Imperator Caesar Domitianus Augustus
81-96 A.D.

Domitian’s reputation suffered badly from being the last of his dynasty. His successors were delighted to believe all kinds of outrageous stories about him; they had after all gained their position by murder. Domitian also paid a high price for ignoring the senate, stripping away the empty formalities which pretended that he ruled in conjunction with them. Instead, Domitian saw the role of emperor as that of an autocratic monarch with absolute power. It was senator, however, who wrote the histories, and their verdict dominates our picture of the reign. The relative peacefulness of his reign, and his conscientious attention to administration, might otherwise have been almost sufficient to place Domitian among the good emperors. Domitian was born at Rome, in the area known as ‘Malum Punicum’ (Pomegranate) on 24 October 51. He did not share in the court education awarded to his brother Titus, and may have been left with his uncle Flavius Sabinus while his father Vespasian was absent from Rome governing Africa and suppressing the Jewish revolt. Domitian was certainly with his uncle in December 69 when the Flavians were besieged by Vitellian forces on the Capitol. He escaped to safety, however, and when the Flavians took control of the city, Domitian became a key representative of the new dynasty until Vespasian himself reached Rome in October 70. Thereafter he was loaded with honours but little real power by his father or his brother. Relations with his brother Titus seemed to have been cool, though there is no reason to believe that Domitian intrigu7ed against him, still less that he poisoned him. Titus was childless when he fell mortally ill in September 81. Whether Domitian had expected to become emperor we do not know. He acted quickly to forestall any opposition, however, and without waiting for Titus to die hurried to the praetorian camp at Rome and had himself proclaimed emperor by the guards. The following day, 14 September, Domitian was formally invested with imperial office by the senate.

The Benevolent Aurocrat
Domitian was an able administrator; whatever his shortcomings as a person he did not neglect the welfare of the empire. According to Suetonius, ‘he administered justice scrupulously and conscientiously, frequently holding special sittings on the tribunal in the Forum. He rescinded such decisions of the Hundred Judges as were made from interested motives. … He degraded jurors who accepted bribes, together with all their associates. … He took such care to exercise restraint over the city officials and the governors of the provinces, that at no time were they more honest or just.’ Domitian also tried to raise standards of public morality. He forbade the castration of males, and punished senators who practiced homosexuality. As Pontifex Maximus he condemned to death four of the six Vestal Virgins; three for incest, and a forth, the Chief Vestal Cornelia, for entertaining a whole sting of lovers. The first three were allowed to choose the manor of their death, and their lovers were exiled. Cornelia, however, suffered the traditional penalty of being buried alive, while her lovers were beaten to death in the Forum. In punishing the Vestals, Domitian was acting entirely within the law, however harsh. In other contexts his peremptory manner was less well judged. The senate, in particular, still felt that it had a part in the government, and that its wishes and advice should be respected by the emperor. For Domitian this was merely empty formality. Chosen senators were indeed called to high office within his administration, but it was the imperial court rather then the senate house which was the center of power. In fact, provincials played a growing part in the imperial government, and several consulships went to men of Greek descent. Domitian’s autocratic style of government was underlined by his adoption of the titles ‘dominus et deus’, ‘lord and god’. He changed the names of the months September and October to ‘Germanicus’ and ‘Domitianus’, after his own name and title. He was brusque and businesslike in instructions to governors and officials, wasting no time on polite platitudes. But he also executed senators who opposed his policy, ignoring the frequent decrees of the senate that it should be unlawful for the emperor to put to death any of his peers. And as the reign progressed and his paranoia grew, Domitian relied more and more in informers and put suspects to the torture, inventing a new form of inquisition,’ inserting fire into their privates.’

