footnote 63 In the second century, provincial networks mattered in ways that would be entirely familiar to the great houses of the republic: family connections, regional ties, alliances, patronage. In the period under discussion, a different African network had in fact conspired in the removal of Commodus.Footnote 64 Further examples of strong regional ties retained by powerful figures in Rome in the second century include the cadre of prominent Hispano-Roman families, ushered into proximity to the imperial power by Vespasian and Trajan,Footnote 65 and scions of royal families from Ancyra such as the Julii Severi.Footnote 66 The lines between patronage, regional ties, and political alliances were never fixed, but may on occasion be delineated. In the case of the African network analysed here, the salient factors are their connections to Lucius, to each other, to their province of origin, and their opposition to Pertinax. These elements unite to suggest a provincial network that was politically active, well-connected, and willing to intrigue for power.
To discuss this network, we may begin close to Pertinax himself. As noted above, Hedius Gentianus, cos. suff. 186, the younger son of Pertinax's former patron, is recorded by the biographer as speaking against Pertinax publicly in the senate (Pert. 7.7). As the son of Pertinax's previous patron – it is in fact possible that his father had once owned Helvius Successus, Pertinax's father – his rebuke of the emperor was loaded with personal history. The biographer of the HA, purveyor of gossip and scandal, passes over this connection in silence.Footnote 67 Hedius Gentianus’ connection to Falco ran through his marriage to Falco's cousin Plautia Servilla. Her father was very probably Q. Servilius Pudens, cos. ord. 166, who came from Hippo Regius on the north coast of the Roman province of Africa. It was a town whose nobility were connected by ties of acquaintance at least to Fronto, the tutor and friend of Marcus, who came from Cirta in Africa.Footnote 68 For his part, young Hedius’ father – that is, Pertinax's original patron – may have known Servilius from his time as the governor of Africa c. 158.Footnote 69 Falco's paternal aunt, Pompeia Sosia Falconilla – his father's sister who was married to the Pontius Laelianus, who was consul ordinarius in 163 – is recorded on an inscription in Cirta, underlining the connections.Footnote 70 Servilius’ eponymous son, perhaps from a previous marriage, was honoured as the patron of nearby Calama, halfway along the route from Hippo Regius to Cirta.Footnote 71 Intriguingly, Calama was also same town which claimed as a patron Vibia Aurelia Sabina, the daughter of Marcus.Footnote 72 She had been married to Antistius Burrus, whose family in turn came from Thibilis, 30 kilometres to the south-west of Calama. Commodus had executed this brother-in-law for his alleged imperial ambitions.Footnote 73 According to the HA it was Pertinax who had brought Burrus’ alleged ambitions to Commodus’ attention (Pert. 3.7).
The connections of Lucius to this provincial network were thus through his two sisters and their husbands and children. They ranged from Diana Veteranorum in the south through Ceionia Fabia's second husband Pompeius Sosius, cos. ord. 169, and their children (Falco the consul and conspirator of 193, and his sister the wife of Erucius Clarus, Falco's fellow consul of 193 who was implicated in both attempted coups in 193) to Hippo Regius via Calama in the north through Ceionia Plautia's husband, Servilius Pudens, cos. ord. 166, their daughter Plautia Servilla (married to a son of Pertinax's former patron), and Servilius’ son. The senatorial opposition to Pertinax, recounted in a scattered fashion in the literary sources, comes in every case from the connections and relatives of Lucius, and many of these were tied to families with connections in Africa.
4. Conclusion: The Motivations of the Senatorial Opposition to Pertinax
The confluence of names and connections around the attested conspirators against Pertinax is difficult to ignore. Thus far the argument has been that opposition to the new man Pompeianus in 169–70 took the form of hostility to the promotion of his protégé Pertinax, resulting in the latter's dismissal. The timing in 169–70 was shortly after Pompeianus’ marriage to Lucilla in late 169, after the death of Lucius early in that year. The vagaries of war and the growing importance of Pompeianus on that occasion restored Pertinax's fortunes. I have suggested that in 193 the documented senatorial opposition to Pertinax comes from this same group. Connected to them, too, by 193 was the son of Pertinax's former patron, Hedius Gentianus, now himself married into the Ceionian line through Plautia Servilla, Lucius’ niece. An important geographic locus of the opposition to Pertinax was a network of Ceionian connections with ties to Africa.
