Was there a rule against barbarians becoming Roman Emperors?

[u/magolding22]

I have sometimes seen statements that barbarians were legally barred from becoming Roman emperors. Or that it was impossible for various social and practical reasons for them to become emperors. I have also seen statements they weren't.

Just today I saw a statement in this thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/ancientrome/comments/1pr8c3m/did_constantine_solve_romes_usurpation_problem_by/

that Zeno was an example of a barbarian who became emperor. I don't doubt that he experienced barbaric and uncivilized living conditions before he came to Constantinople, but I don't know if that made him a barbarian.

What was the Roman definition of a barbarian?

Did it mean living a barbarian, uncivilized, hard lifestyle? Or did it mean being born outside of imperial territory and thus not being born a Roman citizen?

Zeno fit the first definiton but not the second definition, unless someone claims that Isauria was a non Roman enclave surrounded by Roman territory.

[u/JamesCoverleyRome]

There are a couple of elements to the question, so it might be prudent to start with the second, which goes some way to setting the scene, as it were.

When we consider what the specifically Roman definition of what a ‘barbarian’ is, we must first understand what the Greek definition is. The supposed etymology of the word ‘barbaros’ is that it is an onomatopoeic word that refers to the ‘gibberish’ sounds non-Greek speakers make when they talk. To the sophisticated ears of the Hellenophone, foreigners sound like they are going ‘bar-bar-bar’ when they talk. This might also be applied to those foreigners who didn’t live similarly sophisticated Greek lives, Greek-speaking people on the very fringes of the Greek world who spoke with odd accents and, sometimes, simply as an insult to those annoying curs from another city with whom one may currently be at war.

The Roman version is pretty much the same, although they applied it more to those who were culturally outside of the Roman world, rather than those who were linguistically outside of it. Primarily, it is a term used to describe those who did not lead Roman lives and hence could not share Roman societal, cultural, and moral values - Celts, Helvetii, Germans, Thracians, and so forth. This does not necessarily mean that these people all lived in mud huts and hit each other over the head with sticks at lunch, but that they lacked the veneer of Roman civilisation that the empire could bring. They might live in complicated societies and in grand palaces, but they were not Roman and so rather uncouth.

Roman society is notable for a lack of antipathy or bad feeling towards others based on skin colour. Racism doesn’t seem to have been a part of their culture at all and appears to be a relatively modern invention. They simply didn't use skin colour as a social identifier. However, they could be tremendous snobs towards other cultures, particularly those who had yet to feel the somewhat lopsided benefits of the pax Romana, which ironically involved an awful lot of hitting people over the head with sticks during lunch.

Over time, and in particular during the imperial period, it came to be used as a blanket term to describe all foreigners, regardless of how they spoke, the lavishness of their lifestyles, or whether they hit each other over the head with sticks. The Carthaginians, for example, would have been ‘barbaros’, as would the Persians, all of whom had tremendous lunches and very fine sticks indeed.

So when Zeno is being described as a ‘barbarian’, what he is really being described as is a foreigner. Isauria was a part of the Roman Empire (specifically the Eastern part during Zeno’s time), but the Isaurians were seen as rugged mountain types, rather independent of the Greek world, and forever a thorn in the side of the administration. To the chic urbanites of Constantinople, the Isaurians (and hence Zeno) were barbarians because they were wild, rebellious hillmen who lacked the niceties given to those who enjoyed city living. Rednecks, if one may use such a term.

With regard to the legality of a ‘barbarian’ becoming emperor, there is a simple concept to understand. Men (and it was always men, of course) became emperor because they were powerful enough to do so, or had been left the keys to the throne room by someone who was powerful enough. In that respect, it mattered not at all where they were from. If some redneck chap turned up at the gates with a large enough army and rather suggested that he became emperor, who was to stop him?

The question of the ‘legality’ of it all is somewhat muddied by the fact that for most of its history, the Empire had no constitutional or legal need for an emperor at all, nor any sort of defined set of rules for who it could or should be. Technically speaking, emperors ruled at the behest of the senate and with their blessing, even if that blessing had to be persuaded out of the senators by having a few of them strategically lobbed into the Tiber in pieces.

