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# Pertinax: Eighty-Seven Days Before Rome’s Imperial Auction
- URL: https://romanempiretimes.com/pertinax-eighty-seven-days-before-romes-imperial-auction/
- Published: 2026-10-29T22:24:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-29T22:23:59.000Z
- Description: An experienced commander took over after Commodus’s murder. His programme for Rome soon brought him into conflict with the men guarding the throne.
- Author: George Liapis
- Tags: Roman Empire Anecdotes, roman empire, Pertinax, Commodus, Praetorian Guard, senate, britannia, senator, rome, Marcus Didius Julianus, Septimius Severus, Emperor, Antoninus Pius, marcus aurelius, Cassius Dio, poison, chariot, Herodian, Campus Martius, Laetus, Eclectus

On 1 January AD 193, Publius Helvius Pertinax became Roman emperor after a night of negotiations between the men who had killed Commodus, the Praetorian Guard and the Senate. He was sixty-six, a former teacher whose military and administrative career had taken him through Britain, the Danube provinces, Syria and Africa. The senators who welcomed him included men who had helped him rise through the imperial service.

Pertinax offered a change in the conduct of government. He restored the standing of people condemned under Commodus, restricted the excesses of the imperial household and tried to impose discipline on the soldiers stationed in Rome. He also inherited immediate demands for money, including the payment he had promised the guard in return for its support. His accession joined an experienced provincial commander to institutions already divided over the previous reign.

His rule lasted eighty-seven days, ending with his murder on 28 March. The struggle that followed made his name useful to men seeking power of their own: Didius Julianus secured the guard’s backing, while Septimius Severus presented himself as the murdered emperor’s avenger. Before that contest began, Pertinax had attempted to govern through a combination of senatorial cooperation, financial restraint and the authority he had acquired in imperial service.

## The Teacher Who Rose Through Rome’s Ranks

Pertinax was born on 1 August AD 126 and came from Liguria in northwestern Italy. His father, Helvius Successus, was a freedman. The *Historia Augusta* describes an education in literature and arithmetic, followed by instruction under the grammarian Sulpicius Apollinaris. Pertinax then taught grammar himself. When teaching brought inadequate returns, he sought military employment through Lollianus Avitus, a former consul and his father’s patron.

His first recorded command was an auxiliary cohort in Syria near the end of Antoninus Pius’s reign. Service in the eastern war was followed by appointments in Britain and a cavalry command in Moesia, on the Danube. A damaged honorary inscription found at Brühl, near Cologne, preserves this early career. Parts of the unit names require reconstruction, but the sequence includes military service, responsibility for the *alimenta*, the imperial support scheme in Italy, and command of the Rhine fleet.

The inscription was discovered in 1959 after its stone had been reused in a Roman sarcophagus. It records honours awarded by the people of Cologne, probably around the time Pertinax moved from the fleet to a procuratorial appointment in Dacia in about 169–170\. His subsequent advancement depended particularly on Claudius Pompeianus, Marcus Aurelius’s son-in-law. Pertinax assisted Pompeianus in the campaigns against invaders in Italy and was admitted to the Senate under Marcus.

![Bust of Marcus Aurelius with curly hair, a beard and a draped cloak, displayed at the Glyptothek in Munich.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/10/marcus-aurelius-glyptothek-portrait.jpg)

Bust of Marcus Aurelius, Glyptothek, Munich. Photo: [Carole Raddato / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glyptothek,%5FMunich%5F%2813271530284%29.jpg?ref=romanempiretimes.com), [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=romanempiretimes.com).

Military success brought the consulship in 175, followed by governorships in the Moesian provinces, Dacia and Syria. His career also included a period out of favour: in 182, during Commodus’s reign, the powerful praetorian prefect Perennis removed him from office. Pertinax spent the following three years in Liguria. He is described as enlarging the family property while retaining the building associated with his father’s business. By this stage he possessed substantial estates as well as an extensive record of service.

