How was political assassination key in ancient Rome?

Political assassination was not common during

the 1,200 years of the history of Rome. There were only three

periods when it was key.

One was during the Severan dynasty, in which

members of the Severan ruling family were murdered by other family

members (Geta by his brother Caracalla (in 211), Elagabalus and his

mother by the imperial guard in 222, which was incited by his

adoptive son (Alexander Severus). Alexander Severus was murdered by

a legion which mutinied in 235. This started the second period in

question: the Crisis of the Third Century. This was a 50-year

period of military anarchy in which military commanders were hailed

as emperors by their own troops and were then challenged by other

commanders who were hailed as emperors by their own troops. Many

emperors were murdered, sometimes even by their own troops who had

elevated them as emperors because they did not want to fight a

civil war.

The third period was in the 5th century when

the western part of the Roman Empire was falling apart due to the

invasions by the Germanic peoples. The emperor Valentinian III

killed the commander-in-chief of the army, Aetius, (in 444) because

he was afraid that he was becoming more powerful than him and was

himself murdered by two of the followers of Aetius (in 455).

Ricimer, who was a Germanic commander-in-chief of the Roman army

had the emperor Majorian killed. Since he was not entitled to the

emperor because he was not a Roman, he installed two puppet

emperors and held the real power. He murdered one of them, Liberus

Severus (in 465)

The most famous murder was that of Julius

Caesar in 45 BC, who was assassinated by men who thought he wanted

to became a despot.

Nero had his mother murdered because she

wanted him to be his puppet and she was opposed to him to marrying

the woman he loved, Poppea, in 54. Domitian, who was unpopular, was

assassinated in 96. There were instances of murder carried out by

the praetorian (imperial) guard. They murdered Caligula, who was an

unpopular emperor and elevated Claudius (in 41 BC). Commodus, who

was the worse emperor and who was cruel was murdered by court plot.

The praetorian guard murdered his successor, Perinax, and auctioned

the imperial title to the highest bidder (in 193). Constantius, the

son of Constantine the great, had his paternal relatives, apart

from his two brothers, murdered to eliminate rivals for the

imperial title.

Considering Rome's long history, apart from

the mentioned periods, the number of murders of rulers was low.