DESIGNATION OF THE EMPEROR AND SUCCESSION DURING THE FIFTY YEARS OF THE ANARCHY

The fifty years following the assassination of Severus Alexander are those in which the imperial structure – subjected not only to external attack, but also to political, economic and demographic problems of its own – ran a genuine risk of disintegration. The danger was most apparent from the mid-century onwards. The unified political control of the empire was the issue principally at stake, and the very foundations of the legitimation of imperial power seemed to change both markedly and rapidly. In this respect the accession of Maximinus and, particularly, his refusal to come to Rome to endorse his designation at the centre of the empire are revealing, for they already show signs of a breakdown in that delicate equilibrium between the senate and the army which had hitherto guaranteed the process of imperial legitimation (though admittedly with varying success). The senate's attitude towards Maximinus, however, was not one of immediate rejection. In order to muster the power needed to unite the whole senate against Maximinus, the group of senators loyal to Severus Alexander needed not only a rebellion in one of the richest areas of the empire (against the excessive taxation imposed by the imperial government to finance the extended war effort on the northern front), but also the support of a sizeable number of provincial governors equipped with armies. The senatorial reaction against Maximinus took the form of a somewhat fanciful and utopian experiment in aristocratic restoration. The appointment of the vigintiviri was evidently an attempt to reassert the role of the senate and the senatorial élite in imperial government.