The Kingmakers – The Rise and Fall of the Praetorian Guard

As Augustus became the first Roman Emperor in 27 BC, many changes came to the government, among which was the establishment of an imperial bodyguard – called the Praetorian Guard.  The Praetorians were considered among the most elite units of the Roman military, but their existence posed a few problems for the emperors, for the Praetorians were typically more loyal to their own officers than they were to the emperor.

Augustus’ successor, Tiberius, was wisely wary of the Praetorians.  He recognized them as his predecessor’s men and reduced their numbers, moving their quarters outside the city limits of Rome.  Tiberius’ contemporaries dismissed him as paranoid (and they were right about his being too paranoid, just not on this point), but Tiberius’ successor, Caligula, would prove him right on the Praetorian Guard.

Now, there were a lot of things wrong with Caligula, so maybe it’s not really fair to blame the Praetorians for murdering him.  After all, the man who calls himself a god, turns the palace into a brothel, deliberately wastes money on things, murders for amusement, and takes a romantic interest in his sister is probably not the sort of guy who should be running the most powerful country in the world.  Even despite all these things, the Praetorians didn’t say anything.  They drew the line at Caligula wanting to make his horse (in whom he allegedly also had a romantic interest) a consul, which would have made the animal their commanding officer – at least in name.  Caligula was talked down from making his horse a consul, settling for making it a priest (even the emperor has to compromise), but the damage to his relationship with the military, and particularly the Praetorians, had already been irreparably damaged.  The Praetorians murdered Caligula on January 24, 41 AD, setting a dangerous precedent, for the emperors they would later murder were not all horse-lovers (okay, one of them was, but they didn’t technically murder him).

The Praetorians put Caligula’s not insane uncle Claudius on the throne after him, and according to most historians, it was a decent choice.  Problems arose again when Claudius’ successor, Nero, killed his mother and started blaming the Great Fire of Rome on Christians (it pretty clearly wasn’t their fault).  Rumors of horse-loving started floating around again, and the Praetorians abandoned Nero as Galba revolted in 68 AD.  The following “Year of the Four Emperors” saw the Praetorians help Otho overthrow Galba after he had seized power, only to see Otho overthrown by Vitellius and his own army.  Vitellius wised up to the Praetorians and disbanded them, replacing them entirely with his own men.  The problem was that the Praetorians then went and joined Vespasian, another general who was staging a revolt (joke’s on you, Vitellius).  Vespasian took power in 69 and reduced the size of the Praetorian Guard again, placing his son Titus in charge as Praetorian Prefect.  Titus became emperor after his father, but he passed away a couple of years after a remarkably unhappy reign, which saw some dispute as to who would be his successor.

The Praetorian Guard solved this dispute by putting Domitian, Titus’ brother, on the throne, only to have some level of involvement in his murder fifteen years later (they at least didn’t seem to interested in preventing it).  The next handful of emperors are commonly referred to as the “Five Good Emperors” and symbolize the peak of the Roman Empire.  From 96 to 177, there was essentially no disputing the pre-eminence of the Empire, but after Marcus Aurelius’ death, his son, Commodus took the throne.

Dangit, Joaquin.  The Empire had a good thing going.

So… Commodus was either crazy or just a jerk.  Either way, the Praetorians weren’t fans of the guy who insists on being called, “Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Herculeus Romanus Exsuperatorius Amazonius Invictus Felix Pius.”  It’s a mouthful, and it’s also hard to only refer to someone with pronouns to avoid having to say a name that long.  When that guy starts telling people he’s a demigod and likes to fight rigged gladiatorial battles, you draw the line.  The Praetorian Prefect Laetius helped murder Commodus in 192, whereupon Pertinax was put in office.  The Praetorians decided they didn’t like Pertinax a few months later and auctioned (yes, auctioned) off the throne to Didius Julianus.  They killed him three months later, but before they could sell the throne again, the Spanish-born general Septimus Severus took the throne by force and replaced the Praetorians with his own guys (wise move, Septimus).  Septimus Severus was the first non-Roman to have taken the throne by force, and you know, the Romans didn’t seem too upset about it after having had good old “Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Herculeus Romanus Exsuperatorius Amazonius Invictus Felix Pius” and the guy who bought the throne  in power for the last fifteen years.