Court and Courtiers

At the heart of Domitian’s government was the imperial palace. He had inherited the official residence on the Palatine from his predecessors, but it fell below his conception of what the emperor’s exalted station demanded. Soon after coming to power he embarked on construction of a whole new palace complex, the Domus Augustana, to the south of the old Domus Tiberiana. When not in Rome itself Domitian spent much time at his country residence Villa Albana, about 12.5 miles south of Rome along the Via Appia. The imperial palace was the locus of Domitian’s public and private life. It was there that he held official banquets and receptions. It also contained splendid lodgings for the emperor himself and his empress Domitia. He had become infatuated with Domitia Longina at the time Vespasian came to power, while she was still the wife of Aelius Lamia. She divorced Lamia to marry Domitian in the year 70 and bore him a son in 73 who died when he was only two or three years old. Outside his official marriage Domitian gained a reputation for lustful behavior. He was said to depilate his concubines with his own hand, and referred to sexual intercourse as ‘bed-wrestling’. Yet stories of incest with his brother’s daughter Julia should be treated with skepticism. So should allegations of pederasty, not to mention claims that he has sold his body to one-eyed Claudius Pollio in his youth, and perhaps to Nerva also. Domitian was no great lover of literature, but to adorn the imperial court and promote his image he supported Martial and Statius as court poets. They wrote in glowing terms of his regime, his military achievements, and his ambitious building projects. Domitian also patronized public entertainments, introducing novel elements to the games including female combatants and dwarfs. He was in addition something of a philhellene, and founded Greek style games and literary competitions at Rome. All this was costly, and these drains on the imperial purse were one of the factors, which later drive Domitian to confiscations and heavier taxation.

Domitian’s Wars
One hefty element in the imperial budget was the army. Here Domitian won their undying gratitude by increasing the soldiers’ pay from 300 to 400 sestertii. Like many emperors who lacked military achievements before coming to power, he embarked on a campaign soon after his accession. His target was the Chatti, a German people living beyond the Rhine frontier, and in 83 he awarded himself a triumph at Rome and the victory title ‘Germanicus’ for his success against them. It did not rank as an impressive victory, however, and earned Domitian more derision then respect. The more serious warfare of the reign was on the Danube frontier. In 85 the Dacians (from the area of modern Romania) crossed the river and killed the local Roman governor. They were driven back, but the next year an impetuous Roman commander lost his life and army in a punitive strike deep inside Dacia. It was two years before the Romans regained the upper hand with a conclusive victory at Tapae in 88. Domitian was forced to break off the war and come to terms with the Dacian king Decebalus in 89 in order to fight against the Quadi and Marcomanni on the Upper Danube. Three years later it was the Sarmatian Iazyges who were the main threat, again on the Danube frontier, and Domitian may have been engaged in a further Sarmatian war the year before his death. None of the wars produced striking or comprehensive victories, though Domitian was successful in holding the Danube frontier against the successive onslaughts. In order to do this he had to rein in expansionist ambitions elsewhere, notably in Britain where Agricola had hoped to complete the conquest of Scotland. This action earned Domitian harsh criticism in many quarters, but it was a sensible rationalization of frontier policy. Furthermore, though he never won the reputation of a great military leader, Domitian himself was present during several of the wars, and may even have taken part in some of the campaigns.

The Second Persecution Many were the victims of Domitian’s appalling cruelty. At Rome great numbers of men distinguished by birth and attainments were for no reason at all banished from the country and their property confiscated. Finally, he showed himself the successor of Nero in enmity and hostility to God. He was, in fact, the second to organize persecution against us though his father Vespasian had had no mischievous designs against us. Eusebius Ecclesiastical History III.17 Besides other taxes, that on the Jews was levied with the utmost rigour, and those prosecuted who without publicly acknowledging that faith yet lived as Jews, as well as those who concealed their origin and did not pay the tribute levied upon their people. Suetonius Life of Domitian XII The people ‘who lived as Jews without publicly acknowledging that faith’ included many Christians. Some of these were recent Jewish converts, and fell foul of Domitian’s campaign to levy the special tax on Jews introduced by Vespasian after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. Whether Domitian deliberately set out to persecute Christians is less clear. Christianity was still technically an illegal religion, however, and later tradition held that high-ranking Romans, even members of the imperial family, were condemned for being Christians by Domitian.

