Gladiators: The Praetorian Guard

The true nexus of power in the Roman Empire wasn't in the Emperor's box but in the shadowy ranks of the Praetorian Guard. First established in 27 BCE by Caesar Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, they acted as his personal army and security escort. But it didn’t take long for their influence in Rome to become more insidious … they became kingmakers and power brokers with the ability to topple a dynasty at the drop of a hat. They were the ones who decided who lived and who died. Dan and Dr Simon Elliot, a leading voice in Roman History, walk the streets of Rome where Praetorian conspiracies and assassinations spilt imperial blood on the stones of the eternal city… This is episode 4 of 4 in our mini-series 'Gladiators'. Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 2:27Dan Snow?

  "Nós tendemos a dizer que os emperors romanos, os caesars, dominavam uma grande multidão do mundo conhecido, e isso os tornou alguns dos homens mais poderosos do planeta na época." E isso certamente às vezes era verdade, mas muitas vezes não era. Às vezes, o emperador era um cifróide, um homem que foi bolo, vendido, vendido e despedido por uma organização que tinha o poder real.

• 2:59Dan Snow?

  Nesses casos, o verdadeiro local de poder romano em Roma não era o ser humano sentado na caixa de coliseímo ou relaxando na montanha palatina. Às vezes, o poder em Roma estava focado no campo da Guarda Praetorian.

• 3:23Dan Snow?

  A pretoria era constituída realmente pelo emperador Augusto, o primeiro emperador em cerca de 27 anos de idade, e eles eram sua guarda física, era o seu escudo de segurança. Eles tomam seu nome do pritorium, a tenta tradicional em que o comandante de uma legião ou um exército dormia. Eles tinham privilégios especiais, eles eram permitidos usar armas na cidade de Roma, diferente de outros soldados. Eles tinham acesso aos corredores de poder. E surpresa, surpresa, pessoal! Eles logo se tornaram uma força profundamente insidiosa na política no coração do reino. Eles se tornaram rei-criadores, eles eram poderosos. Eles superaram emperors, até mesmo dinastias, no bocadinho de uma tinta, ou eu deveria dizer, no bocadinho de uma regra.

• 4:06Dan Snow?

  Esta é a história de Dan Snow. Estás ouvindo uma série que se encontra no mundo de gladiadores, de emperors, esportes de sangue, poder e conspiração em Roma antiga. Esta é a subida e queda da Guarda Praetorian.

• 4:27Dan Snow?

  In the movie Gladiator, you may remember right at the end of the movie, the Praetorians leave Commodus to his fate at the hands of Maximus. They're ordered not to intervene by their prefect Quintus. Now, that obviously didn't happen. But it is true that the real Commodus was in fact assassinated in a conspiracy led by a senior member of the Praetorian Guard. The Guard then installed their preferred candidate on the throne, but he didn't bribe them enough and they killed him a few months later. On another occasion, they literally held an auction for the imperial title, while sometimes their commander cut out the middleman and simply took the job for himself. Now, to trace the rise of the Praetorian Guard from the emperor's bodyguard to something well far more powerful and complex, I met up with Dr Simon Elliot

• 5:12Dan Snow?

  and we had this conversation strolling through the streets of Rome, with the heritage, the fabric of that mighty empire acting as a very appropriate backdrop.

• 5:26Dan Snow?

  Hey Simon, good to see you man.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Great to see you Dan, thank you for having me on the pod.

• 5:30Dan Snow?

  Well, it's nice to see you in the flesh. This time we're drinking Aperol spritz in Rome, in the beating heart of Rome itself.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Absolutely, the imperial centre, the heart of the Roman Empire.

• 5:39Dan Snow?

  We're in a really strange cafe, lots of quite scary plaster casts of Roman rulers. I can see your eyes darting around, looking to see if you recognise any of these emperors.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Absolutely terrifying, it actually reminds me of a really scary episode of Doctor Who.

• 5:51Dan Snow?

  It is a bit like that, there are statues all around us. What I really want to ask you about is the Praetorian Guard. On the one hand, we think of them as sort of elite force in this Roman army that people like to celebrate as one of the great fighting forces of all time. But on the other hand, they're unbelievably unreliable. They're a force for instability, for regime change, assassination. They start by going back to their beginnings. Where did the Praetorians come from?

