The Adoptive Emperors : Nerva

Imperator Nerva Caesar Augustus 96 – 98 AD

Born: 8th November 35 AD at Narnia
Date of Accession: 18 September 96 AD
Died: 27th January 98 AD at Rome

Governors of Britannia during his reign:

Publius Metilius Nepos (perhaps) 96 - 97 AD
Tiberius Avidius Quietus 97 - 98 AD

Nerva’s accession was greeted with relief by a great many, not least by those who considered themselves to be in imminent risk in one of Domitian’s tyrannical and murderous “terrors”. Indeed the later historian Cassius Dio relates that the conspirators of Domitian’s murder went so far as to secure Nerva’s agreement in advance to succeed Domitian, something Dio suggests Nerva was only too willing to agree to as he too suspected he would soon fall foul of Domitian.

Nerva had no close connection with the Flavian dynasty and only a fairly slim one through his mother to the Julio Claudian dynasty.

Nerva was, like Vespasian, another of those men who showed a talent for weathering the difficult years of the reigns of a succession of tyrants; such as Nero who he assisted in suppressing the conspiracy of Piso in 65 AD while Domitian himself saw fit to elect Nerva as co-consul in 90 AD (Nerva earlier served Vespasian in a similar capacity in 71 AD).

Nerva

Nerva is often portrayed as a benevolent ruler. He certainly was the darling of the senatorial classes from whose ranks most historians were drawn. However he was an elderly man by the time he came to power and following Domitian’s death Rome was in a state of near constant upheaval and disorder following the removal of Domitian’s iron control.

More worryingly he was not popular with the military and this came to a head in 97 AD when the Praetorian Guard mutinied, locking Nerva in his palace and demanding that Domitian’s murderers be handed over to them.

Nerva is recorded taking a brave if unsuccessful stance; baring his throat to the mutineers, however Domitian’s murderers were duly rounded up and murdered. Nerva’s authority was badly shaken. His response however was to prove remarkably successful.

He was childless, and to improve his position he adopted Trajan, then Governor in Upper Germany. Trajan by contrast was a highly respected and powerful figure within the military, and, as a successor to power was an acceptable long term solution to the military.

Nerva’s popularity with the Senate earned him the title Pater Patriae (Father of the country).
However his longest lasting contribution was the legacy he started, a period known that was known as “The Adoptive Emperors”, one where men of character and ability were adopted to inherit power instead of family dynasties which seem by contrast to have spiralled all too rapidly into despotism.

Pliny noted this when saying;
“there is no more certain proof of divinity in a ruler who has chosen his successor than the worthiness of his choice”.

There is no sign of any change in Roman policy in Scotland during Nerva’s short reign from that followed during the latter years of Domitian’s.
These were the years that Tacitus famously recorded in a speech in 98 AD that Scotland had been:
“ ……………conquered then immediately forgotten”.

While Tacitus enjoyed taking a poke at Domitian for the record yet applauded Nerva he is however cautious – as Tacitus often is – not to record Nerva’s continuation of this policy.
While the manpower crisis of Trajan’s subsequent rule would have great bearing on events in Scotland, the policy maintained by Nerva however seems to be that which truly deserved Tacitus claim of “forgotten”, with frontier lines retrenching further and further south through southern Scotland, along with garrisons (and any Vicus that had sprung up) either abandoned or sacked.

And without doubt a new generation of Caledonian young bloods (Mons Graupius was now 13 years in the past) will have ably assisted the process, as indeed will the tribes of southern Scotland now being left increasingly to their own devices as Roman control migrated south.

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