Pertinax, Pompeianus, Marcus Aurelius And His Generals: A Different Rome That Nearly Happened

Under Marcus Aurelius, patron saint of Stoicism, the Roman empire went from bad to worse. And much of that originates with Marcus all too stoic character: Marcus let his wife, the plutocrats, and events lead him by the nose, instead of taking manly command. History could have been different.

Some have reproached Julius Caeasar for not being revolutionary enough, but he, the head of the “Populares” Party, was revolutionary enough to die from it. The fundamental cause of Caesar’s treacherous assassination, while wearing the sacred clothes of Pontifex Maximus, was Caesar’s land redistribution law of 59 BCE: a law that Caesar had the Centuriate assembly passed(the national assembly of citizens) and which Consul Caesar immediately implemented… Something the Gracchi had failed to do…. And which the “Optimates” (the best) in the Senate never forgave.

Friend Ian Miller wrote in reply to Marcus was an ass: “The worst aspect of Marcus Aurelius was he was almost always out in the field as a commander of the army, and he wasn’t very good at it. He would have done a lot better to appoint a capable General as commander, and go back and sort out Rome. If the General was any good, he would be next in line and no Commodus.”

[For comparison, Augustus had outlawed Senators marrying ex-slaves (and also actresses). Marcus’ other top field marshall was NOT from the Senatorial class. By the way all these generals started their careers under Antoninus Pius, Marcus’ predecessor, whom emperor Hadrian and the Senate had judged most worthy to become emperor, which he was for even longer than Marcus; Nobody probably would have judged the 18 year old Commodus worthy of succession… except for Marcus. ]

My answer to Ian: Absolutely correct. But Marcus didn’t want to sort out Rome. Instead of taxing the extravagantly wealthy Senatorial plutocracy, Marcus made a show of financing wars by selling palace’s cuttlery… Professional philosopher and chief stoicist Massimo Pigliucci, author of How to Be a Stoic, retorted to me that, had he tried that, he would have been assassinated… Well, no. Marcus’ two top generals were not from the plutocracy. [Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to handle life; he divorced soon after telling me Marcus did his best; actually Marcus didn’t divorce… and probably should have…)

While Marcus was fighting in south Germanic woods, the Mauri attacked and occupied Rio Tinto, which was a major catastrophe: Rome depended heavily upon all sorts of metals, even for defense. An emperor stripped the metal roofs of Rome to make weapons to fight the Muslims in the Seventh Century! Marcus didn’t behave as if he noticed. In general, Marcus was scared to disturb in any sense the ruling Roman plutocracy (not like say Caesar, who rolled and crushed it all over…)

Marcus had excellent generals. Some died in combat: Agricola? After the death of Agricola, filed marshall Fronto got a supercommand of Dacia. C0-emperor Verus had just died of the plague while he and Marcus went back to Rome. Fronto fought Germans, Samartians and Vandals. In the campaigning season of 170, Fronto’s luck ran out: “He fell, bravely fighting to the last for the Republic” (ad postremum pro re publica fortiter pugnans ceciderit). A field marshall (who had already served under Anoninnue Pius!) dying in combat!

The Senate approved a motion tabled by the emperor to erect in Trajan’s Forum (Rome) a statua armata of Fronto, an “armed statue”, a nude bronze sculpture of the hero, holding a spear…

In 175 general Cassius, a descendant of Seleucid kings, was proclaimed Roman emperor after the erroneous news of the death of Marcus Aurelius. Cassius had led two successful campaigns against the Parthians, even capturing their capital, Ctesiphon, in eastern Mesopotamia. The sources indicate he was encouraged by Marcus’s out-of-control wife Faustina, who was concerned about her husband’s ill health, believing him to be on the verge of death. She felt the need for Cassius to act as a protector in this event, since her son Commodus, aged 13, was still young. She also wanted someone who would act as a counterweight to the claims of Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus, who was in a strong position to take the office of Princeps in the event of Marcus’s death… and who, married to Verus’ Augusta, Commodus’ experienced and elder sister, didn’t look favorably towards Commodus…

Born in Alba Pompeia in Italy, the son of a slave turned into freedman Helvius Successus, Pertinax became a grammaticus (teacher of grammar, literature, philosophy). He eventually decided to find a more rewarding line of work and through the help of patronage he was commissioned an officer in a cohort.

In the Parthian war he distinguished himself. That brought a string of promotions, and after postings in Britain (as military tribune of the Legio VI Victrix) and along the Danube, he served as a procurator in Dacia.[10] He suffered a setback as a victim of court intrigues during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, but shortly afterwards he was recalled to assist Claudius Pompeianus in the Marcomannic Wars. In 175 he received the honor of a suffect consulship… So Pertinax, one of the comites, compagnons of Marcus, was in perfect position to succeed him. … Until 185, Pertinax was governor of the provinces of Upper and Lower Moesia, Dacia, Syria and finally governor of Britain. He was elected emperor after the Commodus assassination.

Machiavelli in The Prince:”Pertinax was created emperor against the wishes of the soldiers, who, being accustomed to live licentiously under Commodus, could not endure the honest life to which Pertinax wished to reduce them; thus, having given cause for hatred, to which hatred there was added contempt for his old age, he was overthrown at the very beginning of his administration. And here it should be noted that hatred is acquired as much by good works as by bad ones, therefore, as I said before, a prince wishing to keep his state is very often forced to do evil; for when that body is corrupt whom you think you have need of to maintain yourself — it may be either the people or the soldiers or the nobles — you have to submit to its humors and to gratify them, and then good works will do you harm.”