• 6:14Speaker 03

  So the Praetorian Guard was created by Augustus, the first emperor. Augustus, Octavian, the last man standing in the Roman civil wars in the first century BC, becomes the emperor in 27 B.C. So he's got no competitors anymore, they're all dead, all gone. So in 27 B.C., the Senate acknowledges him as being the first among equals, the emperor. So the Roman Empire is born, the Republic is gone, the Roman Empire is born. Before that, Roman leaders and generals did have bodyguards. So even later emperors had, for example, what were called German bodyguards, specific bodyguards for them. But the Praetorian Guard was created to specifically protect the new emperor.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  And it went through a variety of evolutions and iterations, different sizes at different periods, but largely, the Praetorian Guard, as it lasted until it was abolished by Constantine, was the creation of Augustus.

• 7:09Dan Snow?

  Presumably, he'd seen Caesar, he'd seen Pompey, he'd seen these, well, many who were almost emperors in all but name. Well, he'd seen them swept aside, assassinated, killed, he realised he needed to sort of institutionalise this force near Rome to protect him.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  In actual fact, there's a very specific reason why he did it, and it's a classic case of Roman smoke and mirrors. So everywhere you look in the Roman world, there's conceits, and Augustus was the king of these conceits. What you see is not what you get. So in a Roman city or a town, it has a Pomerian, which is a religious boundary. And in Rome, it had been fortified with the Servian Wars, but that is the religious boundary of the city. Within those boundaries, you are not allowed to carry a weapon. Even soldiers are not allowed to carry a weapon. So the soldiers in Rome, when they gathered, they gathered in the field of Mars, outside the walls, because in the walls, they can't carry a weapon.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  So, very cleverly, Augustus, as you're doing various iterations, creating his new empire, created a new force, which legally was allowed to carry weapons when they were on the Palatine Hill defending him and his wife Livia. That was the Praetorian Guard. It was a creation to allow his soldiers to carry weapons when legally others weren't.

• 8:26Dan Snow?

  And were they an elite, or was it just a patronage? Was it jobs for your mates?

• 8:32Speaker 03

  It depends who the emperor was. So... The Praetorian Guard for the warrior emperors were called Trajan as a great example, Septimius Severus is a brilliant example. Their Praetorian Guards were the real deal. They were the elite soldiers. Severus, when he became the emperor, disbanded the guard because they'd killed his mentor Pertinax, the first emperor of the year of the five emperors, and then recreated it, twice the size, 10,000 men, with his Danubian veterans who'd got him in power and had fought the Markmanic Wars, celebrated on the column of marks Aurelius. So his Praetorian Guard were the best soldiers in their known world, probably as good as any soldiers in the entire world at the time. But for other emperors, they reflected them, so it wasn't.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  So for Commodus, for example, the Praetorian Guard became a laughingstock. And it's that Praetorian Guard, by the way, who then, for money, or rather, not being given money, killed Pertinax at the beginning of the year of the five emperors. Depends who the emperors.

• 9:28Dan Snow?

  And tell me why the Praetorian Guard became such enormous players and such a potential source of instability within the early empire. Let's start with the Julius Claudians, that run of first emperors, the Achaemenidians, Tiberius and Claudius and things. Were they good at protecting the emperor, or were they better at taking his life?

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Probably the latter, actually. If you think about it, very few Roman emperors died in their own beds. Most of them had very unfortunate ends. Often the unfortunate ends were at the end of usually, not specifically the Praetorian Guard, but other Roman elites getting rid of them. Some of those elites are very often the Praetorian prefects in charge of the Praetorian Guard. So part of the troika who led the assassination of Domitian was the Praetorian prefect. Part of the troika who led the assassination of Commodus was the Praetorian prefect. The Praetorian prefect clearly had a role in the assassination of Pertinax on the Palatine Hill. So in actual fact, it's not specifically usually the Praetorian Guard itself,

• 10:27Speaker 03

  it might be the Praetorian prefect.

• 10:30Dan Snow?

  But by inventing the Praetorians, it seems that Augustus did introduce this very, very dangerous element right into the heart of the Roman state.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Which worked for him, because he did die in his own bed. But then again, he was a very powerful emperor. If you look at the Roman world, to the Romans, the most famous Roman of all was Augustus. Now, in our world, it's Caesar, Julius Caesar. To the Romans, it was Augustus. Caesar was famous, but Augustus was more famous.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  So it depends on the emperor. For the real deal emperors, exactly the same as whether they're good at fighting or not, they are the Praetorian Guard. For the not real deal emperors, Domitian, Commodus, they fail because they reflect the emperor.

