Domitian: Autocrat and Lord and God
Domitian ruled Rome for fifteen years, governed it competently, and was murdered by his own household. Born in 51, he was Vespasian's younger son and spent his youth in obscurity while his brother Titus commanded armies and took Jerusalem. He succeeded when Titus died in 81 after twenty-six months. His administration is better than his reputation. He revalued the currency upward, which nobody else did; audited the provincial governors so strictly that Suetonius says the provinces had never been better run; rebuilt Rome after the fire of 80; completed the Colosseum; secured the German frontier with the Limes and annexed the Agri Decumates; and made peace on the Danube after a disastrous defeat. He also took the censorship for life, which gave him permanent control of the senate's membership, and required to be addressed as dominus et deus — master and god — which no previous emperor had done. The senate hated him for that and for the treason trials of his last years, in which senators were executed on informers' evidence. Tacitus and Pliny, whose careers he advanced, wrote about him after his death and shaped everything said since. He was stabbed in his bedroom in September 96 by a steward of his niece, in a conspiracy involving court officials and his own wife, with the senate at minimum aware. The senate voted damnatio memoriae and had his images destroyed and his name chiselled out, and appointed Nerva the same afternoon. Modern historians have rehabilitated him considerably. He is the clearest case in Roman history of a reputation written entirely by the class that killed him.
- Year: 81 CE
- Category: Political