After Perennis’s fall in 185, Pertinax was sent to Britain to deal with military unrest. A mutiny nearly killed him, and he later requested relief because his enforcement of discipline had made the legions hostile. Further appointments followed: supervision of the Italian *alimenta*, the proconsulship of Africa and the prefecture of Rome. In 192 he held a second consulship as Commodus’s colleague. When the succession crisis arrived, the city prefect was already one of the empire’s most experienced officeholders.

## Poison, Strangulation and a New Emperor

The conspiracy against Commodus centred on people close to his person: the praetorian prefect Laetus, the chamberlain Eclectus and Marcia, the emperor’s companion. Dio connects their decision with threats against them and with Commodus’s plans to appear on New Year’s Day as consul and gladiator. On the night of 31 December, poison failed to kill the emperor; the athlete Narcissus then strangled him. The men managing the succession had to secure support before their involvement exposed them to retaliation.

![Fernand Pelez’s 1879 painting of Narcissus kneeling beside the fallen Commodus while Marcia watches from behind a curtain.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/10/commodus-death-narcissus-fernand-pelez.jpg)

Fernand Pelez’s **Mort de l’empereur Commode* (1879), a later depiction of Commodus’s death, with Narcissus beside the emperor and Marcia at the curtain. Petit Palais, PPP4975\. Image: [Paris Musées / Petit Palais](https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/fr/petit-palais/oeuvres/mort-de-l-empereur-commode?ref=romanempiretimes.com), [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/?ref=romanempiretimes.com).

Herodian describes Laetus and Eclectus arriving at Pertinax’s house and finding him convinced that they had come to kill him. The *Historia Augusta*, by contrast, says that Pertinax had been offered a share in the conspiracy beforehand and had accepted it. His prior knowledge remains disputed. He had certainly worked within Commodus’s government, and his accession was arranged by senior members of that same court. The transition grew directly out of [Commodus’s final years in power](https://romanempiretimes.com/was-commodus-truly-the-megalomaniac-gladiator-emperor/).

At the praetorian camp, Pertinax promised each guardsman 12,000 sesterces. Dio records hesitation beneath the soldiers’ acceptance: a suggestion that the new emperor intended to put affairs in order raised fears about the privileges enjoyed under Commodus. Laetus’s position as their commander helped obtain their support. This was the force whose proximity to the palace made [the Praetorian Guard’s political role](https://romanempiretimes.com/who-were-the-praetorian-guard-romes-elite-bodyguards/) particularly important during a change of emperor.

Pertinax then appeared before the Senate. Dio, who attended the meeting, places it while the night was still continuing and describes the senators’ approval as sincere. Pertinax pleaded age and ill health before accepting their recognition. His former patron Pompeianus returned to senatorial business, and the new emperor gave him a seat beside himself. The relationship between patron and client had been reversed: the man whom Pompeianus had helped advance now held the imperial office.

## Recalling Exiles and Refusing a Dynasty

One of Pertinax’s first measures concerned the victims of the previous government. He restored the reputation of people who had been unjustly condemned and allowed their relatives to recover their remains for burial in family tombs. Sources also record the recall of people exiled on treason charges and the abolition of treason prosecutions. These changes addressed both the legal consequences of condemnation and the public treatment of families who had lived under the threat of accusation.

In the Senate, Pertinax attended meetings, listened to requests and gave particular honour to Pompeianus and Acilius Glabrio. He remained accessible to senators and entertained them on a modest scale. Some wealthy guests mocked his economy. Dio, who approved of the new emperor, remembered the small dishes sent from his table as part of that change in everyday relations between the ruler and the senatorial aristocracy.

> Again, he used to give us banquets marked by moderation; and whenever he did not do this, he would send round various dishes, even the most inexpensive, to different ones of us. For this the wealthy and vainglorious made great sport of him; but the rest of us, who valued virtue above licentiousness, approved his course. *Cassius Dio, Roman History 74.3.4*

His legal measures included limits on the acquisition of inheritances by the imperial purse. He refused legacies obtained through flattery or legal complications at the expense of rightful heirs, and ruled that an earlier will was to remain valid until its replacement had been completed. 