• 11:12Dan Snow?

  Okay, so they keep Augustus safe. Tiberius, he dies in his bed. Caligula does not die in his bed.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Assassinated.

• 11:20Dan Snow?

  Praetorian Guard didn't keep him safe?

• 11:22Speaker 03

  No.

• 11:23Dan Snow?

  But the Praetorian Guard put his successor on the throne, right?

• 11:25Speaker 03

  Claudius.

• 11:27Dan Snow?

  Who found him hiding behind a curtain or something?

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Hiding behind a curtain and then made Claudius, the most unlikely of Roman emperors, actually turned out to be one of the most successful Roman emperors, in actual fact, to my mind. And of course, it's Claudius who initiated the Roman invasion of Britain, which created Britannia. So it plays a very great role in British history as well. Claudius, in actual fact, creates more Roman provinces than many other Roman emperors. So in terms of foreign policy, certainly, he's a very successful emperor. Whether he died a natural death or not is debatable. You then move on, though, to Nero, who took his own life, may as well have been assassinated.

• 12:01Dan Snow?

  The Nero one's quite interesting because if you look back at, for example, the Praetorian Guard actually kind of doing their job, right? A rebel general in a province is marching on Rome, right? Send the bloody Praetorian Guard to go and sort them out. It seems that they don't do that very often. There's very few examples of the Praetorian Guard actually like going into battle to protect the emperor and protect the regime, right? They do with Nero, do they?

• 12:21Speaker 03

  The Praetorian Guard are in play from the beginning of the empire, through the pre-cupate phase until the accession of Diocletian, and then from the beginning of the dominate phase through to Constantine, who then abolishes them because they're more trouble than they're worth, as it proved for three centuries, right? So it's a good point well made. However, in that period, sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't work. Again, going back to my point, they really, really reflect to the emperor. And remember, we're talking about the Roman military largely here of the pre-cupates, so the first half of the Roman Empire. And at that period, the Roman military aren't based within the empire, they're based on the edges of the empire, on the frontiers.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  So it's not really normal for a Roman emperor to deploy troops in his own empire. So the Praetorian Guard usually only leave Rome with the emperor when he's on campaign.

• 13:13Dan Snow?

  They do spend a lot of time, again, those first Julius Claudians, Augustus to Nero, they spend a lot of time playing politics in Rome, don't they?

• 13:20Speaker 03

  It's difficult not to though, isn't it? Because basically, it is like Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. You've got this council around the emperor. One of the members of his close council is the Praetorian prefects. Actually, usually two Praetorian prefects to diffuse the power of the Praetorians, or certainly the Praetorian prefects. But you're in the centre of imperial power in, to your mind, the most powerful entity politically and economically and socially on the planet, the Roman Empire. And you're at the heart, you're in the middle. You've got the ear of the emperor, the most powerful man in your world. So it's difficult not to, isn't it?

• 13:52Dan Snow?

  Let's take them at their best. Or what are they supposed to be doing? They're keeping public order, they're bolstering the regime.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  The Praetorian Guard are there for one reason, literally one reason, to protect the emperor. They're not there to keep law and order in Rome at all. The Rome that Romans would have known was vast, it's a million people, twice the size of any city, any city in the Roman world, it's enormous. The experience to a Roman will be like you and I flying over central London into Heathrow when the scale of modern London hits you. Well, that's what will happen to a Roman going into Rome. It smacks you in the face. To keep law and order within a million people, the Romans used two organisations. The first one is the urban cohorts, the cohorts urbani, who are like gendarmes. So they're like legionaries, but they don't have weapons.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  And they also have a second organisation who are called the vigils, who are the night watchmen. Their main job was firefighting, but they also doubled up doing law and order. Meanwhile, the Praetorians, a third of the Praetorian Guard at any one time, were on the Palatine Hill protecting the emperor. The rest of them were in the Praetorian camp. Unless the emperor was on campaign, in which case they'd go on campaign with him en masse.

• 15:07Dan Snow?

  So when they're doing the job to keep the emperor safe, there are some very celebrated examples of when they go wildly off piece, aren't there?

• 15:14Speaker 03

  They go completely rogue. I mean, the reason why Constantine got rid of them is because time and again and time and again, instead of doing their job protecting the emperor, they're actually getting rid of the emperor. Or they could make an emperor and get rid of the emperor.

