Since Augustus Caesar took control of the Roman Republic and rebranded it as the Roman Empire in 27BC until Nero decided to stop fiddling and instead fall on his bow in 68AD, the Julio-Claudian dynasty had been in charge. Summo canibus. Which is of course Latin for ‘top dogs’ and Geordie for ‘an excellent coach for driving around Japanese wrestlers’. By the time 69AD came to a close, the Romans had had more emperors in one calendar year than Zsa Zsa Gabor had husbands, and ended up with the start of Flavor Flav’s dynasty.
A lot of our information about the Year 69AD comes from the Roman historian, Sue and Tony. Their father fought for Otho during the whole hoohar and so we must recognise the source material as showing potential bias.
Once Nero carked it, there was a power vacuum. This was then patented by James Dyson so he could make a fortune and move two thousand years later to Singapore.
There were, however, several candidates who fancied themselves as emperor and were wanting to step into Nero’s still warm sandals. The Roman governor Vindex (named after a vampire’s window cleaning product) was so keen that he even raised a rebellion before Nero died. He didn’t quite understand how these things worked, putting forward the Roman governor of Hispania, Galba as a candidate for emperor, before dying by his own hand having lost the Battle of Vesontio. Galba himself was old and apathetic which made him a tad over-qualified for the role of emperor or, ironically, leader of the Republican Party.
The main stumbling block to putting Galba forward as emperor was what to put on the togas and other merchandise. ‘Go ga-ga for Galba!’ was considered by his marketing team as too purile though it did score well with the senile focus group. ‘My goodness! My Galba!’ the team thought gave the impression that he was exasperating. They were also threatened with litigation by the Picts. ‘Galba is grrrrreat!’ played well with the Circus crowd but seemed to agitate the big cats. ‘Nowt takin’ out of Galba’s gout’ drew unnecessary attention to his medical condition caused by seventy years of gluttony. Finally they simply went with ‘Choose Galba’ having essentially spent four million denarii on two words, bankrupting several of his major donors. This financial folly meant that when it came to the crunch, Galba couldn’t afford to arm his troops, and his men went into battle against the usurper Otho armed with sticks and pieces of paper with ‘I owe U 1 sword’ scribbled on.
Early in his reign – which given its diminutive length was essentially all of it – Galba faced a rebellion from another would-be-emperor, Nymphidius Sabinus (whose name suggests he put it about a bit). He was killed by the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard of course had the remit to protect the Emperor and yet no organisation killed more emperors than the Praetorian Guard during the history of Rome. A bit like a zookeeper taking an uzzi into the penguin enclosure and taking p…p…p…pot-shots. Galba took Otho the Roman governor of Lusitania with him on his triumphant entry into Rome. A decision he later regretted.
Galba was likened by precognitive contemporary historians to Jabba the Hutt in a blanket. So preoccupied was he with his twin hobbies of being immensely fat and cribbage, that he put little thought into imperial rule and instead succumbed to the advice of three trusted allies: General Titus Vinius (‘Big Vinnie’ to his friends), Praetorian Prefect Cornelius Laco (‘Milky Corn’) and his freedman Icelus Martianus (‘Iceman from Mars’). As such his decisions were bloody awful. According to Sue and Tony “He had all his household greet him each morning as ‘Mister Juicy Baps’, refused to pay anyone who ‘smelled like an owl’, and sent Senator Aulus Vitellius to be governor of Lower Germany to ‘keep him away from the buffet’“. This final example proved to be a disastrous choice as the soldiers there grew to love Vitellius because of his winning smile and habit of feeding acorns to soothsayers, and consequently refused to swear loyalty to Galba and instead proposed that Vitellius should become emperor.
Seeing that he was in danger of being usurped, Galba swiftly adopted a posh fellow called Piso who had the habit of leaning at incredible angles, in order to indicate to the Roman people that there was to be the stability of a dynasty. Of course, anyone who has watched Dynasty understands that the one thing it isn’t is stable. The Praetorian Guards, who had a predilection for rich women with should pads, took this as a signal to revert to type and bump off Galba. Following a plotline lifted straight out of the soap, they pretended Otho had been killed, drawing Galba out of his safe hiding place behind the sofa, whereupon he was murdered, and Otho emerged from a shower claiming everything had been a dream. Big Vinnie was killed, Milky Corn banished, the Martian Iceman executed, and the leaning heir Piso killed and his head displayed alongside Galba’s and Big Vinnie’s to entertain the children. This was of course almost two millennia before children’s television, though is recorded as Harry Corbett’s inspiration for Sooty.
Before Vitellius could get down from Germany, Otho was declared Emperor. He was the only Roman Emperor named after a Bavarian leatherworker. Otho had been a good friend of Nero, allowing him to marry his wife, Poppaea Sabina. Which even at the time seemed above and beyond the call of duty. He’d offered to lend Nero his place in the country for summer vacations instead, but Nero had been quite insistent, and had had burning Christians lobbed through his windows until Otho acquiesced to his demands. Infamously, not until after one of the Christians had failed to go out and half of the city burned. Having got his way, Nero sent Otho off to Lusitania, and had a few hundred more Christians nailed up and burnt to teach them not to let themselves be set on fire again.
