ABSTRACT
Vindex's coins proclaimed PAX ET LIBERTAS (peace and freedom) and SPQR (the senate and people of Rome), but it is doubtful if any senator really believed that a return to rule by the consuls, the other magistrates and the people was still possible. At any rate, after the fiasco on the death of Gaius, no-one was prepared to urge such a course openly. Yet with Nero's death, the system of recent accessions, by which proximity of relationship to the previous emperor had been the deciding factor, was clearly impossible. No descendants, even by adoption, of Julius Caesar or Augustus or of their immediate family, still survived. In any case the Pisonian conspiracy of ad 65 had thrown open the possibility that a noble with little connection to the Caesars might seize as much power if his aristocratic lineage or other qualifications could win him sufficient support.