• 15:27Dan Snow?

  You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about the Praetorian Guard. More coming up.

• 15:33Dan Snow?

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• 18:39Dan Snow?

  Now, on the mean streets of Rome, let's mark the Praetorian, right? So they're set up by Augustus, he dies in his bed. So the Praetorian, roughly speaking, fulfil the ambition that Augustus has for them.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:50Dan Snow?

  Okay, good. Right, that's clear. Tiberius, what's going on there? They look after him?

• 18:56Speaker 03

  The thing about Tiberius is Tiberius is a very successful general, so he's very popular with the military, and the Praetorian Guard also work for him as well.

• 19:03Dan Snow?

  He dies in his bed?

• 19:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:06Dan Snow?

  Now, his goodness knows the relationship, I can never remember, great nephew step twice removed, Caligula, that was when it all starts to go wrong. We start to get that kind of, the Praetorian as a wrecking force within the empire.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, so with Caligula, the Roman military had been used to having a strong man now through two rulers with Augustus and Tiberius. Caligula was definitely not a military strong man. Very troubled Roman emperor, to say the very least, and ultimately the Praetorian Guard with him don't do their job. They aren't behind his assassination, but they could have stopped it and they didn't.

• 19:43Dan Snow?

  And then, am I right in thinking, once it happens, that's the first time we see the Praetorian kind of picking emperors? I mean, they're central now to the succession.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  It is, although it's worth remembering, of course, with the Praetorians, they haven't been around for a long time. So we think of the Praetorian Guard today, through modern culture, etc., as being intrinsically part of the Roman world. But they weren't. They were invented by Augustus. They'd not been around for that long. They'd come across one bad emperor, and there they chose to fail.

• 20:12Dan Snow?

  But did they raise Claudius up after Caligula?

• 20:15Speaker 03

  Dan, they found him hiding behind a curtain. And they made the most unlikely of Roman aristocrats, Claudius, emperor, who actually, despite the fact he was very ill-favored, if one is to believe the primary sources, proved to be one of the great Roman emperors.

• 20:30Dan Snow?

  Did he know the Praetorians were a very, well, potentially a dangerous force within the upper echelons of the Roman Empire at this time? Or did he owe his position to them? Did he have to look after them?

• 20:40Speaker 03

  I think for two reasons, yes. So firstly, within the religious boundary of Rome, so within the walls of Rome, in actual fact the Servian walls, only the Praetorian Guards could carry weapons. So intrinsically, they are dangerous. Because nobody else can carry weapons apart from the Praetorians who can. And also, the Praetorian Guard, secondly, are in the palace all the time. The Praetorian prefect is one of the most important councillors of any Roman emperor. So they're armed, and they're there all the time. So by definition, they're going to be dangerous.

• 21:10Dan Snow?

  Claudius, did he die of natural causes or not? What do you think?

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Fifty-fifty. May have done, may not have done. No evidence the Praetorian Guard were involved there at all, actively or not.

• 21:20Dan Snow?

  Nero succeeded?

• 21:22Speaker 03

  So Nero took his own life, may as well have been assassinated. Again, the Praetorian Guard could have saved him, and didn't.

• 21:29Dan Snow?

  Yeah, when there was a rebel general approaching Italy, the Praetorian Guard threw their hands up and said, "We're not fighting for Nero."

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the thing to remember here is, there's a pattern already developing. It was still on the Julia Claudians, the first dynasty of Roman emperors. And the pattern is, if the emperor is good and militaristic, the Praetorian Guard are fine. If they're not... Caligula, Nero, they're not.

• 21:50Dan Snow?

  So a rubbish emperor, he won't command the loyalty of the Praetorians. Indeed, they might sniff a little vacuum and seek to move into it.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Absolutely, and also remember the Praetorians are soldiers. You know, they're carrying a gladius Hispania, you know, the chosen killing weapon of the Roman legionary. They're armed in a similar fashion to elite Roman legionaries. Especially when they're on campaign with the emperor. They're armed soldiers. Soldiers respond to strong leaders. If you don't have a strong leader, they'll react to it negatively.

• 22:15Dan Snow?

  As you're saying this, it really strikes me that Rome is a military dictatorship. Unlike some of the celebrated empires we read about through history. The Roman emperor can really only be confident when he's a proven veteran of military experience.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  It's got to be a winner. Everybody loves a winner, and people don't like people who lose. And if you lose regularly, or if you don't rule well regularly, you're going to suffer.

