The Year of the Four Emperors: A Cautionary Tale

Bust of Vespasian at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen

This twelve month begins in June CE 68,

When hapless Nero killed himself, cutting his throat,

After being declared a public enemy

By the Roman Senate and so condemned to death.

History allows him a bad reputation

But he was one of the best rulers that Rome had,

A patron of the arts and a friend to the poor,*

A gentle soul, unlike the thugs who came after;

Remembered as a persecutor of Christians—

But in the first century to ruling Romans,

Christians were just another kind of rebel Jew,

And Judea was a long-smoldering revolt:

They say there was no wood left there to make crosses

After Vespasian and Titus had got through!

Nero had undertaken roles meant for infames,

As Rome called actors, dancers, prostitutes, and pimps.

He thought himself a great artist and musician.*

“I have only to appear and sing to have peace

Once more in Gaul,” he is reported to have said.

For Roman senators that meant him better dead,

And thus rebellions spread. The legions in the West

Backed old Galba, Spain’s governor, for emperor.

Otho, Lusitania’s legate, went along,

But had the Praetorian Guard murder Galba

And briefly became emperor instead. Aulus

Vitellius, whom Galba had appointed as

Governor of Germania Inferior

Defeated Otho with an army of fierce Krauts,

Nabbing the imperial throne—but not for long.

Crushing the Judean rebels, Vespasian,

Was proclaimed emperor in Alexandria

By Egypt’s governor on July 1 that year,

And Pharaoh, the son of the sun god Amon-Ra,

Last of the four emperors that twelve month, besting

Vitellius, whom his soldiers slew. The Senate

Obediently proclaimed him emperor, too.

After his son Titus captured Jerusalem

And destroyed the rebel Jews’ Second Temple.

Vespasian ordered that every descendant

Of the royal house of David be hunted down.

It had been prophesied that he’d be emperor

By Josephus. No competition was wanted!

And so we have the year of the four emperors

Whose pattern would be mimicked in the coming years:

Rome made a savage paradise and called it peace.

And countless gladiators and poor beasts ravaged

From their homes died to entertain the Roman mob.

When Titus questioned taxing public toilets’ piss,

Vespasian coined the proverb “Money doesn’t stink!”

—Pecunia non olet. His last words, dying

Of dysentery—the bloody flux, in CE

79, were Vae, puto deus fio,

“Goodness gracious, I think I’m becoming a god!”

This winsome story doesn’t end here, as you well know:

Empires still had many millennia to go.

They have them yet—no matter we mightn't want it so.

* “Up to the year 59, Nero’s biographers cite only acts of generosity and clemency on his account. His government forbade contests in the circus involving bloodshed, banned capital punishment, reduced taxes, and accorded permission to slaves to bring civil complaints against unjust masters. Nero himself pardoned writers of epigrams against him and even those who plotted against him, and secret trials were few. The law of treason was dormant: Claudius had put 40 senators to death, but, between the murders instigated by Agrippina in 54 and the year 62, there were no like incidents in Nero’s reign. Nero also inaugurated competitions in poetry, in the theatre, and in athletics as counterattractions to gladiatorial combats. He saw to it that assistance was provided to cities that had suffered disaster and, at the request of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, gave aid to the Jews" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nero-Roman-emperor). He had his mother Julia Agrippina, sister of the emperor Gaius, or Caligula (reigned 37–41), and wife of the emperor Claudius (41–54), put to death, but she was a murderess who had poisoned multiple victims, including most likely her fourth husband, Emperor Claudius, in order that her son might succeed him. Nero first had her set afloat in the Bay of Naples in a boat designed to sink, leaving her fate to the gods, but she swam ashore and in the end was executed.

Saturday, October 11, 2025