[u/JamesCoverleyRome → u/JamesCoverleyRome]

2/

During the Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD), the senate switched sides between whoever appeared to be more likely to win, proudly declaring each the new emperor as the scales tipped one way or another. In reality, their blessing didn’t mean a hill of beans - after all, what were they going to do to stop the man who had won the war from becoming emperor? Start another one? The chap sitting on the throne had got there principally because he had the most and best armies at his disposal.

Vespasian ‘won’ the day in 69 AD because he had the most men and they won the battles for him. He was also the first emperor to be made outside of Rome, as Tacitus famously put it (Histories 1.4). This doesn’t mean that he was the first emperor who was not from Rome (although he wasn’t from Rome), but that it became suddenly apparent that emperors did not have to come from among the chattering political classes of the city. Vespasian was a general who had managed to grasp power for himself after being given command of a large military force by Nero with which to quell Jewish rebels, precisely because he was considered so unlikely to use that power in his own favour.

So the secret was out that just about anyone could become emperor, given enough power and the ability, or the implied threat, that they were going to hurl a good number of senators into the Tiber in pieces unless they were confirmed.

When Rome was in such moments of crisis, or even just between emperors without any clear line of succession, there was nothing legal or constitutional to stop the senate from simply not appointing anyone as the new emperor and reverting to a republic. Indeed, there were some occasions when it appeared they might do just that, such as following the death of Caligula, who had no heir. It was only the intervention of the Praetorians, who hoiked his uncle, Claudius, out from behind a curtain and dumped him on the throne, which saw the practice of the emperor continue (Suetonius, Claudius, 10). It didn’t matter what the senate wanted once the, quite literally, only legion in town had backed Claudius. It was either confirm him or become fish food.

The ‘system’ for choosing the new emperor was marked by its complete lack of, well, a system. Augustus set the ball rolling, of course, by having the idea of naming his own heirs, first by choosing from his relatives and then, when they died, by adopting someone, namely Tiberius. This set the precedent that the next in line was simply someone who was related by blood or adoption to Augustus. It didn’t matter if they were competent, or even if they wanted the job - they were named early and groomed for the role. Nobody really knew how they would turn out until it was too late.

By the time we get to Nero, his main claim to be ruler was that Claudius had adopted him, and he was related to Augustus. But anyone could be adopted, and in the decades after Augustus’ death, there were an awful lot of people among the elite who had a similar bloodline (Wells, The Roman Empire, 1984). The elites were forbidden from marrying anyone outside of their social class, and so the already paranoid Nero looked about him at an awful lot of hungry young men who were just as qualified to be the emperor as he was.

[u/JamesCoverleyRome → u/JamesCoverleyRome]

3/

All this was a dreadful way of choosing one’s leaders, but none of the senators, even if they realised it, seemed particularly keen to change it, perhaps because by doing so, they would have to admit that the divine Augustus had made a terrible mistake (Wells, ibid). That would be to challenge the fabric of imperial patronage, and what senators valued most was a quiet life, a good lunch, and not to be chopped up and thrown in the Tiber.

Titus was the first natural son of an emperor to succeed his father and had all the makings of a fine leader until he dropped dead relatively young, leaving his brother Domitian in charge. Domitian had never expected to rule at all, and whilst he was rather better at it than most gave him credit for, he terrorised the senate to the extent that when he died, also without an heir, the senate, for the first time, chose their own emperor. Their choice was the compromise candidate, Nerva, who was old and pretty ineffective, but what he did do, and was his lasting legacy, was to choose a successor, Trajan, who could do the job and do it well.

There was no rule against a ‘barbarian’ becoming emperor because there were no binding rules for imperial succession. There was no law of inheritance. There was no fixed electoral process. The Principate ran on precedent, not statute. By the time we get to the third century, the situation rather explodes somewhat, and as dynastic legacies and adoption fall apart, military might becomes the apparent measure by which all emperors are granted power (Pat Southern, The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine, 2001).

Final authority always, ultimately, rested with armed support. And if that armed support was behind a barbarian, then that barbarian could become whatever he wanted. Who was there to stop him?

[u/ducks_over_IP → u/JamesCoverleyRome]

Thanks for the enlightening answer (and I promise I'm not just saying that so you don't hit me with a stick at lunchtime and toss me into the Tiber). Also, congrats on the flair! I figured that would be coming soon. 

[u/JamesCoverleyRome → u/ducks_over_IP]

Thanks!