• 22:38Dan Snow?

  We're walking through the streets of Rome here, would there have been young Praetorian officers from aristocratic families out like a guards officer in Britain and France in the 18th century?

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Dan, all of those things.

• 22:47Dan Snow?

  Okay.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  So they're paid more than other Roman soldiers, ultimately twice as much as other Roman soldiers. They have favorable positions across Roman society, especially if you're an officer. It's a great position to be if you're a senator's son or an equestrian's son, being in the Praetorian Guard. But crucially, again, going back to the fact they're soldiers, you're carrying a weapon. So you're walking as a Praetorian officer through the streets of Rome, and you're the only people who are allowed to carry a weapon. Which actually gives you a huge psychological advantage.

• 23:16Dan Snow?

  And also probably far less a risk of taking an axe in the back of the neck in the middle of the night in some German forest.

• 23:24Dan Snow?

  You're not doing a stint on Adrian's Wall.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  Well, I can tell you now, there were very few Praetorians who actually did stints on Adrian's Wall. If the emperor is on campaign, then the Praetorian Guard en masse go with him. The Praetorian Guard's aquila eagle standard goes with him. And they're there to do the one job they have, which is to protect him.

• 23:44Dan Snow?

  Are they a bit like Napoleon's Imperial Guard? Are they not just guarding the emperor? They're occasionally used on the battlefields as an elite force to break the will of the enemy?

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Dan, that's a fantastic analogy. So I often think of the Praetorian Guard in battle, when they're good Praetorian Guard, not bad Praetorian Guard, as being like Napoleon's old guard. So they're the ultimate, ultimate elite reserve. They're there to be deployed when a situation needs saving on the battlefield. Or the battle's about to be won and you need to push things over the edge. So they're there to be deployed as the elite, elite reserve. And the interesting thing with the old guard with Napoleon, it will be exactly the same with the Praetorian Guard, the Roman emperors, is when they failed the first time at Waterloo, the guard recule, it was a big deal, really big deal.

• 24:30Dan Snow?

  It was the end.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  It was the end. It was a really, really big deal. It's an event which still resonates culturally across Europe and in France today, the failure of Napoleon's old guard. So that's a great analogy. That's exactly what the Praetorian Guard were like.

• 24:42Dan Snow?

  So the officers love it. Lots of social, political, sexual opportunities in Rome, no doubt. They're loving life. What about the men themselves? They're getting paid more. And there's a bonus, isn't there? They get bribes, basically, with the new emperor.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  So Praetorian guardsmen gets paid more than other Rome soldiers, probably about twice as much for most of the period of their existence. They get far more perks. They're living in the imperial centre. They're on duty in the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill. The word palace comes from Palatine Hill, right? So they're at the centre of palatial life in Rome. But also, they get given effectively bribes, donatives, whenever the emperor wants to do something. So when an emperor comes to power, he gives the Praetorian Guard loads of money to keep him in power. If he thinks he's in danger, he might give them loads of money to protect him. And often you find Roman emperors who don't do that, come to sticky ends.

• 25:29Dan Snow?

  Strange that. Speaking of sticky ends, right, we got some Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, one emperor after another. Did Praetorian Guard have a hand in that?

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Sort of on and off. So again, they had favoured candidates in the year of the four emperors. But ultimately, the thing about Vespasian was he was a highly, highly, highly successful soldier. Probably the most experienced, highly successful decorator soldier of his generation. Famously took part in many military campaigns, including the

• 25:53Dan Snow?

  Conquer the Isle of Wight, mate. Conquer the Isle of Wight. What a legend.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And the South West. And ultimately, soldiers like successful soldiers. So ultimately, Praetorians eventually side with Vespasian, and so is born the Flavian Dynasty.

• 26:08Dan Snow?

  Right, so on to the second great dynasty of Imperial Rome. Praetorians, they're calming influence or they're wreckers here as well?

• 26:15Speaker 03

  For two, yes. For one, not. And the pattern's exactly the same, Dan. So for Vespasian, yes, dies a natural death. Titus, yes, allegedly dies a natural death, although interestingly, within two years of becoming emperor. But Domitian, another real favoured emperor, who in my opinion was a very poor emperor, the Praetorian Guard could have saved him, but he is assassinated. So they again choose not to save him.

• 26:38Dan Snow?

