Domitian

“ There was nothing sinister about Elagabalus’ feasts, nothing after the style of Domitian’s little supper parties, where all was melanic, walls, ceilings, linen, slaves; parties to which every one worth knowing was ultimately bidden, and, as usual in state functions, every one that was bidden came, only to find a broken column inscribed with a too familiar name behind his allotted couch, and Domitian talking very wittily about the proscriptions and headsmen he had arranged for each. ”

“ In the doorway stood Stephanus, a freedman, the steward of Flavia Domitilla, wife, or rather widow of Clemens, whom Domitian had recently put to death. Domitilla had been exiled, and the Emperor had appropriated to his own use the estates of his kinsman.
“Why camest thou hither?” asked the prince roughly. “I shall have enough to say to thee on the morrow because of thy embezzlements.”
“Augustus! I am innocent.”
“A thief, a vile purloiner, a blood-sucking leech, that has fattened as do all thy kind on thy masters. Go thy way—I want thee not here.” ”

“ If you are quite positive, then I won’t throw away the kid on Febronia. It is of no use wasting money on a goddess who really has not helped.”
“Mother,” said Domitia, her whole frame quivering with excitement; “I am sure of it. Did not the Augustus give his daughter Julia to Flavius Sabinus? I know that Domitian was alarmed at that. I saw it in his looks, I heard it in his voice; his movements of hand and foot proclaimed it. He feared a rival. He feared what the will of Titus might be—whom he might name as his successor. Mark me, my mother; the first to fall will be Flavius Sabinus.” ”

“ Meanwhile, the Dacians, led by their king Decebalus, having crossed the Danube, Domitian took the field against them, and, in A.D. 90, was defeated, and forced to conclude a humiliating peace. Yet, on his return to Rome, he celebrated a triumph, assuming the name of Dacicus. The next year an insurrection broke out among the German legions, which was, however, suppressed.
Domitian now ordered himself to be styled the "Lord and God," and was worshiped with divine honors. A ferocious jealousy of all excellence in others seemed to possess him with rage against the wise and good. ”

“ Domitian was the first emperor who arrogated divine honours in his lifetime, and caused himself to be styled Our Lord and God in public documents. Doubtless in the poems of writers like Martial this deification was nothing but fulsome flattery, but in the case of the provincials it was a sincere tribute to the impersonation of the Roman Empire, as the administrator of good government and the peacemaker of the world. Even when Rome and Italy smarted beneath his proscriptions and extortions, the provinces were undisturbed. ”

“ Domitian's victories were defeats; his captives, purchased slaves; his triumphs, audacious falsehoods. Suetonius is not so severe. ... Domitian's cruelty appeared especially, and perhaps we should say only, after the revolt of a person of high rank, Antonius Saturninus, who pretended to be a descendant of the triumvir. ... He was in command of two legions in Germany whom he incited to revolt, and he called the Germans to his aid. An unexpected thaw stopped this tribe on the right bank of the Rhine, while Appius Norbanus Maximus, governor of Aquitania, crushed Antonius on the opposite shore. ”

“ I prithee, Domitian, when your dear father is proclaimed in Rome,—forget this girl’s folly, and remember only that I sheltered thee.”
“I will remember. I am not one to forget.”
“There is no escape,” sighed Domitia. “Whom the Gods will destroy—they pursue remorselessly. Well, be it so.—Stay then, coward! I am undone.”
“STAY THEN, COWARD.” Page 153.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE END OF VITELLIUS. “I never made a greater mistake in my life,” said Longa Duilia, “and I cannot think how you allowed me to make it.”
“What mistake?” asked the Chaldæan. ”

“ A suspected friendship led to his banishment in the reign of Domitian, and in his exile, with the Phaedo and the De Falsa Legatione as his companions, he wandered over many lands, supporting himself often by menial service.1962 He at last found himself in his wanderings in regions where wild tribes of the Getae for a century and a half had been harrying the distant outposts of Hellenic civilisation on the northern shores of the Euxine.1963 The news of the death of Domitian reached a camp on the Danube when Dion was there. ”