In ‘Romanitas’, a fictional alternate history novel by Sophia McDougall, Pertinax’s reign is the point of divergence. In the history as established by the novel, the plot against Pertinax was thwarted, and Pertinax introduced a series of reforms that would consolidate the Roman Empire to such a degree that it would still be a major power in the 21st century.

A native of Antioch in Syria, Pompeianus was not from the Senatorial class. His father, Tiberius Claudius Quintianus, was a member of the Equestrian Order, the merchant and banking class of Roman citizens… And strictly below Senators, since Augustus made it so. His family first received their Roman citizenship during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Pompeianus was a new man (“novus homo”) as he was the first member of his family to be appointed as a Senator. Much of Pompeianus’ early life has been lost to history. He participated in the Roman–Parthian War of 161–166 under the commander of Emperor Lucius Verus, likely as a Legionary Commander. Sometime prior to the Parthian campaign, he was elevated to the rank of a Senator. He served with distinction during the war, earning him appointment as Suffect Consul for the remainder of the year 162 AD.

Following the completion of the Parthian campaign, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius appointed Pompeianus military governor of Lower Pannonia on the Empire’s northern frontier along the Danube River. He likely served from 164 until 168. In late 166 or early 167, a force of 6,000 Lombards invaded Pannonia. Pompeianus defeated the invasion with relative ease, but it marked the beginning of a larger barbarian invasion.

Late in 167 the Marcomanni tribe invaded the Empire by crossing in Pannonia. Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus planned to drive the barbarians back across the Danube River, but due to the effects of the Antonine Plague, that was postponed until early 168. Aided by Pompianius, the two Emperors were able to force the Marcomanni to retreat. Pompeianus’ military skills earned him the confidence of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and he quickly became one of the Emperor’s closest advisors. As the Emperors returned to their winter quarters in Aquileia, Lucius Verus fell ill and died in January 169. Following the death of Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius arranged for his daughter the Augusta Lucilla, Verus’ widow, to marry Pompeianus. As son-in-law to the Emperor, Pompeianus became a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. The Emperor even offered to name Pompeianus as Caesar and his heir, but Pompeianus refused to accept the title. Instead, Pompeianus was promoted and served as the Emperor’s chief general during the Marcomannic War. Under Pompeianus’ recommendation, the exiled Senator and fellow Parthian war veteran Pertinax was recalled and joined Pompeianus on his military staff.

Pompeianus’ successes during the Marcomannic War further distinguished him, with the Emperor awarding him a second Consulship in 173.

Marcus Aurelius died in 180 AD, and his 18-year-old son Commodus, Pompeianus’ brother-in-law, stayed Emperor. Pompeianus tried to persuade Commodus to remain on the Danubian frontier to complete the conquest of the Marcomanni, as planned by his father Marcus, but Commodus refused and returned to Rome in the autumn of 180. Commodus may well have been the son of one of these gladiators his mother was fascinated by… explaining in turn his fasciantion for the arena…

The relationship between the young emperor and the experienced general officer quickly deteriorated. In 182, Augusta Lucilla, Pompeianus’ wife and Commodus’ sister, organized an assassination attempt against the Emperor which failed when the assassin spent some time boasting of his incoming success to his victim, and who had commandited the elimination, which enabled Commodus’ bodyguards to eliminate him instead. Though Commodus executed Lucilla and other members of her family, she had engineered the (probable) myth of Pompeianus’s non-involvement, and thus made Commodus believe that her estranged husband had not participated in the conspiracy… Pompeianus was spared… While clearly Lucilla intended to make him emperor… (Who else? Pertinax?)

Pertinax, who was the Rome’s Urban Prefect at the time of the final elimination of Commodus, offered the throne to Pompeianus… who declined it, but resumed his Senatorial duties (prudently interrupted after Lucilla’s plot)

Russell Crowe’s character Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 movie Gladiator is very loosely based on a composite of Pompeinus and his fellow generals and Lucilla… the Lucilla plot succeeds… Novels have been written about Pertinax ruling Rome long enough to change its direction.

Could it have been done? Could Rome have been saved from itself? The key was to cancel slavery as queen Bathilde of the Franks did in 657 CE. She was not assassinated, but she manipulated from behind, and executed a lot, it is said, and it has got to be true…

Canceling slavery and forcing technology ahead in its stead. The Franks did it, but it took centuries to have a big impact. Or maybe not: after all, even while killing each other, the Franks were able to destroy the Goths, the Lombards and conquer and domesticate the Saxons push out Vikings (who were domesticated), Huns, Slavs, Magyars, and all sorts of god crazed Muslims. This had much to do with superior steel… And large specially bred battle horses… The Franks did at least three military things that Caesar had intended to do, and the Romans tried to do for centuries and failed: conquer, control and domesticate all Germans, in particular Saxons, Goths and Lombards… Destroy the Huns. Conquer and domesticate the Slavs, invade Eastern Europe, and exploit the mines there…

Peace is good, but victory is better!

Patrice Ayme

Tags: Marcus Aurelius, Pertinax, Rome, Stoicism