False accusers faced severe punishments, including the crucifixion of slaves who had brought false charges against their owners.

Pertinax also declined to establish his household immediately as an imperial dynasty. Dio says that he refused the titles Augusta for his wife, Flavia Titiana, and Caesar for his son. He divided his private property between his son and daughter and arranged for them to live with their grandfather. Provincial honours did not follow that refusal uniformly: Egyptian evidence nevertheless gives Titiana the title Augusta.

## Commodus’s Luxuries Go Up for Sale

The new government had commitments that its available cash could not readily meet. Dio and other sources put the money found in the treasury at only one million sesterces. Against that figure stood the promised donative of 12,000 sesterces for each praetorian, together with distributions to the people and other outstanding obligations. Pertinax sought funds from the possessions and beneficiaries of Commodus while reducing the running costs of the imperial household.

![Obverse of a gold aureus showing the laureate profile of Pertinax facing right, surrounded by his imperial titles.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/10/pertinax-gold-aureus-193-ans.jpg)

Gold aureus of Pertinax, minted in Rome in AD 193\. American Numismatic Society, [1905.57.439](https://numismatics.org/collection/1905.57.439?ref=romanempiretimes.com). Photo: [Alan Roche / American Numismatic Society](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gold%5FAureus%5Fof%5FPertinax.jpg?ref=romanempiretimes.com), [public domain](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/?ref=romanempiretimes.com).

The sale of Commodus’s property included statues, weapons, horses, furniture, equipment used for gladiatorial combat or chariot racing, embroidered clothing, costly vessels and elaborate carriages. People were also included in the disposal of the household: the account lists enslaved attendants and entertainers, while exempting those apparently brought to the palace by force. Dio describes the sale as both a way to raise revenue and a public exposure of the previous emperor’s expenditure and habits.

Herodian records a programme to bring uncultivated land into use, including land belonging to the emperor. People willing to work it were to receive holdings and a period of exemption from public burdens. He also credits Pertinax with abolishing tolls levied at rivers, harbours and roads under Commodus. The land measure combined a transfer of property with a substantial inducement to cultivate it:

> To begin with, Pertinax assigned all the land in Italy and the rest of the provinces not under cultivation to anyone willing to care for it and farm it, to be his own private property; he gave to each man as much land as he wished and was able to manage, even if the land were imperial property. To these farmers he granted exemption from all taxes for ten years and freedom from government duties as well. *Herodian, History of the Empire 2.4.6*

Other financial decisions were less welcome. Pertinax restored some revenues Commodus had remitted, breaking an earlier promise and defending the reversal as necessary. He also paid salary arrears, provided funds for roads and public buildings, and took responsibility for overdue support payments. He was attempting to reduce court expenditure while meeting obligations that extended beyond the palace, and some of the resources required came from people who had benefited under Commodus.

The accounts disagree over how much of the guard’s promised donative was paid. Dio says the soldiers received the full amount; the *Historia Augusta* gives an actual payment of 6,000 sesterces against the promise of 12,000\. Both describe hostility to the new discipline and resentment among members of the imperial household. The conflict therefore involved money, access and established privileges as well as the payment expected at an accession. Pertinax’s restrictions affected groups close enough to the emperor to obstruct or attack him.

## The Soldiers Who Turned on Their Emperor

Herodian describes Pertinax ordering the praetorians to stop striking members of the public and to abandon the intimidating conduct permitted under the previous reign. Dio similarly associates their anger with the end of opportunities for plunder. The emperor’s experience of imposing discipline in Britain had been followed by a request to leave that command; in Rome, he again faced soldiers who resented his restrictions.

![Marble relief of Roman soldiers in parade armour, wearing crested helmets and carrying shields, in the Louvre collection.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/10/praetorian-guard-relief-louvre.jpg)

The relief known as The Praetorian Soldiers, dated to around AD 51–52, [Louvre collection](https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010302825?ref=romanempiretimes.com), LL 398 / Ma 1079\. Photo: [Jamie Heath / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Relief%5Fof%5FSoldiers%5Fof%5Fthe%5FPraetorian%5FGuard%5F01%5F%2851220287737%29.jpg?ref=romanempiretimes.com), [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=romanempiretimes.com).

