Nobody expected Domitian to become Emperor of Rome in AD81, least of all him. And though he was murdered (an occupational hazard of the role) and condemned to oblivion, he left Rome unified and stable. SJA (Simon) Turney writes about this unlikely emperor, the subject of the third in his Damned Emperors series of novels.
Imperial Rome has a history of dynasties, and they are almost always hungry for power and making their bid for the throne whenever the opportunity arises. In the first great family, the Julio-Claudians, power passed to nephews, cousins, uncles and stepsons, without ever actually finding a direct son and heir. Caesar to his great nephew. Augustus to his stepson. Tiberius to a distant nephew. Caligula to an uncle. Claudius to a stepson. Nero, of course, ends the run with an artistic squawk.
But beyond those who wore the purple, there were others expectant of inheritance, or hungry for it. Lucius and Gaius Caesar, Augustus’s grandchildren. Britannicus, Claudius’s son. Gemellus, grandson of Tiberius.
Many failed to achieve the power they’d expected, and yet none seem to have achieved the power without expectation. Unless, of course, we are to take as gospel the story that Claudius was found by the praetorians cowering behind a curtain and made emperor, but I think we’d have to be rather naïve to accept that.
Similarly, later dynasties. Septimius Severus expected both his sons to rule together, before one decided the world would look nicer without the other. And even when the line died out, there were cousins with ambitious mothers waiting to launch their imperial careers (Severus Alexander and the infamous Elagabalus to name them.)
And even the Constantinian dynasty. Good Christian brothers who inherited an empire from good old Saint Constantine and immediately began to war among themselves for complete control, power eventually passing to a cousin waiting in the wings (Julian).
What stands Domitian out from the crowd, I think, is his unreadiness. The Flavians were a provincial family of good, healthy country stock, only relatively recently raised to nobility. They had every reason to believe, once Vespasian had seized the throne and ended the civil war of AD69, that their dynasty would settle in for a century or more, just as the Julio-Claudians had before them.
Sabinus, Vespasian’s elder brother, was respected and in a position of power. Vespasian may not have been universally popular, but he was strong, and his control over the empire uncontested, barring a few small plots that were swiftly put down. And, critically, even if some senators did not like the outspoken bumpkin that had become their emperor, he was a vast improvement on a year and a half of civil war, and even his worst detractors had to be breathing a sigh of relief in a city at peace.
So began a dynasty. Vespasian managed a decade, despite not being a young man, and was the first emperor since at least Tiberius who died of natural causes (although one might consider a knife in the back natural causes for a Roman emperor).
Rome had recovered, was settled, and usurpers had stopped popping up all over the empire claiming the throne. The Flavians were clearly here to stay. On his death, power passed rather smoothly to his elder son Titus.
Titus was strong, a good physical specimen with a good record in the military out east. Of course, there was some nastiness with him executing people for his father that had to be brushed under the mat, and many senators were worried that he would be a poor choice after his father.
It turned out, he wasn’t. Pretty swiftly, he became popular. Unfortunately, he also had a bit of a time of it. Within two years of claiming the power, he had to deal with a fire that burned down part of Rome, a plague that battered the army worldwide, and the eruption of a certain well-known volcano that buried several important cities.
One doesn’t have to look too far in modern Britain to find a politician who had been lithe and smiley on accepting position, and within a year looked exhausted, world-beaten, and close to a nervous breakdown. Imagine how Titus felt in those two years. Vespasian’s son, then, fell ill two years after taking control, and died of natural causes rather swiftly.
The Dynasty was faltering. Vespasian had expected his son to take control and Titus, still a young man and a free agent, able to take on a wife and issue a football team of heirs, would clearly be around for a long time and then groom his own children for power.
Only that hadn’t happened. Titus had died really quickly, unexpectedly, a divorcee with no son to inherit, only a daughter. What would happen?
Cue the arrival upon the scene of Domitian. We know surprisingly little of the younger son’s life prior to his father taking the throne. He was clearly intelligent, bookish, and introverted. He was also somewhat socially awkward and far from at home among Rome’s elite.
Looking at him in the sources through a modern lens it is quite possible that Domitian would now be diagnosed as somewhere on the autistic spectrum. His reign certainly displays plenty of hints in that regard, not least in his micromanagement of the empire’s laws and economy.
Domitian was well-educated and clever, but had seemingly never been groomed to rule, and why would he, when his brother would inherit, and Domitian was destined only ever to be a prince? Yet here they were. Domitian may not have been universally liked at the time of his accession, but then the same could be said of his father and brother, and they’d turned out OK, after all.
For the first time in a century, Rome had acquired an emperor who had not been expected to take the throne, who had not himself expected to take the throne and who, unless certain biased propaganda is to be believed, had never actually shown any real interest in the throne.
Domitian, though damned upon his death and not universally liked, managed a 15-year reign, three relatively successful military campaigns, married for love, initiated one of the greatest building programmes in the history of Rome, stamped down on corruption, and encouraged a return to a more moral behaviour.
His may have been an autocratic and perhaps even harsh rule, yet if we were to award reputations based solely on achievement, he would rank among the highest.
Murdered in a plot by palace officials, Domitian was the end of the dynasty, yet he left a Rome that was strong, financially stable, unified, and peaceful. The success of the next century under the so-called ‘Five good emperors’ can most assuredly acknowledge its roots in the work of Domitian, an unlikely emperor.
Domitian by SJA Turney, the third in his Damned Emperors series, was published on 20 October, 2022.
See more about this book.
Simon has written several features about the background to his books, including Agricola’s victories in Britain, which took place during Domitian’s reign, and (with Gordon Doherty) A game of gods: religion in a changing Roman world.
Images:
- Bust of Domitian, Musée du Louvre: Sailko for Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Bust of Vespasian cAD80, Museo Archeologico (Naples), Farnese Collection: Sailko for Wikimedia (CC BY 3.0)
- Pompeii, forum, with Vesuvius and mount Somma in the background: GuidoB for Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Bust of Domitian in armour: courtesy Simon Turney
- Domitian’s Stadium Garden on the Palatine: courtesy Simon Turney
