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After a lifetime of competent imperial service under Nero and later the Flavians, Marcus Cocceius Nerva Caesar Augustus, aged 65, was declared Emperor in Year 96 after the assassination of Domitian by palace intrigue. Nerva was the first Senate-elected Roman Emperor and later was honored as the first of Gibbon’s “Five Good Emperors”. Modern historians see Nerva as well-intentioned, but ineffectual in his brief reign. While he reversed many of Domitian’s abuses and led efforts to help the populace, including the poorest, his efforts placed financial stress on the Empire. The gold and sliver statues of Domitian were melted to aid the economy, and Nerva declared that no similar images of himself be created.
A childless, non-militarist Nerva was never fully accepted by the Roman army, and a crisis of confidence was forced by the Praetorian Guard. To appease both the army and the people, Nerva had little choice but to adopt Trajan and to name this popular Spanish legionaire as his successor. Nerva all but abdicated, thereafter. He died of a stroke early in 98, still a consul of Rome.
“Concordia Exercituum” on the reverse of the denarius symbolizes the forced “unity” between the Emperor and the Roman army with the clasped hands