HISTORY OF ROME-THE IMPERIAL PEACE

CHAPTER I

V.

DOMITIAN: THE COURT AND THE ARISTOCRACY

 

The death of Titus left no doubt as to his successor, and Domitian galloped away from his death-bed to be acclaimed as Imperator by the Praetorians that very day (13 September, 81). The Senate made no difficulty about conferring upon him all the usual powers: from September 14 Domitian counted his years of tribunician power, and by the end of the autumn he had also accepted the titles of Pontifex Maximus and Pater Patriae, and had conferred upon his wife Domitia the title of Augusta.

He was a man of very different stamp from his brother. Born in 51, he had lived through days when his father was out of favour at court and so had known poverty and neglect: there is nothing to show that he had received a good education, and throughout his reign he was content to let others draft his letters, speeches and edicts. In the critical autumn of 69 he had been besieged upon the Capitol, and had only escaped by disguising himself as a follower of Isis. Then, for a few months before the return of his father, as representative of the ruling house he had suddenly enjoyed power: he used it to the full, issuing commissions and making appointments so widely that Vespasian said it was a mercy that his son did not send a successor to him. But with the advent of his father things altered: though he rode behind the chariot of Vespasian and Titus on their triumph, though he was allowed to hold the consulship seven times, though he was given the titles Princeps Juventutis and Caesar and was plainly destined for succession some day, that day was to be far off. Vespasian refused all his petitions to be sent campaigning: he gave him no share in tribunician power nor in real responsibility. Domitian retired and turned to the consolations of poetry: his enthusiasm was probably genuine enough—throughout his whole life Minerva was his patroness and things Greek his passion—but there is nothing beyond the flattery of his dependents to suggest that he achieved greatness in literature, and we need not regret the disappearance of his poem on Titus' Jewish War or of his tract on The Care of the Hair. Minerva was, after all, goddess of other things besides Literature, and what Domitian wanted most was glory in war and a controlling hand in administration. Power and consciousness of power—things for which he had longed—were his at last, and he meant to use them to the full.

UPBRINGING AND CHARACTER 

It will be convenient to relate briefly affairs at Rome and in the court-circle down to the time of his assassination, and then to consider his administrative and legislative record. But at the outset the reader must be warned that the study of his reign is hedged about with difficulties. The epigraphic evidence is scanty, and contemporary literary sources, especially the poets, mostly sustain a fortissimo of adulation. In notable contrast those who survived him, such as Pliny and Tacitus, give full vent to their loathing. The short Life of Domitian by Suetonius, though it embodies material of great value and maintains a more balanced tone than might be expected, has little hint of chronology and is marred by some unaccountable omissions. Book LXVII of Dio Cassius, which is mainly preserved in Xiphilinus, affords a chronological framework, it is true, but, apart from that, little more than the conventional tradition. Generally speaking this tradition looked upon him as but one more instance of a ruler ruined by power, and placed him in the class of Gaius or Nero.

Much of this is exaggerated, yet a large residuum of truth remains. Domitian was in some ways unfortunate. His claim to rule rested not on the rescue of an empire from ruin or on any overwhelming prestige, but simply on the fact that he was a son of the divine Vespasian. But twelve years was not enough to root the Flavian dynasty deep, and Divus Vespasianus could not bequeath to his descendants the same veneration as Divus Augustus. If Domitian had possessed a less autocratic temper or a more genial personality he might have secured power for his family. But though endowed with a fair share of the ability and shrewdness of his father he lacked the good humour that can render efficiency palatable. A student of astrology, given to spending long hours in solitude, grim and ironic, treating with contempt even those he invited to his table, a lover of austere legalism and archaic correctness, his constant reading was the records of Tiberius' reign, and the two men had much in common. But whereas hesitation and uncertainty led Tiberius on into false positions, Domitian knew his own mind from the start; what fills Tacitus and Pliny with horror is no occasional act of vengeance or outburst of passion, but the fact that Domitian's cruelty was calculated and deliberate, conceived and carried out in pursuit of a definite aim.

