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Updated: June 11, 2025
Several of his generals abroad might advance nearly equal claims to the sword of Trajan; some of the senators at home might deem themselves not unworthy of the purple of Nerva. On every side there was an army or faction ready to devote itself to the service of its favorite or its champion.
For when by chance, in the presence of the Emperor Nerva, the conversation had turned on young men of worth, and several persons spoke in praise of me, he kept silence for a little, which gave him the more authority. Then in the weighty manner you know, "I must needs," he said, "say all the less about Secundus because he never does anything but by my advice."
He was exceedingly pale, and his forehead was covered with drops of sweat; he was in as much doubt as were other spectators, but alarmed to the lowest depth of his soul. Petronius knew not what would happen; he was silent, except that, while turning from Nerva, he asked Vinicius whether he was ready for everything, and next, whether he would remain at the spectacle.
But these emperors would be more properly classed with the five who succeed them Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines; after whom comes the young ruffian, Commodus, another Caligula or Nero, from whose short and infamous reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the decline of the empire.
He is also celebrated for his wisdom, though with less reason; the greatest instance given of it during his reign, being the choice of his successor. On hearing of the death of Nerva, Trajan prepared to come to Rome from Germany, where he was governor.
If the names of these private individuals are not enough, I may add those of the divine Julius, Augustus and Nerva, and that of Tiberius Caesar. I pass by the name of Nero, though I am aware that a practice does not become any the worse because it is sometimes followed by men of bad character, while a practice usually followed by men of good character retains its honesty.
Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of Domitian, before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to stem the torrent of public disorders, which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor. His mild disposition was respected by the good; but the degenerate Romans required a more vigorous character, whose justice should strike terror into the guilty.
It would be a great error to take the five emperors just spoken of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius as representatives of the society amidst which they lived, and as giving in a certain degree the measure of its enlightenment, its morality, its prosperity, its disposition, and condition in general.
But if the examples of private men are not sufficient to justify me, I can cite Julius Casar, Augustus, Nerva, and Tiberius Casar. I forbear to add Nero to the catalogue, though I am aware that what is practised by the worst of men does not therefore degenerate into wrong: on the contrary, it still maintains its credit, if frequently countenanced by the best.
But the classical exponent of Roman anti-Semitism is Tacitus, the historian who wrote in the time of Nerva and Trajan, i.e. just after Josephus, and who treated of the Jews both in his Annals, which were a history of the last century, and in his Histories, which dealt with his own times.
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