Septimus Severus was better than his predecessors, but he still likely contributed to the Crisis of the 3rd Century, in which the Roman economy collapsed and Germanic tribesmen ravaged the frontiers with increasing impunity.  The crisis ended with the rise of the emperor Diocletian, who reorganized  the Empire into four main administrative areas in a system called the Tetrarchy.  It’s hard to deny that Diocletian was a turning point for the Empire, and under him, the Praetorian Guard began their final decline while the Empire recovered.  Diocletian removed the Praetorians from the palace in 284, and by the time of his abdication in 305 (the only Roman Emperor to do so), the Praetorians were simply a part of the city guard in Rome.  The following year, the son of the lieutenant emperor in the West, Maxentius, brought the Praetorians back one last time, as he contested the succession of Constantius Chlorus as Western Emperor.  After Maxentius’ defeat at the hands of Constantius Chlorus’ son, Constantine, at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, Constantine marched into Rome and disbanded the Praetorian Guard permanently.

A definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” and the dogged commitment to having the Praetorian Guard as the personal protectors of the Emperor certainly fit this definition.  Look, I’m no expert on this, but if the Secret Service murdered several Presidents in a row, maybe we would try something else, but the logic seems to have been that the Empire was doing so well in spite of the Praetorians, who eventually integrated themselves into the imperial tradition itself, that it was better just to live with them than to risk the unknown consequences of dissolving the unit.  In retrospect, a Roman Empire without the Praetorians might not have had to endure the Crisis of the 3rd Century, which irreversibly damaged the Empire.  Hypotheticals aren’t the business of the responsible historian, but it’s fair to wonder as to what might have occurred without the Praetorians, or if Vespasian would have simply removed them after the Year of the Four Emperors, rather than trying to reform the corrupt institution.

The Robber Council and the Monophysite Controversy

With the legalization of Christianity under Constantine I and its subsequent transformation into an organized religion at the Council of Nicaea in 325, Christian doctrine came under more intense scrutiny and debate than ever before; unfortunately, the people making the decisions regarding doctrine were not always the best-versed theologians themselves.  This was mostly because the Emperor was regarded as a spiritual leader, subject to the authority of no cleric.

When Theodosius II began his solo reign in 416, the church was experiencing a number of controversies regarding the nature of Jesus, and his appointment of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople only worsened matters.  Theodosius was no theologian, and, with a certain interpretation of his life, was not very intelligent in general.  While travelling in Syria, he heard Nestorius’ preaching and was very impressed, so upon the death of Sisinnus, the old Patriarch, Theodosius appointed the charismatic Nestorius.  Nestorius, as it turned out, had many unorthodox beliefs – including his belief that Jesus was not actually the Son of God.  Rather, he posited that the Son of God and Jesus – a normal guy – were simply united in the same body, and, when necessary, the Son of God would take over.  Most of the time, though, Jesus was simply doing his thing as a normal, if more moral than average, man.  In 431, the Bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, called for a church council to condemn Nestorius, and the ensuing proceedings of the First Council of Ephesus confirmed Nestorius as a heretic.  Nestorius was condemned as a heretic, along with several other church leaders.

The controversy was not over yet, however, and Theodosius was arguably the least qualified man to resolve it.   Theodosius had the additional problem of having a “heretic” for a wife in Aelia Eudocia, and she and Theodosius’ vehemently orthodox sister Pulcheria constantly vied for influence over the emperor.  Meanwhile, a new heterodoxy was forming in the shape of Monophysitism.