Resistance appeared almost immediately. On 3 January, soldiers tried to elevate the senator Triarius Maternus Lascivius. They attempted to take him to the camp, but Maternus escaped to Pertinax rather than accepting their proposal. Another challenge centred on the consul Sosius Falco. 

In Dio’s version, soldiers planned to bring Falco to the camp while the emperor was away examining the grain supply; Pertinax learned of the plan and returned to Rome.

When the Senate moved against Falco, Pertinax intervened to prevent his execution. Falco retired to the country and retained his property. Some sources maintained that Falco had been unaware of the plan to make him emperor. Pertinax’s decision thus spared a senator associated with a challenge to his power and maintained his undertaking against senatorial executions.

Dio places Laetus at the centre of the worsening crisis, accusing him of executing soldiers while claiming to act on Pertinax’s orders and thereby frightening their comrades. Herodian instead describes the fatal outbreak as an attack by angry guardsmen, without giving Laetus that organising role. The prefect reportedly slipped away when sent to confront them. Whatever part Laetus played in preparing the outbreak, the official who had helped install Pertinax failed to protect him when the soldiers reached the palace.

## 28 March: The Palace Doors Stand Open

On 28 March, an armed group left the praetorian camp and entered the imperial residence. Dio numbers the attackers at two hundred; other sources give three hundred. They encountered no effective barrier at the palace doors. Herodian describes attendants abandoning their posts, while Dio says that the entrances were opened to the soldiers. The main body of guardsmen remained at the camp while the smaller group carried out the assault.

![Surviving brick walls and column fragments of the Domus Flavia on the Palatine Hill in Rome, beneath a clear blue sky.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/10/domus-flavia-palatine-palace-remains.jpg)

Remains of the Domus Flavia on Rome’s Palatine Hill, photographed in 2018\. Photo: [Sonse / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domus%5FFlavia,%5FPalatine%5FHill%5F%2832512975198%29.jpg?ref=romanempiretimes.com), [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=romanempiretimes.com).

Pertinax chose to meet the soldiers and speak to them. Dio describes opportunities to resist or escape, including nearby forces and the possibility of closing the palace doors, but says the emperor relied instead on his presence and his words. 

Herodian likewise has him reject advice to flee. In that account, some attendants urged him to seek safety among the people, but he chose to speak to the guardsmen and ask why they were angry.

> Instead, hoping to overawe them by his appearance and to win them over by his words, he went to meet the approaching band, which was already inside the palace; for no one of their fellow-soldiers had barred the way, and the porters and other freedmen, so far from making any door fast, had actually opened absolutely all the entrances. *Cassius Dio, Roman History 74.9*

In Dio’s account, most of the soldiers initially lowered their eyes and put away their swords, until one man rushed forward and wounded the emperor. The others then joined the attack. Eclectus remained with Pertinax and fought in his defence, wounding attackers before being killed himself. 

One account names the first assailant as Tausius and describes a spear thrust; Herodian has the bolder guardsmen interrupt the emperor’s appeal and kill him. All three accounts place his death in the palace assault.

The killers cut off Pertinax’s head and carried it on a spear. He was sixty-six and had held power for eighty-seven days, the count given by Dio. His head was eventually recovered, and his remains were buried in the tomb of his wife’s grandfather. Dio admired Pertinax’s character but criticised the speed of his programme, judging that he had tried to restore too much at once. That assessment accompanied his account of a ruler abandoned by the men charged with his protection.

## An Empire for Sale, an Emperor Deified

Pertinax’s father-in-law, Flavius Sulpicianus, was already at the praetorian camp when the succession was contested. As prefect of the city, he had been sent there by the emperor to deal with the disorder. Didius Julianus also arrived and sought the soldiers’ support. 