Unfortunately for the luckless Otho, not only did he inherit Galba’s throne, he also inherited his rebellion with Vitellius keen for the top spot. Thus he led a large force to face Vitellius’ army at the Battle of Bedriacum, promptly lost heavily and rather than having to explain the cock-up back home, took his own life.
Vitellius was deemed the rightful successor by the soldiers based in Germany, but back in Rome they were less keen. Initially, Senator Marcus Hordeonius Flaccus proposed a raffle to choose the new emperor, arguing that seeing as the people were having a problem deciding, Fate could do it instead. Lucius Geluchius, a fishmonger from the Transtiberim region of Rome won. Having only dealt with fish for his adult life, he proposed that the Empire adopt mackerel as the legal currency. This worked briefly until the weather got very warm and no-one could carry out a transaction without vomiting in the forum. Geluchius was assassinated by the newly formed and shortly after disbanded, Pescetarian Guard.
The fishmonger lottery approach to choosing a dictator having failed, the army took the initiative and went back to the traditional ‘pick who we’ve decided or we’ll poke you with sharp things’ approach. The figure that the military, apart from the Germania-based forces, supported was Robertus Spes, the comic actor. He was very popular with the troops for his touring productions to the frontlines of his ‘Road to Rome’ plays. A slightly narrow range of productions, admittedly, because of course all roads led to Rome in those days. Spes was eventually overthrown by the irritated Senate as his PA wouldn’t stop going ‘doo-be-doo-be-doo-be’ during important meetings.
Next, Janet was Emperor for a fortnight as her Year 10 work experience. Though she mainly found herself making hot beverages for people and copying out scrolls. The fourteen days she was in charge are mainly seen as the most successful of the imperial age.
Following Janet, Emperor Hirahito was emperor for four days before Seneca pointed out that he was an anachronism. By which time he’d sent two legions to Manchuria. By the time they’d return, Hirahito was no longer on the throne and instead had been replaced with a sign saying “Gone Fishing – please knock on the butcher’s and ask for Priscilla in case of emergency’.
The imperial mint could not keep up with the frequent shifting of emperors to adorn the currency, which meant that it got to the point where your currency was becoming obsolete before you put it in your piggy latin box. At a coin toss, by the time the coin came down the head had become a jackass.
Tacitus records in his ‘Histories’ the official engraver at the palace declaring: ‘Is it worth me engraving the name on the door?’ and ‘they’re like sodding mayflies the lot of them’.
Aulus Vitellius (latin for ‘important wind’) then became Emperor having eventually reached Rome from Germania. He had hung out a lot with Emperor Tiberius in his younger days in Capri when Tiberius had essentially retired and left all the work to Sejanus (latin for ‘bum grass’). Tiberius was, of course then, the rarest of creatures amongst dictators, a ‘retired emperor’, as opposed to that most common of creatures a ‘retired’ emperor. Vitellius was also a good friend of Caligula though wasn’t as keen on his horse claiming that it cheated at tabula.
Vitellius, on becoming emperor, decided to take the title ‘Germanicus’ rather than ‘Caesar’. Though the salad was far less popular containing rather a lot of pickled red cabbage and slices of steamed sausages.
His wife was Galeria Fundana (latin for ‘The Fun Gallery’ or ‘Funfair’) as for 1 sestertii you could throw a ball at her coconuts. At least that’s what was scrawled on the walls at the Hippodrome.
The eastern forces wanted Vespasian as emperor. As such, his army faced that of Vitellius’ at the Second Battle of Bedriacum and crushed them. Sue and Tony, whose father fought for Otho, portrayed Vitellius as a bit of an arse suggesting that he never voluntarily picked up a bill at a restaurant and refused to tip more than five per cent. After the defeat, Vitellius wanted to abdicate, but his forces refused to let him and would quack loudly every time he tried to say ‘I quit’.
Vitellius was said to be somewhat of a glutton gorging on several feasts a day and refusing to floss. He would take his own especially large plate called ‘The Shield of Minerva’ to buffets, enjoying exotic titbits such as the tongues of flamingos, the duodenums of pygmy shrews, and the sense of moral ambiguity of quantity surveyors which he had shipped in from the extreme reaches of the empire, and salted for preservation.
As Vespasian’s troops entered Rome, they were attacked by a mass of civilians leading to brawling not witnessed again on the streets of Rome until Lazio was formed. Vitellius was killed and thrown in the river just before Christmas which meant Vespasian inherited his presents, particularly cherishing the assortment box and the toga knitted by Vitellius’ aunt.
For his official triumph, Vespasian rode around Rome on a scooter before having two hundred teddy boys thrown to the lions. The people of Rome were exhausted and very grateful that Vespasian decided not to follow in the footsteps of the previous emperors and instead hung around for a decade.
Treatises of Gloria 