That aim was the unconcealed exaltation of the Princeps into a ruler pre-eminent over Senate, People and Army, and the consequent lowering of all to the grade of ministers and servants. Domitian held the consulship frequently: from 82 to 88 consecutively he was consul ordinarius, then in 9o, 92 and 95. It might be merely the continuation of the policy of his father and brother, but it resulted in his holding the office seventeen times, more often than any princeps before. But the consulship alone did not give him all the prestige he sought. In the early years of his reign disturbances on the middle Rhine offered him the chance of that military fame and those victories for which he longed so ardently. But while detractors belittled his conquests and mocked at his victories as sham, he used them eagerly to enhance his eminence still further. After his triumph in late 83 he assumed the cognomen Germanicus, and issued coins announcing it and proclaiming his conquest of Germany; henceforth he wore the dress of a triumphator even in the Senate-House, and was attended by twenty-four lictors. On the model of his father he was given censoria potestas, apparently early in 85, but instead of resigning after eighteen months he continued in the exercise of power with the title of censor perpetuus, and thus possessed permanently absolute and undisguised control over the personnel of the Senate, a control which he did not hesitate to use. The commemoration of his victories was to pass into the calendar, for September and October were renamed Germanicus and Domitianus; these titles were certainly used during his reign, though they did not outlast his death.

In private affairs he showed himself equally autocratic. He had destined his cousin T. Flavius Sabinus as his partner for the consulship of 82; at the election in 81, the herald, by an unlucky slip, announced him not as consul but as Imperator. At the moment Domitian took no action, but he would not endure even the suspicion of an equal, and before the end of 84 he had got rid of Sabinus, on an unknown charge. It was rumoured that his wife Domitia had a lover in Paris, the dancer; Domitian killed him and divorced Domitia, probably in 83. In her place he now took the widow of Sabinus, his own niece, Julia, though not as wife but as mistress; but it would seem that about a year later he took back his divorced wife, and the two women lived together with him in the palace.

DOMITIAN 'ASSUMES THE GOD' 

 Further ostentation of his power and position followed. The suppression in 86 of a revolt of the Nasamones in Africa afforded him the opportunity of declaring to the Senate "I have ended the existence of the Nasamones", and from now onwards courtiers and poets greeted him as Master and God; it is just possible that he used this style himself. More display came when, in this same year he instituted four-yearly games, upon the Greek model, in honour of Capitoline Juppiter; Rome was to have its Olympian games, with contests in literature, in chariot-racing, and in athletics. Over them he himself presided, in Greek dress, wearing a golden crown with medallions of Juppiter, Juno, and Minerva embossed upon it, while his fellow-judges wore crowns upon which among these gods his own effigy appeared as wel.

Into the Quinquatria, the festival sacred to Minerva, he also introduced literary contests, and he celebrated these yearly at his villa upon the Alban Mount. By these foundations he honoured the two deities, Juppiter and Minerva, whom he most respected, and in whose honour he had built temples in Rome, and he perhaps hoped to impose something of Greek refinement upon the Roman populace. But by this, like Nero, he simply alienated the aristocracy; we have only to read Pliny's approval of the abolition of similar games at Vienna in Gaul, to appreciate how deep would be the feeling against such practices being introduced into the capital.

Nor was the situation abroad favourable. In 84 or 85 Agricola was recalled, wisely, in view of events in the North-East, but a source of discontent to those who shared Agricola's views: in 86 the newly-consolidated Dacian kingdom inflicted a crushing blow upon a Roman army, which the boasted annihilation of the Nasamones could hardly offset. Dissatisfaction at last began to issue in plots against this second Nero; on September 22 in 87 the Arval Brethren are found sacrificing 'ob detecta scelera nefariorum.' It was probably the first serious danger Domitian had encountered, and trials may have lasted some time', but we have no details of any plot and cannot profitably conjecture the names of the conspirators.

THE REVOLT OF SATURNINUS  

October of the year 88 witnessed the holding of Ludi Saeculares, by which Domitian not only celebrated the passing of one more saeculum in Rome's long history, but perhaps intended to impress on men's minds the coming of a new and glorious Flavian Age. His coinage shows how great a stress he laid upon the celebration, and it is even possible that he deliberately anticipated the date—for one hundred and ten years after the Augustan celebration would have brought them to 93—because he was anxious to give the Roman People at this time a spectacle at once solemn and heartening: if not, his mathematicians were badly out in their reckoning. But if Domitian dreamed that the celebration would have an edifying effect on the Empire he was to have a rough awakening. Scarcely were they over when alarming news reached the capital: L. Antonius Saturninus, the legate of Upper Germany, had been acclaimed as Imperator by the legions at Moguntiacum and was in open revolt. The danger was urgent: Saturninus had been in correspondence with others, he had summoned barbarian tribes to assist him, it might be the beginning of a movement such as had overthrown Nero, and in the depth of winter (mid-January, 89) Domitian hastened northwards.

