How many julio claudian emperors were there

Indeed, Otho was eventually defeated at the Battle of Bedriacum, and rather than flee and attempt a counterattack, Otho committed suicide. He had been emperor for little more than three months. Vitellius was recognized as emperor by the Senate. Very quickly thereafter, he proceeded to bankrupt the imperial treasury by throwing a series of feasts, banquets, and triumphal parades.

He tortured and executed money lenders who demanded payment and killed any citizens who named him as their heir. He also lured many political rivals to his palace in order to assassinate them. Meanwhile, many of the legions in the African province of Egypt, and the Middle East provinces of Iudaea and Syria, including the governor of Syria, acclaimed Vespasian as their emperor.

A force marched from the Middle East to Rome, and Vespasian traveled to Alexandria, where he was officially named Emperor. The Senate acknowledged Vespasian as emperor the next day, marking the beginning of the Flavian Dynasty, which was to succeed the Julio-Claudian line. Vespasian remained emperor for the rest of his natural life. A plaster cast of Vespasian in the Pushkin Museum, after an original held in the Louvre.

Skip to main content. Chapter 6 The Roman Empire. Search for:. Nero minimized the influence of all of his advisers and effectively eliminating all rivals to his throne.

He also slowly removed power from the Senate, despite having promised to grant them with powers equivalent to those they had under republican rule. Marble statue of a member of the imperial family. Bronze statue of an aristocratic boy. Sard ring stone. Banded agate amphoriskos perfume bottle. Marble portrait of the emperor Augustus. Gold ring with carnelian intaglio portrait of Tiberius.

Marble portrait bust of the emperor Gaius, known as Caligula. Sardonyx cameo portrait of the Emperor Augustus. Marble funerary altar. Marble head of a deity wearing a Dionysiac fillet. Marble calyx-krater with reliefs of maidens and dancing maenads.

Carnelian intaglio of a gladiator fighting a lion. Marble statue of an old woman. Rosso antico torso of a centaur. Marble pilaster with acanthus scrolls. Marble cinerary urn. Bronze portrait bust of a Roman matron. Marble disk with a herm of Dionysus in relief. Marble statue of Herakles seated on a rock. Citation Department of Greek and Roman Art. Fannius Synistor.

Related Essays Augustan Rule 27 B. Finally, his own Praetorian Guard murdered him in only the fourth year of his rule. In some ways, Nero appeared to be less degenerate than Caligula and may have mostly suffered from a lack of skill as a ruler. However, his many executions of those conspiring against him, whether real or imagined, made him unpopular. He even murdered his own mother. His apparent lack of concern over the great fire in Rome in 64 A.

Although considered a family dynasty, no member of the Julio-Claudians managed to leave their power to their own son. Obviously hoping to keep the rule in the family, Augustus carefully chose her husbands in an attempt to control the succession, but tragedy struck continuously. His nephew Marcellus passed away young, and so he remarried Julia to his closest friend, Agrippa.

Agrippa and Julia had three sons and two daughters, yet Agrippa himself died before Augustus, as did his two eldest sons. The third apparently did not possess the character that Augustus had hoped to see in his heir, and so he instead passed his power onto Tiberius, his stepson. Tiberius also suffered the death of his child, outliving his son and intended heir, Drusus. Power instead passed to his grand-nephew, Caligula. In the chaos following his murder, the Praetorians that found his Uncle Claudius hiding in the palace quickly declared him emperor to halt the possibility of war.

All sources unanimously accuse Nero of poisoning his step-brother. The final member of the dynasty, Nero, also produced only a daughter, and he committed suicide in disgrace without ever having planned his succession. The lack of an heir to Nero, as well as the brewing revolution that prompted his deposition and suicide, sent Rome spiraling back into brutal civil wars. The only survivor was the fourth and final claimant, Vespasian , who successfully defeated all opponents and rose to power as emperor, founding the Flavian Dynasty of Rome.

The great-great-great-granddaughter of Augustus, Domitia Longina, married Emperor Domitian , the second son of Vespasian and the third ruler of the Flavian Dynasty. Another line of the Julio-Claudians married the maternal uncle of Nerva, who the Senate made emperor after another round of violent civil wars following the fall of the Flavian Dynasty. During the rule of the Nerva-Antonine Dynasty , another descendant of Julio-Claudians, Gaius Avidius Cassius, received dubious fame for declaring himself emperor upon hearing that Emperor Marcus Aurelius had died.

Unfortunately, the rumor was false, and Marcus Aurelius was alive and well. Avidius Cassius was in too deep by that point, and stuck to his claim, only to be killed by one of his own soldiers.

She received her BA in History and Philosophy from Hope College and has continued researching and writing on topics of ancient history from the Assyrian Empire to the Roman Empire and everything in between.

She enjoys dabbling in historical fiction, but generally finds the actual true individuals of history and their stories more fascinating than any fictional invention.