Introduction

In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle, but powerful, influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence. The Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this and of the two succeeding chapters to describe the prosperous condition of their empire; and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall: a revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by the nations of the earth.

(Gibbon 1994: 1: 31)

With these oft-quoted lines did Edward Gibbon introduce his splendid chronicle of the Roman Empire’s collapse. And while this revolution, as Gibbon termed it, may no longer quite be felt by the nations of the earth, various of the points touched upon here are still crucial to any proper perception of that historical epoch, which inspired the following evaluation by him:

If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without

Hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. (Gibbon 1994: 1: 103)

In this chapter, we shall not make any serious attempt to gauge the relative level of happiness or prosperity enjoyed by those living under Rome’s sway. That task is undertaken, insofar as it altogether can be, elsewhere (see Ando, this volume). We will, on the other hand, consider other matters crucial to Gibbon’s opening remarks. First, we shall ask what might seem to be a simple question: How did a person become emperor? That question is logically followed by a second: Once firmly seated upon the throne, how ought an emperor to rule? Or, to put this question another way: Why might the Romans, not to mention posterity, have judged Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines as able and virtuous also, on the canon of ‘‘good’’ emperors, which achieved fixed form by late antiquity (Syme 1971a: 89-112)?