Didius Julianus

Regarding Didius Iulianus, who obtained the imperial power after Pertinax, his great-grandfather was Salvius Iulianus, twice consul, prefect of the city, and a legal expert—which made him more noble—his mother was Clara Aemilia, his father Petronius Didius Severus, his brothers Didius Proculus and Nummius Albinus, his maternal uncle Salvius Iulianus, his paternal grandfather an Insubrian from Mediolanum, and his maternal grandfather from the colony of Hadrumetum. He was educated at the house of Domitia Lucilla, the mother of the emperor Marcus. He was chosen among the board of twenty men by the vote of Marcus’s mother, and was designated quaestor a year before the legal age permitted. He attained the aedileship by the vote of Marcus. He became praetor by the vote of the same. After his praetorship, he commanded the Twenty-Second Legion Primigenia in Germany. From there he ruled Belgica devoutly and for a long time; there, when the Chauci, a Germanic people who dwelt near the Elbe river, broke out, he resisted them with hasty auxiliary forces of the provincials, for which services he won the consulship through the testimony of the emperor. He also thoroughly defeated the Chatti, then received the government of Dalmatia to rule, and defended it from neighboring enemies; after that, Lower Germany he ruled, and after this he earned the supervision of the food supply in Italy. Then he was accused by a certain Severus, a famous soldier, of conspiracy with Salvius against Commodus; but by Commodus—since he had already killed many senators, and indeed noble and powerful ones in trials of high treason, lest he be burdened more gloomily— Didius was released, with his accuser condemned; having been acquitted, he was sent again to rule a province. Next he ruled Bithynia, but not with the same reputation as the others. He was consul with Pertinax and succeeded him in the proconsulship of Africa, and was always called colleague and successor by him, especially on that day when Iulianus, betrothing his daughter to his kinsman, had come to Pertinax and intimated this, [Pertinax] said: “[Receive him] with due reverence, because he is my colleague and successor.” For immediately the death of Pertinax followed. When he was killed , and Sulpicianus wished to be named emperor in the camp, and Iulianus had come with his son-in-law to the senate, which he had heard was summoned, and when he found the doors closed and discovered two tribunes there, Publius Florianus and Vectius Aper, the tribunes began to urge him to seize the place. When he said to them that another was already named emperor, they, detaining him, led him to the praetorian camp. But after they came into the camp, since no one would admit Iulianus, who was promising huge rewards from the wall, while Sulpicianus, the prefect of the city and father-in-law of Pertinax, was haranguing and claiming the empire for himself, Iulianus first warned the praetorians not to make him emperor who would avenge Pertinax; then he wrote on tablets that he would restore the memory of Commodus. And so he was admitted and named emperor, with the praetorians requesting that he should not harm Sulpicianus in any way because he had wished to be emperor.

Then Iulianus, by the vote of the praetorians, made Flavius Genialis and Tullius Crispinus praetorian prefects, and was surrounded by an imperial crowd through Maurentius, who had previously joined Sulpicianus. Indeed, although he had promised twenty-five thousand sesterces to the soldiers, he gave thirty thousand. Then, having held a military assembly, he came to the senate in the evening and committed himself entirely to the senate; and by a decree of the senate, he was named emperor, and earned the tribunician power, the proconsular right, and was enrolled into the patrician families. His wife also, Manlia Scantilla, and his daughter, Didia Clara, were named Augustae. Then he withdrew to the Palace, his wife and daughter being summoned there, crossing over trembling and unwilling, as if they already presaged the imminent destruction. He made Cornelius Repentinus, his son-in-law, prefect of the city in place of Sulpicianus. Meanwhile, Didius Iulianus was in the hatred of the people for this reason, that it had been believed that the reform of the times of Commodus was to be restored by the authority of Pertinax, and he was held in such a way as if he had been slain by the counsel of Iulianus. And already those who first began to hate Iulianus spread the rumor that on the very first day, despising the dinner of Pertinax, he had prepared a luxurious banquet adorned with oysters, fattened birds, and fish. This is established to have been false. For Iulianus is said to have been of such great parsimony that he would divide a young pig over three days, and a hare over three days, if anyone by chance had sent them to him, and often, when no religious custom existed, he supped without meat, content with vegetables and legumes. Furthermore, he did not sup before Pertinax was buried, and, very sorrowful, took food because of his death, and continued his first night in vigils, anxious about such great necessity.