But before he had got far the danger had collapsed, thanks to the promptitude and loyalty of L. Appius Maximus Norbanus, the legate of Lower Germany, and by the end of January the Senate was already proclaiming fervent thanksgivings and vows for the safe return of the Princeps. But Domitian did not return: he continued his march to Moguntiacum and there made inquisition. Though Maximus, with a courage that does him credit, had burned Saturninus' correspondence, some of Saturninus' accomplices were known and more were suspected; there were executions, the extremest tortures were used to extract confession or information, and of those found guilty two alone obtained pardon. Saturninus' head was sent to Rome to be exhibited on the Rostra, and Domitian soon after turned eastwards to deal with an invasion of the Iazyges.

It had been a great deliverance : in Rome itself the usual vows were made and poets execrated the dead traitor. A less usual memorial arose in the South of Italy, where a citizen of Beneventum dedicated in his native town a temple to Isis, the great mistress of Beneventum, with obelisks in front of it which Domitian had ordered to be fetched from Egypt; the whole temple, apparently, was an ex voto for the safety and return of the Emperor. But neither Italian deities nor foreign goddesses could relieve his suspicious mind, for the conspiracy of Saturninus had given him a shock from which he never recovered. From 89 his rule became more tyrannical, since he saw conspirators and rivals around him everywhere. He began to listen favourably to delatores and to those who played upon his fears, and once an emperor was willing to listen there were not lacking men to inform. Chief among these were M. Aquilius Regulus, A. Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiento, and the blind L. Valerius Catullus Messallinus, but there were others whose names have been handed down to infamy, a rhetorician Pompeius, a dancer Latinus, and a so-called "philosopher" Seras.

Aided by these creatures Domitian struck blow after blow against those who seemed for any reason formidable. By an edict in 89 he banished philosophers and astrologers from Rome, and during the next years he steadily eliminated the objects of his fear or resentment. He dared not trust influential generals or governors: C. Vettulenus Civica Cerialis, a proconsul of Asia, was charged with conspiracy and executed even during his tenure of office, probably in 90, and a governor of Britain, Sallustius Lucullus, was put to death for allowing a new kind of lance to be named after him instead of after the Emperor. Men of ability and reputation withdrew from public life; Sextus Julius Frontinus went unemployed, C. Julius Cornutus Tertullus lived in retirement, Herennius Senecio held no post after the quaestorship; Agricola, who had been living unobtrusively at Rome since his return from Britain, was not allowed to proceed to the governorship of Syria, which Domitian had hinted should be his, and did not dare let his name go forward for the province of Asia. Seventy years experience of maiestas had supplied informers with a stock of useful precedents and had taught them how easily trivial matters could be worked into serious accusations, but some of the charges are so vaguely recorded that it is impossible to give any detailed account.

  TRIALS FOR TREASON

The fate of Mettius Pompusianus is typical: he was rumoured to have an imperial horoscope, and to possess a map of the whole empire; he had made from Livy a collection of speeches by kings and generals, and had given some of his slaves hated names like Mago or Hannibal. The fatuity of such charges is reminiscent of those brought in the earliest years of Tiberius, but there was no Tiberius presiding to dismiss them with scorn; instead, Pompusianus was driven into exile on Corsica, and in 91 he was executed. His disgrace appears to have involved other members of his clan, for M. Mettius Rufus, who had been appointed Prefect of Egypt in 89, disappears from records at this date and his name has been erased on some documents, while his son Mettius Modestus, who had dared to revile the notorious informer Regulus, was sent into exile. This same year too, a distinguished noble, M. Acilius Glabrio, was first compelled to fight in the arena at Domitian's Alban villa, and when he emerged successful, was exiled; a rhetorician called Maternus was executed for reciting an exercise against tyranny, and we ought probably to assign to this same period the execution of another rhetorician, Hermogenes of Tarsus, who was killed for lampoons against the Emperor, while his slave-copyists were crucified. Even provincials were not safe, for it is nearly certain that the trial and execution, on an unknown charge, of the wealthy Athenian Hipparchus, the grandfather of Herodes Atticus, falls within these years. His vast landed estates were confiscated, and though some funds may have escaped, his property must have meant a considerable accession to the imperial chest.

