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Nerva: Emperors
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When Nerva became emperor he swore not to execute senators; he released people who had been imprisoned under Domitian for treason; he prohibited slaves and freedmen from charging their masters with treason or adopting a Jewish lifestyle. Many informers were executed. Nerva destroyed Domitian's arches and statues, using the gold and silver elsewhere. He gave property to those from whom it had been taken by his predecessor and put senators in charge of a land allotment to the poor. He forbade castration and uncles marrying nieces.
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Nerva's creative solution was to decide which of the potential usurpers was in the best position to hold on to the emperorship, and adopt him. This not only saved his own skin and avoided a new civil war, but it ... ushered in the era of the "Adoptive Emperors" that now shines as the longest unbroken string of good government that the Roman Empire would know. Thus, Trajan, governor of Upper Germany, became Nerva's "son", effectively removing everyone's (including Trajan's) reason for murdering him.
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Why Nerva agreed to become emperor is problematic. Ambition on his part is only a partial answer. With no Flavian to succeed Domitian, except for two children, he possibly felt he represented the only acceptable candidate to the anti- and pro-Domitianic senators. With his political connections and ability to negotiate Nerva could resolve conflicts and relax tension. He quite possibly had social reforms in mind that he could only enact as emperor, as witnessed by the achievements in this area carried out in his reign.
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Nerva was augur, sodalis Augustalis (priests of the deified Augustus), a Palatine salius (leaping priests of Mars), and a quaestor. He was praetor-designate in 65 and was involved in revealing the conspiracy of Piso to Nero. In 71, Nerva held the consulship with Emperor Vespasian and then in 90, with Domitian. In later years, he fell out of favor with Domitian and Philostratus says he was banished to Tarentum.
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Nerva was the first of the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor who was Italian both by family and by birth. He had not pursued the usual administrative career, although he had been consul with Vespasian in 71 and with Domitian in 90.
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In 98 after just two years of reign Nerva died and Trajan became the new emperor. During his military career he had been in several provinces of the empire and had a first hand knowledge of how the decisions taken in Rome were often poorly implemented there and how often they did not meet local needs. He therefore paid special attention to improving the logistics of the empire; he did so by improving roads, ports, aqueducts, markets and by establishing a net of local informatores who reported to him what happened in the provinces.
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