22 Facts About Pertinax

Publius Helvius Pertinax was Roman emperor for the first three months of 193.

Pertinax succeeded Commodus to become the first emperor during the tumultuous Year of the Five Emperors.

Pertinax achieved the rank of provincial governor and urban prefect.

Pertinax was a member of the Roman Senate, serving at the same time as the historian Cassius Dio.

Pertinax instituted several short-lived reform measures, including the restoration of discipline among the Praetorian Guard.

Pertinax was born in Alba Pompeia in Italy, the son of freedman Helvius Successus.

Pertinax suffered a setback as a victim of court intrigues during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, but shortly afterwards, he was recalled to assist Claudius Pompeianus in the Marcomannic Wars.

In 175, he received the honour of a suffect consulship and until 185, Pertinax was governor of the provinces of Upper and Lower Moesia, Dacia, Syria, and finally governor of Britain.

Pertinax was recalled after three years to Britain, where the Roman army was in a state of mutiny.

Pertinax tried to quell the unruly soldiers there but one legion attacked his bodyguard, leaving Pertinax for dead.

Pertinax served as proconsul of Africa from 188 to 189, and followed this term of service with a term as the urban prefect of Rome, and a second consulship as ordinarius with the emperor Commodus as his colleague.

Pertinax's short reign of 87 days was an uneasy one.

Pertinax attempted to emulate the restrained practices of Marcus Aurelius and made an effort to reform the alimenta, but he faced antagonism from many quarters.

Pertinax attempted to impose stricter military discipline upon the pampered Praetorians.

Pertinax sent Laetus to meet them, but he chose to side with the insurgents instead and deserted the emperor.

Pertinax must have been aware of the danger he faced by assuming the purple, for he refused to use imperial titles for either his wife or son, thereby protecting them from the aftermath of his own assassination.

Pertinax's historical reputation is largely a positive one, beginning with the assessment of Cassius Dio, a historian and senator who was a colleague of Pertinax.

Pertinax acknowledges that while some would call Pertinax's decision to confront the soldiers that would wind up killing him "noble", others would call it "senseless".

Pertinax is critical of Pertinax's judgment when it came to the speed with which he tried to reform the excesses of the reign of Commodus by suggesting that a more tempered approach would have been less likely to result in his murder.

Pertinax is described in David Hume's essay Of the Original Contract as an "excellent prince" possessing an implied modesty when, on the arrival of soldiers who had come to proclaim him emperor, he believed that Commodus had ordered his death.

Pertinax was the pseudonym of the French journalist Andre Geraud.

In Romanitas, a fictional alternate history novel by Sophia McDougall, Pertinax's reign is the point of divergence.