Behind Caesars Back – Caillan Davenport

Josephus wrote that after Tiberius passed away at Misenum in 37, contradictory reports about his death and survival arrived in Rome. This caused particular alarm to the Jewish king Herod Agrippa, who had been imprisoned in Rome by Tiberius but promised his freedom by Caligula. Herod was first released by his captors when they thought Tiberius was dead, then re-imprisoned, and then finally pardoned.

The announcement of Commodus’s murder on New Year’s Eve 192 was similarly distrusted when it was sent to provincial governors, according to the contemporary historian Cassius Dio, who added that some governors even imprisoned the envoys who brought them the news, thinking it was some kind of test of loyalty.

These stories represent more than a historiographical convention regarding the deaths of bad emperors. Josephus was exceptionally well-informed about Jewish history, and Dio personally experienced the turbulence that followed the fall of Commodus. News of imperial deaths was particularly distrusted during civil wars, when fear and paranoia reached greater heights. Libanius, orator and friend of the emperor Julian, related that when Julian was marching to meet Constantius II in battle, he received the announcement of his cousin’s death, only for his supporters to claim that it was a trick to catch them off guard.

Although Constantius II had indeed died, Julian’s men were right to be suspicious, as some leaders did promulgate tales of this sort. Procopius, who challenged Valentinian I and Valens for the purple in 365–366, produced emissaries who had allegedly traveled from different parts of the empire bearing news (or, as the contemporary orator Themistius put it, “wicked rumors”), including that Valentinian himself had died. These stories suggest that Roman political elites regarded it as very plausible that emperors would spread false news in order to smoke out potential opponents.

Romans at the highest levels distrusted the state’s efforts at communicative action, even when they themselves were part of the government apparatus. Yet the belief that an emperor had not actually died as reported was not always confined to these elites. We will see in the next chapter that there was sometimes popular speculation in the provinces that an emperor had escaped death, accompanied by rumors of sightings.26 Emperors were regarded as being easy targets for assassination.

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Set in Garamond Premier Pro type by IDS Infotech, Ltd.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2025938173 ISBN 978-0-300-27645-9 (hardcover) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Authorized Representative in the EU: Easy Access System Europe, Mustamäe tee 50, 10621 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected] 1kitap1.com/en For Meaghan 1kitap1.com/en Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Telling Tales 1 The Possibilities of Power 2 Sex, Scandal, and Satire 3 Death and Dynasty 4 Rumored Returns 5 Patterns of the Past List of Roman Emperors Notes Bibliography Index 1kitap1.com/en Acknowledgments I began working on this project in early 2013, when teaching a course on the Roman empire at the University of Queensland.

Engaging with both Fergus Millar’s magisterial The Emperor in the Roman World and Keith Hopkins’s review of that book, “Rules of Evidence,” prompted me to start thinking about how to write a different history of Roman emperorship. I apologize to my Queensland students (and to those who took later incarnations of the course at Macquarie University and the Australian National University [ANU]) for my constant refrain: “But did it matter who the emperor was?”

The original manuscript was completed in December 2021, after which I assumed a new leadership role at the ANU. This meant the process of revision slowed considerably, but it also gave me valuable time to refine and rethink ideas and arguments. During this book’s long gestation period, I have benefited from the support of numerous institutions and individuals.

I am grateful to the Australian Research Council for a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE150101110), and to the research assistance provided by Nicola Linton and Charlotte Mann. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation awarded me an Experienced Researcher Fellowship, which I held at the Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, generously supported by Hartmut Leppin.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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