3. TIL of Roman Emperor Pertinax who was murdered by his imperial bodyguard so that...

TIL of Roman Emperor Pertinax who was murdered by his imperial bodyguard so that they could auction off the empire to the highest bidder

And this wasn't even the beginning of the "Crisis of the Third Century" where nearly every year, or sometimes up to four times a year, the emperor was murdered and replaced by any schlub that had even the tiniest army. That was constant civil war for 50 years.

Previous emperor dies? Soldiers will pick the next guy. Do you not have enough troops to fight a civil war? Bring some barbarians in to do it for you! Want your 14 year old grandson to be an emperor? Why not? Hell, just declare yourself a new empire, not like they'll do anything about it for a decade.

And by the time that shitshow was done, the only way to fight a war was to get the emperor do it, because god forbid if one other person won a battle, he'd proclaim himself emperor. They didn't even trust soldiers enough to put them in barracks anymore, because if even a barracks-load of soldiers was together in the same place, they could proclaim a new emperor.

It's honestly amazing the Western Roman Empire lasted as long as it did, and the East a millennium longer.

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