The Suspicious Tyrant Domitian was not a happy individual. He suffered from a sense of social inadequacy, and preferred to take a walk after dinner rather then sitting late into the night drinking with his companions. He was also an exceedingly fearful man, who had the palace colonnades lined with white reflective marble so that he could see what was going on behind him. During his early years, he endeavored to act with moderation and justice, punishing false informers and treating even persistent calumnies with lenience. The first change came in 85, when financial problems encouraged him to make use of confiscations to boost the imperial coffers, Yet it was Domitian’s deepening suspicion and insecurity rather then his need for money which eventually drove him to cruelty and executions. HE used to say that the lot of princes was most unhappy, since when they had discovered a conspiracy, no one believed them unless they had been killed. But there is in fact very little evidence of conspiracy either at Rome or in the provinces during the first six years of his reign. The fist sign of unrest is a brief reference to prayers of thanks for the uncovering of a conspiracy against the emperor on 22 September 87. Senior senators were implicated and executed. The next recorded attempt, in January 89, was more in the nature of a military mutiny. The leader was Lucius Antonius Saturnius, governor of upper Germany, the cause probably dissatisfaction with Domitian’s policy of appeasement towards the Germans and the growing importance of the Danube legions. The uprising was quickly stamped out by Lappius Maximus, governor of Lower Germany.

Terror and Death
The ‘terror’ erupted four years later, in the later months of 93, and continued until Domitian’s death. Goaded by paranoia and insecurity, Domitian turned upon senators, knights and imperial officials alike, ordering executions or exile. Tacitus writes of ‘the senate house under siege, the senators hedged in by soldiers, and that one fell stoke that sent so many a consular to death, so many a noble lady to exile or flight.’ It was a traumatic experience for the younger Pliny, too: ‘a time when seven of my friends had been out to death or banished… so that I stood amidst the flames of thunderbolts dropping all around me, and there were certain clear indications to make me suppose a like end was awaiting me.’ The reign of terror had exactly the opposite effect to what Domitian had intended, for he did not even spare his personal staff and relations. In 95 he executed his niece’s husband, Flavius Clemens, an ex-consul, on a flimsy charge of atheism, Clemen's widow Domitilla was exiled to the tiny island of Pandateria, but her steward Stephanus stayed on at court. It was there that the successful conspiracy was hatched during the summer months of 96. One version of the story claims that the conspirators happened upon a writing tablet on which their names were marked down for death. The conspirators were Domitian’s own personal attendants, driven to seek safety in his murder. The leaders were Stephanus and Parthenius, the imperial chamberlain, but they had encouragement from the empress Domitia, who was also in fear of her life, and from thee commanders of the Praetorian Guard. For several days Stephanus went about with his arm in capacious bandages, pretending an injury, while in fact he had a dagger concealed in the folds of cloth. They chose their moment when Domitian was retiring from the court room for an afternoon rest. Parthenius had already removed the sword, which Domitian always kept beneath his pillow. Stephanus told Domitian he had information of a conspiracy against him, but as soon as they were alone he drew his dagger and stuck him down, The first blow was not fatal, however, and the two struggled to the floor for some time, ‘Domitian trying now to wrest the gaffer from his assailant’s hands and now to gouge out his eyes with his lacerated fingers.’ The emperor was out of his misery by the other conspirators, who burst into the room and hacked him to death. Only the army mourned Domitian’s death. The general populace was indifferent, but the senate was overjoyed at the news, and delighted that one of their own number, the elderly Nerva, had been chosen as successor. Domitian’s body was carried out of the palace he had built, on a common bier, and taken to the suburban estate of Phyllis, the nurse by whom he had been raised. She at least retained some affectionate memories of him. After cremating the corpse, she secretly carried the ashes back to Rome, to the Temple of the Flavian Family (another of Domitian’s creations). There she mingled them with the ashes of Julia his niece. Thus Domitian’s body was saved; but his reputation was lost beyond all hope of redemption. Through the writings of Tacitus and Suetonius he became yet another example of the monster in office, a worthy successor to Nero and Caligula.