  How does that then, the transition work? Are they quite key in the successor?

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah. So the Senate and the Praetorians go for Nerva, who is an elder statesman. So it's the safest pair of hands they can have, actually, after the chaos of the end of Domitian's reign. And then, of course, you end up with one of the greatest Roman soldier emperors of all, Trajan. The Praetorian Guard love Trajan. Down the pattern is exactly the same to this point, and it continues. If you're a successful military emperor or a warrior, the Praetorians love you. If you're not, you're in danger. You're either bribing your way out of difficulty, or you're dead.

• 27:09Dan Snow?

  Okay. And then we get that famous, celebrated run of emperors, including Hadrian, Antoninus Pius. Towards the end of that, though, you get Commodus, infamous old Commodus. Commodus and his successors, the Praetorians are playing a huge role in who's on the throne and who's next.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  So the interesting thing here is, look at the period of history we're talking about. We're talking about the accession of Hadrian in 117 to the assassination of Commodus in 193. And then you get this sequence of Hadrian, successful emperor, not a warrior emperor, really, but a successful emperor. Antoninus Pius, highly successful emperor, not a warrior emperor, but highly successful. Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, latterly Marcus Aurelius, again, highly successful emperors. We're recording standing next to the column of Marcus Aurelius, who is one of the great Roman emperors. Throughout their reigns, the Praetorian Guard does its job, because they're great emperors. But then you come to Commodus, and the pattern repeats. A poor emperor and the Praetorian prefect, the head of the Praetorian Guard, is one of the troika who lead the assassination of Commodus.

• 28:10Dan Snow?

  Okay, how about the severance?

• 28:11Speaker 03

  So we're going to go to the assassination on New Year's Eve, 192, 193, of Commodus, involving the Praetorian prefect. And then we have the Year of the Five Emperors, beginning with Pertinax. And that's a great story about the assassination of an emperor by the guard itself. So Pertinax is only emperor for three months. Starts himself as being Marcus Aurelius. At the end of January, the Praetorians go to him and say, "Can you give me some money?" And he says, "No, because naturally the treasury's bust and I've been a worthy emperor." They say, "All right." The end of February, they go to him and say, can we have some money or we'll kill you? And he says, no. So at the end of March, they kill him. Right, so he is assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. It's a very big deal, which resonates all the way through Roman history from that point.

• 28:53Speaker 03

  Because 500 of them march and the description is in coena, so in a formation like a boar's head, a military formation through the centre of Rome, from the Praetorian camp outside the serving walls, through to the Palatine Hill and they kill him. It's a big deal. So by describing them in a boar's head, they're armed, fully armed, pushing their way through the crowd who may have been trying to save the emperor. And then they kill the emperor. It's a big deal.

• 29:16Dan Snow?

  Is that the one where they held an auction after that?

• 29:18Speaker 03

  They did, absolutely, at the Praetorian camp.

• 29:20Dan Snow?

  Right.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  At the Praetorian camp.

• 29:21Dan Snow?

  And anyone who finds the emperor just goes to the highest bidder.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  And the last two bidders were Didias Julianus, who's the leading senator who won, and Pertinax's father-in-law who lost. So Pertinax's own father-in-law was bidding to replace him, his own son-in-law who'd been assassinated. Very Roman, very pragmatic, the Romans. So then you go through to Severus. Now Severus's mentor was Pertinax and Severus gets to Rome with three, four, five legions, parks them in the forum Romannum, goes into the senate house, draws a sword, says, I'm the emperor. The senators say, absolutely. And then he gathers the Praetorians in the forum Romannum, surrounded by his own legions, and he disbands them. He orders them to live 100 miles away from Rome for the rest of their lives. He cashier's them. He recreates the Praetorians to twice the strength with his own Danubian veterans. And the Praetorian Guard is rebuilt as a really properly elite Roman military formation.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  And finally, you have this cascade of emperors in the Severan period through to the beginning of the Christ of the 3rd century, where it all starts going wrong again. Caracalla, not assassinated by the Praetorians, but he was assassinated and they didn't save him. Then you get the Praetorian prefect himself, Macrinus, becoming the emperor, very briefly.

• 30:23Dan Snow?