Dio describes the two men offering progressively larger payments, Sulpicianus from inside the camp and Julianus from outside. His account supplied the comparison that gave the episode its enduring name as the auction of the empire:

> For, just as if it had been in some market or auction-room, both the City and its entire empire were auctioned off. The sellers were the ones who had slain their emperor, and the would‑be buyers were Sulpicianus and Julianus, who vied to outbid each other, one from the inside, the other from the outside. *Cassius Dio, Roman History 74.11.3*

Dio puts Sulpicianus’s offer at 20,000 sesterces per soldier and Julianus’s final bid at 25,000\. He adds that the soldiers feared Sulpicianus might avenge his son-in-law. Julianus obtained their backing and went to the Senate surrounded by armed praetorians, where his position received formal recognition. 

Herodian describes an open offer of the empire for money and promises to restore Commodus’s honours. The guard’s bargaining and the subsequent senatorial proceedings both formed part of [the contested accession of Didius Julianus](https://romanempiretimes.com/the-imperial-auction-fact-or-fiction-unraveling-the-reign-of-didius-julianus/).

The soldiers’ decision in Rome did not settle the succession in the provinces. Pescennius Niger held Syria, Clodius Albinus commanded in Britain and Septimius Severus governed Upper Pannonia. Severus was proclaimed emperor at Carnuntum on 9 April, twelve days after Pertinax’s death, and advanced towards Italy. He adopted the name Pertinax and claimed the murdered ruler’s cause. The contest that followed opened the way for [Septimius Severus’s rise to power](https://romanempiretimes.com/septimius-severus-founder-fighter-and-father-of-a-new-rome/), while Julianus’s support collapsed.

![Marble portrait of Septimius Severus with a curly beard, mounted on a later draped bust in Genoa’s archaeological museum.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/10/septimius-severus-genoa-marble-portrait.jpg)

An early third-century portrait of Septimius Severus on a seventeenth-century bust, Museo di Archeologia Ligure, Genoa. Photo: [Giovanni Dall’Orto / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo%5Farcheologico%5Fdi%5FGenova%5F-%5FRitratto%5Fdi%5FPertinace%5F%28sec.%5FIII%5Fd.C.%29%5F-%5FFoto%5Fdi%5FGiovanni%5FDall%27Orto,%5F10%5Fmaggio%5F2023.jpg?ref=romanempiretimes.com); reuse permitted with attribution.

After Julianus’s fall, Severus punished the men responsible for Pertinax’s murder and dismissed the remaining praetorians, replacing them with soldiers drawn from the legions. He also organised an elaborate commemoration. Dio attended the funeral ceremony and describes a wax effigy of Pertinax in triumphal dress, a procession through Rome and a pyre on the Campus Martius, the field of Mars outside the old city centre. Severus delivered the eulogy; an eagle was released when the pyre was lit.

Pertinax received divine honours, and his name entered the public ceremonies of the new regime. Severus ordered that it be mentioned in prayers and oaths and that a golden image be carried to the Circus. The ruler whose authority had failed in March was honoured as a deified predecessor by the emperor who took power in his name.

#### ****🏛️ Sources used:**

[Anthony R. Birley, “The Coups d’Etat of the Year 193,” Bonner Jahrbücher 169 (1969), pp. 247–280.](https://prop.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/bjb/article/view/83005?ref=romanempiretimes.com)

  
[Hans-Georg Kolbe, “Der Pertinaxstein aus Brühl,” Bonner Jahrbücher 162 (1962), pp. 407–420.](https://prop.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/bjb/article/view/75887?ref=romanempiretimes.com)

  
[Cassius Dio, Roman History.](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius%5FDio/home.html?ref=romanempiretimes.com)

  
[Historia Augusta, “The Life of Pertinax” (Loeb Classical Library, vol. I, 1921).](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia%5FAugusta/Pertinax%2A.html?ref=romanempiretimes.com)

  
[Herodian, History of the Empire, Book II (1961 English edition).](https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/herodian%5F02%5Fbook2.htm?ref=romanempiretimes.com)