“ And striding towards him, with Corbulo’s scabbard he struck the freedman across the face.
Stephanus uttered a cry of rage and pain, and instantly smote at the Emperor with a dagger he had held concealed in his sleeve.
“What, hound! You dare! You shall be flayed alive! Ho! to my aid!”
Stephanus threw himself on the Emperor.
Then Domitia stepped between the struggling men and the doorway, and with one hand drew together the curtains so as to muffle the cries.
“To my aid! to my aid!” called Domitian, as the powerful steward grappled him, and struck his dagger into the thigh of the prince. ”

“ Parthenius hastily concealed the tablets by throwing a fold of his garment over the hand that held them. “Sire,” said he, “I have come to announce that thy chamber must be on this side.”
“Go thy way,” said Domitian roughly, “see to it that I have a bed brought at once. Hast heard, Domitia, the fire has fallen!”
“Sire,” said Parthenius, “I haste to obey and pray the Gods that in spite of thunder and lightning you may sleep sound and not wake.”
The Emperor walked to the clepsydra, and laughed scornfully. “The bolt of Jove has missed me,” said he. “The red-handed One made a mistake. ”

“ Domitian bit his lip. The Flavians were of no ancestry; money-lenders, tax-collectors, jobbers in various ways, with no connections save through the mother of Vespasian, and that middle-class only.
“I say that a man who will not serve his country should be pitched out of it.”
“About that I have no opinion.”
“Clemens was cast to the lions by Nero, but some witchcraft charmed them, and they would not touch him.”
Domitia said nothing to this. She was desirous of being rid of her self-imposed escort.
“You must wish me success,” said the young prince. “I am off to Germany. ”

“ Having explored the coasts of Fife and Forfar, he gained a decisive victory over the Caledonians under Galgacus at the Graupian hill (see Britain, Roman.) His successes, however, had aroused the envy and suspicion of Domitian. He was recalled to Rome, where he lived a life of studied retirement, to avoid the possibility of giving offence to the tyrant. ”

“ Domitian is constantly men [41] tioned as the second great persecutor, Nero being the first. The reason doubtless for this general tradition is that in A.D. 95, persons of the highest rank, some even belonging to the imperial family, were among the condemned; notably Flavius Clemens the Consul, and the two princesses bearing the name of Domitilla—all these being very near relatives of the Emperor. ”

“ It is superfluous to canvass the truth or falsehood of a story for which the biographer himself will not vouch. The dying Agricola did not fail to remember Domitian in his last will and testament. He made him co-heir with his excellent wife and most dutiful daughter, and the emperor expressed his delight at so handsome a bequest. ”

“ Do you not suppose that you will be the first to suffer the resentment of the Augustus?”
“There is a good deal in that,” said Duilia, to which the Magus said,—
“I have no fear of betrayal from any in the house save Senecio, that owl-like philosopher. He is not like the slaves, he may suspect, and trip me up.”
“My good Elymas,” interrupted Duilia, “do not concern yourself about him. He is not a man to chew nutshells when he can munch kernels.”
“Domitian is in my apartment, will you see him, lady?”
“By all means. I have a notion. Go, fetch Domitia, bring her down there to me.” ”

“ It was in His service that I have broken your statue."
Domitian looked with a smile at the Patrician. "You will make nothing of him," said he. "They speak even so when they stand before the lions in the arena. As to argument, not all the philosophers of Rome can break them down. Before my very face they refuse to sacrifice in my honour. Never were such impossible people to deal with. ”

“ This was appalling tidings to Domitian. Such a dethronement was more terrible than any other which could be thought of. He hated the Christians, and wreaked undiscriminating and pitiless vengeance upon them. Many were driven from their homes into exile. They carried with them into the remotest provinces of the empire the glad tidings of the gospel. Many suffered death, accompanied by all conceivable tortures.
It is one of the legends of the Catholic Church, that the aged apostle John, being then at Rome, was, by the order of Domitian, thrown into a caldron of boiling oil. ”