These cases can be dated with some approach to certainty: there remain other victims about whom little is known beyond the name, for though the nature of the charge is sometimes indicated the date is quite obscure. To have been a friend of the Emperor was no protection: M. Arrecinus Clemens had been for a brief space Prefect of the Praetorians to Vespasian, yet though he was then a favourite of Domitian, he was one of those condemned to death. C. Julius Bassus, another friend, suffered relegation and was not restored till after Domitian's fall. Salvidienus Orfitus was first exiled on a charge of conspiracy and then put to death, while L. Salvius Otho Cocceianus was executed because he had celebrated the birthday of his uncle, Otho, as a day of rejoicing.

Such is a part of that melancholy roll of sufferers, of which a full list was afterwards drawn up by various writers. But the effects of this policy of terrorism had so far been limited in range. The city-populace had its shows and games and was supplied with food, and Domitian had been able to gratify it by the sight of two triumphs in November 89. The legionaries, too, were satisfied by the victories gained and by the re-assertion of Roman supremacy in war, and their loyalty was confirmed by the recent rise in pay, one-third as much again, which their Imperator had awarded them, and by the generous grants of immunity from various taxes and burdens which veterans received. The persecution fell mainly upon the Senatorial and upper classes, and how they felt is well shown by Pliny's account of his visit to Q. Corellius Rufus. Rufus had been legate of Upper Germany in 82, and was doubtless a fair sample of the administrative class; in old age and retirement, though racked by pain, he clung to life, so that "I can survive that brigand for one day at least".

Yet in fairness to Domitian it should be recorded that his administration, as will be seen later, was keen and efficient; evil he may have been, but his servants were acknowledged to be good, and many of the men who were to hold distinguished positions under Trajan served their apprenticeship under Domitian. Tacitus and the younger Pliny are famous examples; but there were many others, men who though they might disapprove of the reigning princeps yet realized the necessity of a Principate. There is nothing to confirm the suggestions of Domitian's enemies that he was ruled by favourites or freed­men: his secretaries, Claudius, Epaphroditus, and Abascantus, were kept in their place and did not dominate his councils. Nor were the informers secure; though these later prosecutions stand in singular contrast to the principle that Domitian had enunciated at first—'a princeps who does not punish informers encourages them'—he was not under their thumb; Veiento, Regulus and Mettius Carus survived his reign, but Arrecinus Clemens and Baebius Massa, who had been informers, were punished. It would be truer to say that Domitian's anti-Senatorial policy brought him, just as it had brought Nero, into conflict with opposition; against that opposition he might rely on informers, or use soldiers as agents-provocateurs, but all whom he used were alike his servants, and he was alone responsible for his policy.

It was upon the remnants of the Republican opposition that the next blow fell. Though during the second half of 92 Domitian had been absent from Rome, superintending the campaigns against the Suebi and Sarmatae , by January of 93 he had returned. But no action was taken immediately: he waited till after the death of Agricola (23 August, 93) and then in the winter of 93 and during 94 he launched his attack. The first victim was apparently the younger Helvidius Priscus son of the revolutionary. Tough a consular he was living in retirement, but he had written a farce about Paris and Oenone which Domitian interpreted as a satire upon his own relations to his wife. Whatever the charges preferred—whether treasonable libel or abstention from duties—the matter was represented as urgent and dangerous, and troops lined the Senate-House: his accuser Publicius Certus, a man of praetorian rank, obtained his condemnation and actually helped to drag the condemned man away. The next victim was Junius Arulenus Rusticus, who had published a panegyric upon Thrasea Paetus; for this he was condemned and executed, and his book, like that of Cremutius Cordus, was ordered to be burnt. With these two the destiny of a third man, Herennius Senecio, was too closely linked for him to escape; he had not held any official post after the quaestorship, but he had written a Life of the elder Helvidius Priscus at the request of his widow Fannia and he was an enemy of Regulus; Mettius Carus acted as prosecutor, he was condemned and executed, and his book banned. Though these three alone were killed, heavy punishment fell on their relatives and members of their circle: Fannia, for instigating Senecio to write the life of her husband, had her estates confiscated and suffered relegation, as did her mother the aged Arria (widow of Thrasea Paetus), together with another member of the group, Verulana Gratilla, and the brother of Rusticus, Junius Mauricus. Finally, by a senatus consultum in 951, Domitian drove all philosophers not only from Rome but from Italy, and so teachers and preachers such as Artemidorus (the son-in-law of Musonius), or Epictetus, left Italy to wander or to find a home elsewhere.