Typical diagram of Monophysite doctrine

This might seem like splitting hairs (and it probably is), but to the people at the time, it was incredibly important.  The Monophysites claimed that any understanding of Jesus as having two distinct natures is in and of itself heretical, and they attempted a sort of a coup against the “religious establishment” (the bishops of Constantinople, Rome, and Antioch) in the Second Council of Ephesus.  Theodosius approved the proceedings under the Monophysite Bishop of Alexandria, Cyril’s successor Dioscorus, and Bishop of Rome Leo I (also known as “the Great” for reasons I don’t really have time to go into here), Patriarch Flavianus, and Bishop Domnus of Antioch were all condemned by the Council, but before any action could be taken, Theodosius died, and Pulcheria became the new “empress.”  By law, she could not be the actual ruler, but she could choose to marry someone who would become the new emperor.

Pulcheria viewed the Second Council of Ephesus, as most modern scholars and theologians do, as an attempt by the southern clergy to take over a church that unto that point had been heavily dominated by the Greeks, and her first order of business was to reverse its verdicts as quickly as possible.  As a result, she married the general Marcian, who immediately set about undoing the “Robber Council.”

At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the mainline Christian doctrine regarding the “Hypostatic Union” (the synthesis between God and Man in the body of Jesus) was clarified, and almost all Christian sects adhere to it to this day, save the Coptic Church and a few other eastern churches.  For her efforts to correct the doctrine, Pulcheria was later canonized by the Catholic Church.  The debate was not to end here, however, as Dioscorus refused to accept the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon (to this day, the Coptic Church describes itself as “Non-Chalcedonian”).  The great Byzantine Emperor Justinian attempted to solve the controversy by calling the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, but the council ultimately devolved into condemning those who condemned Cyril of Alexandria.  The topic of Christology (the study of the nature of Jesus) would remain dormant for almost a hundred years – largely because of the number of existential threats to the Empire that arose in those days with the invasion of the Avars from Central Asia and increasing pressure from the Persians to the East.

The Byzantine-Persian War of 602-628 was, in essence, the final victory of the Byzantines over the Sassanid dynasty in Persia, which had, for years, been a menace on the eastern border.  The war raged back and forth, pushing the Byzantines to the brink, but a coup staged by Heraclius against Phocas the Usurper placed the Empire under more effective leadership and allowed Byzantium to, eventually, be victorious over the Persians.  Heraclius’ popularity was at an all time high in the 630s because of Persia’s subsequent implosion and its subjugation by the Rashidun Islamic Caliphate.  The Byzantine people did not yet appreciate how dangerous the Caliphate would become, and Heraclius seems to have understood them as some funny sect of Judaism.

Heraclius attempted to leverage his popularity, however, by positing “solutions” to the Christological debate.  His first attempt was “Monoenergism.”  He simply said that Jesus’ nature was simply one “energy,” which was left up to the reader to interpret.  Serious scholars immediately criticized this doctrine as a political cop-out, so in 638, Heraclius switched his view to “Monothelitism,” which said that the seemingly contradictory natures of Jesus were united by a single Telos, meaning “purpose” or “goal.”  In this context it is often translated as “will;” however, fierce opposition from Rome never allowed this doctrine to take root, and in 641, Heraclius died, and the main proponent of Monothelitism was gone.

Ultimately the issue of Christology was largely resolved, inasmuch as it has been, by political events.  Around the time of Heraclius’ death, Egypt fell to the expanding Caliphate, and suddenly, the Monophysite Copts (another term for “Egyptian Christian” which has now become an official denomination of Christianity) were more concerned with the survival of their faith than they were with Christology.  Monothelitism fell out of favor with the common people, and it was eventually condemned by another ecumenical council in 680.

Ultimately, as with many theological issues, the Monophysite debate became too entangled with politics to maintain any scholastic legitimacy, and because of this, it never became the honest discussion it should have been, considering its importance to Christian theology.  Nowadays, it’s mostly done in hair-splittingly detailed debates at seminaries, but it’s interesting to note how debates like these tend to unfold.  For more reading on this, look up Procopius (he’ll mostly handle that space between the Council of Chalcedon and Heraclius) and Dionysus Exiguus.