“ In another moment Eboracus came out on the housetop, and hastening to his mistress, said:—
“Madam, the Augustus—Titus, has been. The Cæsar Domitian is proclaimed Emperor by the troops. The vigiles are hastening in cohorts to swear allegiance.”
“I congratulate you—I congratulate you with all my heart!” exclaimed Longa Duilia, throwing her arms round her daughter. “I have reached the summit of my ambition. I vow a kid to Febronia for her opportune—ahem!—but who would have thought the Roman fever would have been so speedy in bringing us luck. Run, Eboracus, summon the housekeeper ”

“ His name, at any rate, everywhere in the inscriptions in Rome and wherever else it chanced to have been carved has been chiselled out, this name alone among all the others, as the observer may see, and not a single statue of him is to be seen anywhere throughout the Roman Empire, with the exception of one bronze statue, accounted for as follows. Domitian had a wife of noble character and discreet, and neither had she herself ever harmed any man in the world nor was she pleased at all with any of the actions of her husband. ”

“ The reign of Domitian, although it silenced the more independent spirits of the time, Tacitus and Juvenal, witnessed more important contributions to Roman literature than any age since the Augustan,—among them the Institutes of Quintilian, the Punic War of Silius Italicus, the epics and the Silvae of Statius, and the Epigrams of Martial. ”

“ The rubor of Domitian is stigmatized, quaintly enough, by the pen of Tacitus, (in Vit. Agricol. c. 45;) and has been likewise noticed by the younger Pliny, (Panegyr. c. 48,) and Suetonius, (in Domitian, c. 18, and Casaubon ad locum.) ”

“ This latter lady was, as already mentioned, the widow of Clemens, one of the two sons of Flavius Sabinus, præfect of the city, who had held the Capitol against the Prætorians of Vitellius and had been murdered but a few hours before Rome was entered by the troops that favored his brother Vespasian. On that occasion his sons had escaped, and the elder was married to Julia, daughter of Titus, but had been put to death by Domitian. The younger brother, Clemens, a quiet, inoffensive man, who took no part in public affairs, had been executed as well, shortly before Domitian himself perished. ”

“ Under the mild administration of Titus, the Roman world enjoyed a transient felicity, and his beloved memory served to protect, above fifteen years, the vices of his brother Domitian.
Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of Domitian, before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to stem the torrent of public disorders, which had multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor. His mild disposition was respected by the good; but the degenerate Romans required a more vigorous character, whose justice should strike terror into the guilty. ”

“ The reference in I, 1, where there is question of perils and hardships that have suddenly come upon the Roman community, to the Domitian persecution in the year 93 is anything but certain. It is by no means proved that the so-called Domitian persecution was a persecution of the Christians. The text of Dio Cassius (67, 14) which is relied upon points at the most to a persecution of those who, like Flavius Clemens, the emperor's cousin, leaned to “atheism” or the Jewish faith. “If we rely on Roman sources, we find no persecution of the Christians under Domitian ”

“ He himself too made a remarkable pretence of modesty and especially of an interest in poetry, an art which had previously been as unfamiliar to him as it was later despised and rejected, and he even gave readings in public. Yet in spite of all this, when Vologaesus, king of the Parthians, had asked for auxiliaries against the Alani and for one of Vespasian's sons as their leader, Domitian used every effort to have himself sent rather than Titus ”

“ This ceremony was hardly complete before the great central gates were thrown open, to a peal of trumpets, and heralds entered to proclaim the opening of the sports given by the Emperor, the Cæsar Domitian, the Augustus, son of the God Vespasian, high priest, holder of the tribunician power, consul, perpetual Censor, and father of his country; sports given for the pleasure of his well-beloved, the citizens of Rome, senators, knights, and people generally, and of such strangers as might at the time be in Rome, the centre of the world. ”

“ The violent outbreak of persecution, fierce and terrible as it seems to have been in the last year and a half of Domitian’s reign, does not appear to have been owing to any special movement among the Christian subjects of the Empire which aroused attention and suggested distrust, but was solely owing to the Emperor’s private policy and personal feelings. There is nothing to show that any edict against the sect was promulgated in this reign. Since the time of Nero the persecution of Christians was a standing matter, as was that of persons who were habitual law-breakers, robbers, and such-like. ”