E VALUACIÓN DEL DISCURSO DEL “ SUBSTRATO CATÓLICO ”

When Septimius Severus entered Rome in 193, he was neither the first emperor to face a wary senate nor the first to try and win them over.7 _{However, Septimius broke with tradition by putting} his blandishments in legal form. Like many emperors who attained the throne in periods of contested succession, Septimius relied on military strength;8 his initial claim to power rested on the support of the Pannonian legions, while the emperor he replaced, Didius Julianus, had been the choice of the Praetorian Guard. Of course, whatever the reality of an incoming emperor’s power base might be, he served at the head of a symbolic order that emphasized popular will and senatorial collaboration.9 That tension between military force and civilian rule is a constant theme

7 _{For the date of Septimius’ accession to the throne and immediately subsequent entry into Rome,} see Dio Cass. 74.17.3, SHA Did. Iul. 9.3; Birley 1989: 163. For Septimius’ early interactions with the Senate, which was at the time divided into multiple factions supporting different imperial candidates, see Alföldy 1968: 115-16.

8 _{Compare, for example, Otho’s reliance on the urban Praetorians at the moment of his accession} with Vespasian’s later support by the eastern legionaries. See Suet. Otho 6.2, Tac. Hist. 2.74. 9 _{For the concept of imperial messaging as maintaining a symbolic order, see Ando 2012: 193-94} (referring to the “social drama” of governance and, in particular, of adjudication), Noreña 2011: 300-02.

in historiography of the period,10 _{and a great deal of Severan propaganda can be understood as an} attempt to resolve that tension, or at least to mask it. The appointment of Didius Julianus, described with horror by the extant historians, gives the rough contours of the problem Septimius faced upon his arrival:

Then a horrifying thing happened, and one unworthy of Rome; just as in a market or an auction-house, both Rome and all her empire were publicly sold. Furthermore, the ones selling it were those who had killed their own emperor, and those trying to purchase were Sulpicianus and Julianus, competing with each other, one within the camp and the other without.11

The accounts are not unanimous on the details, but are remarkably consistent overall. The accounts differ somewhat in emphasis and chronology; for example, the HA attributes Julianus’ victory to his offer to protect the soldiers, rather than his proposed donative, while Herodian portrays Julianus as the soldiers’ choice from before the negotiations even started.12 _{But all three accounts suggest} that, while contested successions were always sites of tension and likely violence, Julianus owed his selection solely to financial considerations; furthermore, both Dio and Herodian emphasize the unprecedented nature of the auction.13 By the late second century, the Principate was so entrenched that it is difficult to isolate any explicit arguments for it in Roman political discourse; no Roman alive had a grandfather who had seen the republic. But the process by which Didius Julianus was selected could not even pretend to reflect the popular will that Ulpian would later invoke to justify

10 _{See Kemezis 2014: 143-44 (discussing Dio’s attitude towards the eastern army, in particular,} during the time of his composition).

11 _{Dio Cass. 74.11.2-5: ὅτε δὴ καὶ πρᾶγµα αἴσχιστόν τε καὶ ἀνάξιον τῆς Ῥώµης ἐγένετο: ὥσπερ} γὰρ ἐν ἀγορᾷ καὶ ἐν πωλητηρίῳ τινὶ καὶ αὐτὴ καὶ ἡ ἀρχὴ αὐτῆς πᾶσα ἀπεκηρύχθη. καὶ αὐτὰς ἐπίπρασκον µὲν οἱ τὸν αὐτοκράτορά σφων ἀπεκτονότες, ὠνητίων δὲ ὅ τε Σουλπικιανὸς καὶ ὁ Ἰουλιανὸς ὑπερβάλλοντες ἀλλήλους, ὁ µὲν ἔνδοθεν ὁ δὲ ἔξωθεν.

12 _{See SHA Did. Iul. 2.6-7, Hdn. 2.6.8-11.}

13 _{Dio Cass. 74.11.2-3, Hdn. 2.6.12: γὰρ βίᾳ καὶ παρὰ γνώµην}

an emperor’s power;14 _{nor could one reasonably argue that such a process would favor candidates} with those personal qualities that the Antonines had presented as legitimating in their own official media.15 In some ways this worked to Septimius’ advantage; when he entered Rome, supported by the full force of his legions against Julianus’ mutinous Guard, he would have been an uncommonly welcome usurper.16 On the other hand, the events of 193 had exposed what Agamben might call the bare life at the heart of imperium—that it arose from a sovereign’s ability to control the mechanisms by which individuals could be killed, and that it was subject to the approval of those who controlled those mechanisms more directly.17 Septimius Severus became emperor by marshaling and directing violence against enemies of his candidacy; however, actually being emperor—and doing so in any capacity other than as the army’s unofficial representative— required hiding that causal chain. Septimius called on theories of rulership that went beyond monopolies of force, all in the service of maintaining that same monopoly of force. This contradictory messaging requirement—to demonstrate oneself as a military warlord ruling on the basis of something other than military warlordism—animated Septimius’ earliest behavior as conquering emperor, and in particular his initial legal reforms.

14 _{Dig. 1.4.1pr. (Ulpian, Institutiones): Quod Principi placuit, legis habet vigorem: utpote cum} lege regia, quae de imperio eius lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat.

15 _{See generally Noreña 2011: 37-100.}

16 _{Dio Cass. 75.1.2. Dio, of course, is a dangerous source to cite for the opinions of non-senatorial} audiences. See Kemezis 2014: 279-80; see also Millar 1964: 93-94 (describing Dio’s particular attention to imperial usurpation of historical senatorial privileges, an in account which is otherwise strikingly narrative). That said, Dio describes the urban plebs as approving of Septimius’ entry to the city, but not as calling for him in the first instance; they actually supported Pescennius Niger. Dio Cass. 74.13.5. This account seems plausible, since it benefits neither senate nor sovereign; no one would benefit from promulgating this kind of lie.

17 _{See Agamben 1998: 120 (describing how, “once modern politics enters into an intimate} symbiosis with bare life, it loses the intelligibility that still seems to us to characterize the juridico- political foundation of classical politics.”).