  It feels to me like the sort of logical next step, doesn't it? The Praetorians done everything. They've killed emperors, they've auctioned it. Finally, they literally put one of their own on the throne.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  He puts himself on the throne. So Macrinus actually had engineered the assassination of Caracalla, but not using his own guard en masse, just engineered a situation where Caracalla was stabbed while he was having a pee against a tree with his back turned and stabbed in the back. And so Macrinus, Macrinus doesn't meet a happy end. Then you get Gabulus was very confused and finally you end with Severus Alexander, who again is assassinated by Maximinus Thrax, his successor. The guard could have saved him, but didn't, right? So the pattern is the same all the way through. If you're a successful warrior emperor, the guard tend to be militaristic and support you and will keep you in power. If you're not, you need to bribe them. If you don't, you're dead.

• 31:12Dan Snow?

  So Macrinus, so finally, it's almost, it just feels like the logical end state. They've intervened in politics, they've put their candidate on the throne. They finally put all of their own, they put the Praetorian boss, they cut the middleman out and just make him emperor directly.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, but even he doesn't survive. So even the Praetorian prefect, the boss of the Praetorians, doesn't get saved by his own Praetorians, ultimately he makes a sticky end as well. The thing with Macrinus is it's a very good way of shedding light on how powerful Praetorian prefects could be. So usually there are two Praetorian prefects to dilute their power, but both could be on the political make all the time and looking for an opportunity to make or break an emperor or make themselves emperor in the case of Macrinus. And remember, the Praetorian prefect is part of the emperor's inner circle. He's always there. He's always got the emperor's ear. He's always got access to the emperor. And remember, the emperor is being told only usually what he wants to hear. Because you don't want to make a Roman emperor cross because you could end up in the Colosseum.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  So this is a ruler who's living on the edge all the time, largely because he's only been told half the story. And one of the people telling him half the story is the Praetorian prefect.

• 32:18Dan Snow?

  Is there a big critique of the Praetorian? I mean, do you see this in the Roman authors? Are they regarded as a very dangerous, unstable force within Rome?

• 32:27Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Ultimately, of course, the great Constantine becomes the emperor in the Western Empire in 306 in York. Then by 312, he's defeated his opponents and he's now in Rome. And he's the one who disbands the Praetorian guard because he knows he can't trust them. Because they supported his opposing candidates and can't trust them. Gets rid of them. From that point on, actually, the Roman emperors create their own guard units and they're fairly successful. So this big block of political power based around the Praetorian prefects and the Praetorian guard, because they're the only ones who can carry weapons in Rome, has gone.

• 32:59Dan Snow?

  So Constantine gets rid of the Praetorians. It turns out. That didn't harm the principate, it didn't harm the emperor. I mean, it was a wise thing to do.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  So with Constantine, you've made a very wise decision, but context is important here. So we've got to the end of the Severans, we enter the Christ of the third century. And one of the manifestations of this period when the Roman Empire nearly implodes is successive, successive, successive usurpations. So emperor after emperor after emperor. So in that context, the Praetorians are made and broken, made and broken, made and broken, made and broken an emperor, all could have saved an emperor and didn't, or did, or didn't, or did, and so on. So there's this endless cycle. It's only the great Diocletian in actual fact who saves the Roman Empire from disappearing completely hundreds of years before it actually did. And that's because he reformed the whole Roman state. Intriguingly, even he didn't get rid of the Praetorian Guard.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  It was ultimately Constantine who did so, but in the context of the fact of decades of misuse of their own power.

• 33:57Dan Snow?

  Simon, I've kept you talking for way too long. Let's find a little hostel where I'm going to buy you a drink.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  I'm in.

• 34:06Dan Snow?

  Well, that's it, folks. Thank you very much to Simon and all my guests over the past few episodes. I hope this Gladiator series has answered some of the questions you might have had if you've been to see the new Gladiator movie, or if you've been to Rome to see the Colosseum and wondered what it was like in ancient times. So join me on Wednesday for more true history behind the movies as I do a deep dive on the subject of Steve McQueen's new film Blitz. I'm talking to the bestselling historian Joshua Levine about the warfare and the tactics of the Lufthansa and what really went on in London when the lights were out. A lot of stiff upper lip and camaraderie, yes, but also a lot of crime and looting and an environment where people explored new ideas and sexuality in a way they hadn't before. So make sure to look out for that.

• 34:49Dan Snow?

  And if you want some more true history behind the movies, or even more ancient Rome, whatever you like, in fact, send us an email with your suggestions to [email protected].

• 35:06Speaker 06

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• 35:49Speaker 06

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• 35:58Dan Snow?

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