The Real Power Behind the Throne

Pliny reckoned himself worth somewhere around 20 million sesterces, and he explicitly denied that he wasa rich man. The richest of the rich were a handful of senators worth a hundred million sesterce or more. In the hands of these men lay the real power of rome. By the second century, the combined weight of imperial holdings and personally inherited fortunes allowed an emperor to act with the impunity that defined his position.