Blood of the Caesars

Stephen Dando-Collins

Description

Could the killing of Germanicus Julius Caesar—the grandson of Mark Antony, adopted son of the emperor Tiberius, father of Caligula, and grandfather of Nero—while the Roman Empire was still in its infancy have been the root cause of the empire's collapse more than four centuries later? This brilliant investigation of Germanicus Caesar’s death and its aftermath is both a compelling history and first-class murder mystery with a plot twist Agatha Christie would envy.

Sujets

• Histoire
• History of Rome
• Stephen Dando-Collins
• Julius Caesar
• Iulius Caesar
• Rome
• Ancient
• History
• Germanicus

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 février 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781620458792
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

BLOOD OF THE CAESARS
Also by Stephen Dando-Collins
Caesar s Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar s Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome
Nero s Killing Machine: The True Story of Rome s Remarkable Fourteenth Legion
Cleopatra s Kidnappers: How Caesar s Sixth Legion Gave Egypt to Rome and Rome to Caesar
Mark Antony s Heroes: How the Third Gallica Legion Saved an Apostle and Created an Emperor
BLOOD OF THE CAESARS

HOW THE MURDER OF GERMANICUS LED TO THE FALL OF ROME
STEPHEN DANDO-COLLINS
Copyright 2008 by Stephen Dando-Collins. All rights reserved
Maps 2008 by D. L. McElhannon
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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ISBN 978-0-470-13741-3
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
CONTENTS

Atlas
Bloodline of the Caesars
Acknowledgments

Introduction
I The Murder of Germanicus Caesar
II The Immediate Aftermath
III The Return to Rome
IV Piso Returns
V Motives for Murder
VI The Murder Trial Begins
VII Prosecution and Defense
VIII Destroying the Family of Germanicus
IX The Downfall of Sejanus
X The Germanicus Emperor
XI The Murder of Caligula
XII The New Germanicus Emperor
XIII The Murder of Claudius
XIV The Murder of Britannicus
XV The Claims of Germanicus s Quaestor
XVI The Murder of Nero s Mother
XVII Death for Burrus and Octavia
XVIII The Plot to Murder Nero
XIX The End of Nero
XX Unmasking Germanicus s Murderers
XXI How the Murder Was Carried Out

Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
ATLAS

1. The Roman World, A.D. First Century
2. Rome, A.D. 18-68

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over the decades that I spent researching ancient Rome for my series of histories of the legions of Rome, the character of Germanicus Julius Caesar loomed larger and larger in my consciousness. The more I learned about this charismatic character, this pivotal yet virtually unknown figure in Roman history, the more I wanted to know. The mystery of Germanicus s death, with its fatal implications for so many members of his family, the family of the Caesars, began to exercise my thoughts very early into my research. But it would be many years before the evidence began to take shape, before the mystery unraveled and the scenario of how the murder was conceived and carried out fell into place, and until I was able to determine who had killed Germanicus, and why.
Often, historical forensic works such as this credit a small army of helpers. Indeed, my American history about a nineteenth-century legal case involving Native American chief Standing Bear lists a number of sources without whom I could not have written that book, from leading figures within his Ponca Indian tribe to Native American researchers and a hugely helpful Omaha newspaper publisher. While I have been aided by many kind people dealing with Roman history at libraries, universities, and historic sites over the decades, this particular book is all my own work. Its theories and conclusions are entirely my own, formed on the back of my many years of research into the history of ancient Rome and using what modest skills as an interpretive historian I may have developed over those years.
My grateful thanks go to my all-conquering New York literary agent, Richard Curtis, who originally steered me onto the legion history path, for encouraging me to explore the Germanicus case and its historical repercussions. My thanks, too, to Stephen S. Power, my editor at Wiley for a number of years now, who saw the potential for the book and helped me focus on the essential elements and the implications for Rome of the murder of Germanicus. Thanks, too, to production editor John Simko and copy editor Bill Drennan for their usual thorough work on the typescript.
My special thanks, as always, go to my inspiration, my wife, Louise. We two are great walkers. For decades, on our walks, I have told Louise stories that had not been widely told before, stories I have found buried in history. Stories about soldiers and emperors, tribal chiefs and presidents, millionaires and idealists, scientists and politicians, sea captains and revolutionaries. Stories in which ambition sometimes clouded otherwise clever minds, and in which brave men and stalwart women stood up for what they believed in, even if they were wrong. For years, Louise was the only one who listened. Her story, of her faith and support, is the greatest one of all.
INTRODUCTION
The fall of Imperial Rome has been ascribed to many things.Some say the fall was generated from without, blaming the invasions of the Visigoths, Huns and others from the east, with the fifth-century sacking of Rome by the Vandals serving as a prelude to the final collapse. Others say it had an internal cause during this same period, blaming weak emperors, or overly ambitious and jealous propraetors and generals who rent the empire with civil wars that sapped it of its manpower, wealth, and cohesion for centuries, leaving it incapable of meeting the outside threats.
There are those who blame the rise of Christianity for the fall of Rome. They claim that where veneration of the Roman pantheon had been just one brick in the foundation of Roman life, Christian leaders sought to make the new faith the sole foundation, to the exclusion of the other factors that had previously made Rome great.
Some say that the western half of the empire was doomed from the moment when Constantine turned his back on Rome in the fourth century and made the future Constantinople his capital.
I take the view that the fall began earlier than all of these manifestations. Much earlier. Julius Caesar ignited the imperial period, and Augustus shaped it. In Augustus, Rome was blessed with a leader unique in history. In all things-military, political, commercial, architectural, and artistic-Augustus created the master plan for his successors to follow. He intended that his grandson Germanicus Julius Caesar would be one of those successors, following a brief interlude with Tiberius on the throne, apparently believing that not even Tiberius could do much damage to the foundation he had laid. In Germanicus, Augustus saw himself. An astute young man with immense talent. A learned man with artistic sensibilities. A diplomat who could win over foreign rulers. A soldier of unquestionable bravery and skill. A general of genius who led from the front. These were all qualities that Augustus shared with his grandson. In the early decades of his reign, Augustus personally led the legions of Rome in its wars with external enemies. It would be another hundred years before there was another emperor, Trajan, who did the same. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero all left the soldiering to underlings. Not even Vespasian or his son Titus, both of them successful generals, took to the field once they were on the throne, and Titus s successor, Vespasian s youngest son, Domitian, had neither the experience nor the inclination to pick up a sword.
Like ordinary Romans of the time, Augustus could see greatness in Germanicus. Germanicus would have been, like Augustus, a soldier emperor. But more than that, Germanicus had a quality that set him above even Augustus, and Augustus knew it. Few Roman emperors could genuinely claim to have been loved by the Roman people. Some were admired, some were respected. Many more were loathed, or feared. But even though Titus was much lamented after his short, benevolent reign, not one emperor was loved. Germanicus was loved. As emperor, he would have been unique. Adored by the Roman people and admired by foreigners, Germanicus the soldier, Germanicus the diplomat, Germanicus the charismatic leader would have taken up where Augustus left off.
But with the murder of Germanicus, which in turn touched off a series of unnatural deaths that rent and within fifty years destroyed the Julian family, the Caesar dynasty, the foundation laid by Augustus was irretrievably fractured. Instead of experiencing a continuation of the Augustan golden age and an expansion of Rome s greatness, with Germanicus gone Rome lurched onto the first stage of the road to ruin. In expectation of seeing a new Germanicus