On the 1st of January, 95, Statius, with the bold vision vouch­safed to minor poets, could discern his emperor "rising with the new sun, among the mighty stars, yet more brilliant than them and greater than the early dawn-stare". Domitian might well have been satisfied as he surveyed the world beneath his feet: there was peace in the Empire, the Dacian king had acknowledged his overlordship and sent his brother Diegis to accept the diadem from his hands, the temples were full of statues of him in gold and silver dedicated by his admirers, and he had so terrorized the Senators that he had them subservient to his will whenever he appeared in the Senate-House. One more group yet remained to stir his suspicions, and this group involved his own family. Flavius Clemens, a cousin of Domitian, was married to the Emperor's niece, Domitilla; he was an easy-going, slothful creature who had so far kept in favour; indeed Domitian, despairing of an heir of his own, about the year 90 had proclaimed two of their children as his successors, had given them the names of Vespasian and Domitian, and had appointed Quintilian to be their tutor. In 95 Clemens was consul ordinarius for some four months, but scarcely had he resigned his office when, with his wife and with several others, he was called upon to answer an accusation of neglect of the State religion (atheotes). It may be that this accusation was due to their being favourers of Jewish or Christian rites, but whatever the precise implications attaching to the word atheotes, it proved fatal to Clemens and to the exiled Acilius Glabrio, for both were executed; Domitilla was spared but sent into exile. There may have been others involved but these are the only names that have come down to us.

Unimportant though Clemens was, his murder sealed the fate of his murderer; if a creature "contemptissimae inertiae" could be so treated, who was safe from attack? Not the Praetorian Prefects, for Domitian put them on trial even while they were in office, so that T. Petronius Secundus, the Prefect of Egypt, was summoned early in the year 96 to take up the vacant post with a certain Norbanus. Not the palace freedmen, for the Emperor, with senseless cruelty, ordered the execution of his a libellis Epaphroditus, because some twenty-seven years before he had helped Nero to commit suicide. Flattery and abasement before the 'Master and God' seemed the only way of escape; even moderate men were not immune from suspicion, for—as was subsequently discovered—Domitian had received and filed informations against both Pliny and Nerva. The suspense and dread of the last few months must have been appalling, and it could be ended only by Domitian's death. For their common safety all parties, Domitia herself, the two new Praetorian Prefects, Entellus the successor of Epaphroditus, Parthenius the chamberlain, and various minor officials of the palace, joined in a plot. But first they must find another princeps, for there must be no civil war and no rival claimants, and so they approached Cocceius Nerva, an elderly, amiable and distinguished jurist of some literary pretensions. His natural fears of a trap were overcome; he consented and the plot could proceed.

It was by now September. The conspirators secured the instrument they needed in a freedman Stephanus. He had been a procurator of Domitilla and had her exile to avenge; more, he had been accused of misappropriating money and could hope for little mercy if Domitian heard his case. Tradition speaks of omens and of warnings enough to put the dullest on their guard: perhaps Domitian had some intimation of his peril. There was no time to lose, and on September 16 Stephanus attacked him, under the pretence of handing him a paper. Into the details of the last scene and the ferocious joy of the narrators there is no need to enter; the tyrant was killed, Stephanus was dispatched by those who rushed to help their master, the other and more prudent conspirators escaped unscathed for the moment, and Nerva was proclaimed princeps that very day. Domitian's body was burned privately by his nurse, Phyllis, who laid the ashes in the temple of the Gens Flavia that he himself had built. Already the Senate was condemning his memory, and men were pulling down his statues; she mingled the ashes with those of his niece, Julia, Titus' daughter, so that they might rest undisturbed.