As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate disclosure.

Home / People / Pescennius Niger

Historical person

Pescennius Niger

c. 135/140–194

Gaius Pescennius Niger was a Roman senator and provincial governor who became one of the principal imperial claimants in the civil wars of 193–194 CE. By the time of Emperor Pertinax’s murder he governed Syria, commanded substantial eastern forces and enjoyed strong support in Antioch and other cities. After Didius Julianus bought the support of the Praetorian Guard and became emperor, Niger’s troops proclaimed their own commander emperor in the east.

Niger’s strongest rival was Septimius Severus, who secured Rome and then moved against the eastern claimant while temporarily neutralising Clodius Albinus in Britain. Severan forces defeated Niger’s armies in Asia Minor and again near Issus in 194. Niger fled toward Antioch and was killed while attempting to escape. Severus punished many of his supporters and reorganised the eastern political landscape, making Niger’s defeat a decisive stage in the establishment of the Severan dynasty.

Simon Turney’s Praetorian: Blades of Antioch makes Niger’s eastern challenge a direct threat to Septimius Severus, while Praetorian: Eagles of Dacia places him among the ambitious commanders emerging under Commodus. Anthony Riches’ Clash of Legions, Field of Blood and Storm of War also use the civil war of the Year of the Five Emperors as the setting for Niger’s conflict with Severus. Simon Turney’s Praetorian: Blades of Antioch: 6 makes Pescennius Niger a principal rival to Septimius Severus, following the eastern civil war through Syria, Antioch and the campaign that culminates near Issus. In Turney’s Praetorian: Eagles of Dacia: Volume 3, Pescennius Niger appears earlier in the series as one of the ambitious senior commanders already shaping the unstable political landscape around Commodus.

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Pescennius Niger (2 series)

Empire in Order

by Anthony Riches 16 books 4.5(20,598)

The Empire series follows Marcus Valerius Aquila, a Roman aristocrat forced into hiding after his family is destroyed under Commodus. Serving under an assumed name with the Tungrian auxiliaries, he moves from Hadrian’s Wall and the Rhine to Rome, Egypt and the eastern civil wars that follow the…

All books in this series

Praetorian in Order

by Simon Turney 8 books 4.5(14,984)

The Praetorian series centres on Gnaeus Marcius Rustius Rufinus, a legionary drawn into the Praetorian Guard and the lethal politics of Commodus’s court. Investigations, covert missions and frontier commands expose him to conspiracies involving imperial relatives, prefects, freedmen, senators and rival claimants to the throne. As Commodus’s reign…

All books in this series