It is further important to emphasise that the senatorial opposition to Pertinax was not only sustained over two conspiracies: it was also immediate and fast-moving. Pertinax ruled for 87 days, and within this period two of the conspiracies against him came directly from the connections of Lucius. In addition to any personal animosity, they were no doubt opposed to Pertinax on socio-political grounds. This latter consideration may have been shared by many within the larger body of the senatorial and equestrian aristocracy. It should be noted that Erucius Clarus, Pompeius Falco, Hedius Gentianus, and Maternus – all of the named senators tangled up in plots against Pertinax – came from families long ennobled with the consulship. From the perspective of the highest consular aristocracy, always the redoubt of traditional senatorial values, Pertinax's accession was perhaps especially confronting. It was not as though viable alternatives did not exist. Connections of previous dynasties, deriving from august consular families, were passed over. Lucius’ own nephew spoke against Pertinax in the senate and hinted at the illegitimate manner by which Pertinax had come to power. To judge from the two connected conspiracies in 193, the connections of Lucius – though they had despised Commodus – were ambitious and willing to intrigue immediately against the new emperor. The continuing importance of the dynastic principle is clear, regardless of the success or failure of the conspiracies themselves.
The Severans in future decades did not discriminate between threats from previous dynasties. After a period of socio-political and existential crisis for the senatorial aristocracy, dynastic considerations – real or manufactured, genuine or gimcrack – remained an important political factor. For the Severans, any previous imperial ties might be dangerous, but most especially where members of the family had evinced political ambition. Under Septimius Severus, the troublesome and troublesomely well-connected Erucius Clarus was executed later in 193.Footnote 74 Falco, for his part, had the good sense to stay out of politics after the failed conspiracy in 193. He does not reappear. The suppression of Peducaeus – son-in-law of Marcus, nephew of Lucius, half-brother of Falco through their mother, active and august senator – came in 205. He cursed Severus as he died, echoing Ursus Servianus’ final hex on Hadrian generations earlier.Footnote 75 Caracalla had the son of Pompeianus and Lucilla, Marcus’ grandson, killed in 212. He had been consul ordinarius in 209 and possessed the grand nomenclature of Aurelius Commodus Pompeianus. The deed was apparently arranged in such a way that bandits could be blamed (M. Ant. 3.8). Pertinax's own son, perhaps once Caesar, was killed by Caracalla in 212, following the murder of Geta.Footnote 76 The imperial connections of women could also be seen as a threat: Caracalla ordered the death of Cornificia, daughter of Marcus and the widow of the murdered African consular Petronius Mamertinus (Dio Cass. 78.16.6). An exception to the trend might be Lollianus Plautius Avitus, likely the grandson of Ceionia Plautia through Plautia Servilla and Hedius Gentianus, and thus the great-nephew of Lucius. He was consul ordinarius in 209 alongside Lucilla and Pompeianus’ ill-fated son. His survival is probably due to in part to the closeness of his father to Severus and Caracalla; Hedius Gentianus is recorded as a comes of these emperors.Footnote 77 Indeed, some connections of prominent families continued to reach the consulship under the Severans and were not suppressed: Claudius Severus and Annia Galeria's son, thus Marcus’ grandson, Severus Proculus, in 200; Marcus’ cousin once removed, Annius Libo, in 204; Acilius Faustinus, both of whose names suggest august lineage, in 210.Footnote 78 A common thread which unites the latter three is the lack of evidence that they (or their families) engaged in dynastic politics during the reign of Commodus or subsequently.
The senatorial opposition to Pertinax in 169–70 and in 193 sprang, in the end, mainly from the connections of Lucius. According to the sources in 193 it is also derived from the growing enmity between Pertinax and Laetus, and Laetus’ consequent willingness to seek alternatives to Pertinax. The distance that developed between Pertinax and Laetus might be considered a consequence of Pertinax fulfilling with some success his role as a conciliatory emperor, becoming increasingly acceptable to broad sections of the aristocracy. Perhaps Laetus had intended to have influence on imperial affairs through Pertinax, and to enjoy the consequent opportunities for personal enrichment. But Pertinax's exemplary and traditional conduct to the senate clearly indicated his priorities as a member of the senatorial aristocracy. He was an emperor in the mould of Marcus in his relations to the senate. Even as the sources record the growing animosity of the praetorians and freedmen to Pertinax, he seems to have cultivated the larger part of the senate successfully. This ability to conciliate the senate would render in turn less dangerous and more isolated the agitations of the connections of Lucius: since not all of the senatorial and equestrian aristocracy were involved in dynastic schemes, the mere reality of Pertinax's mild attitude and the welcome transition from Commodus’ rule were perhaps sufficient for many members of the aristocracy to accept Pertinax – or at least not actively conspire to remove him – despite his humble origins. Nevertheless, his dismissal in 169–70 and the aborted coups against him in 193 find their origin in familial and dynastic rivalries, driven by the anxieties of the imperial aristocracy and brought to the surface in a period of change and crisis.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kristin Heineman, Dylan James, Gavin Kelly, and Gladys Mazloum for their comments and criticisms. Thanks are also due to the anonymous readers for Antichthon, who asked pointed and relevant questions. The article is much improved for their thoroughness. The initial research was undertaken over a fortnight at the Fondation Hardt in Geneva, where my stay was funded by the Roman Society. I am grateful for their assistance. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support of a DAAD research fellowship, which allowed me to complete the article in the leafy, sun-lashed surrounds of the Universität Tübingen.
