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The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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It would be as wearisome for the historian as for the reader to enumerate the prodigalities, eccentricities, and cruelties to which Domitian abandoned himself more completely the longer he reigned. In his vanity he declared himself a god like Caligula, caused sacrifices to be offered to him, and introduced the custom of being styled “Our lord and god” in all public ordinances and documents. He squandered immense sums on building, instituted the most magnificent public games, and, like Tiberius and Nero, was slave to all sorts of excesses. In order to obtain the money he required, he caused many rich people to be robbed of their goods or executed on every kind of pretext. Not avarice alone, but suspicion and fear drove him to acts of despotism and cruelty.d Little by little he gained, it was alleged, an actual taste for tormenting his victims. It was said that he took delight in being present at the torture and execution of prisoners, and that by a refinement of cruelty, he often showed himself most friendly towards those persons whose death he contemplated. But allowance must be made in all this for the exaggeration of scandal-mongers. That he was severe in stamping out all opposition, however, is not to be questioned.a His hatred of the senators was inflamed by the discovery that many of them shared in the conspiracy of Saturninus, a rebellious governor of northern Germany. From that time to the end of his reign he was a terror to the nobility, as well as to the stoics, whose teachings glorified conspiracy and “tyrannicide.”m
The citizens being defenceless, the senate without authority, the soldiers as partial to Domitian as they had once been to Nero, and no one except his confidants and servants daring to approach him, the tyrant would probably never have been overthrown had he not, like Caligula, made those around him fearful for their lives. His own wife, Domitia, conspired with some of those persons who had to write down or execute his cruel orders to destroy him. Chance once placed in the hands of Domitia a list of the condemned on which the suspicious tyrant had written her name. On the same list were the names of the two prefects of the guard, Norbanus and Petronius, and of Parthenius, Domitian’s most trusted chamberlain, and it was therefore easy for Domitia to bring about a conspiracy against her husband. To carry it out was more difficult, for Domitian possessed great bodily strength, and in his suspicion had taken all sorts of precautions against such attempts. The tyrant was surprised in his sleeping apartment, and slain after a desperate resistance. The guards were so enraged at the murder of Domitian that his successor, Nerva, could not protect the conspirators from their anger, and they were cut to pieces by the soldiers after their execution had been in vain demanded of the new emperor.
After Domitian’s death the senate gave full vent to its hatred of the tyrant. The statue of the murdered emperor was immediately destroyed by its orders, his triumphal arches overthrown, and his name effaced from all public monuments. The government was handed over to the old senator Cocceius Nerva, whom the conspirators had immediately proclaimed emperor on Domitian’s death. It is most characteristic of those times that Nerva was said to be raised to the throne, not so much on account of his services to the state, but because, under Domitian, some astrologers had said that the horoscope of this man pointed to his becoming emperor at some future time.[25] It was universally believed that a celebrated philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana, to whom supernatural powers were ascribed, witnessed the murder of Domitian in the spirit at Ephesus at the same time that it took place, and publicly announced it to the people.d
Other superstitions concerning the death of Domitian, together with an account of the personal characteristics and habits of living of the emperor, and of the manner of his taking off, are given by Suetonius; this biography being the concluding one in the famous work we have so frequently quoted.a
SUETONIUS ON THE DEATH AND CHARACTER OF DOMITIAN
With respect to the contrivance and execution of Domitian’s death, [he says] the common account is this. The conspirators being in some doubt when and where they should attack him, whether while he was in the bath, or at supper, Stephanus, a steward of Domitilla’s, then under a prosecution for defrauding his mistress, offered them his advice and assistance; and wrapping up his left arm, as if it was hurt, in wool and bandages for some days, to prevent suspicion, at the very hour appointed for the execution of the plot, he made use of this further stratagem. He pretended to make a discovery of a plot, and being for that reason admitted, he presented to the emperor a writing, which whilst the latter was reading with the appearance of one astonished, he stabbed him in the groin. But Domitian making resistance, Clodianus, one of his chamberlains, Maximus a freedman of Parthenius’, Saturius a superintendent of his bedchamber, with some gladiators, fell upon him, and stabbed him in seven places. A boy that had the charge of the Lares in his bedchamber, then in attendance as usual, when the transaction was over, gave this further account of it; that he was ordered by Domitian, upon receiving his first wound, to reach him a dagger which lay under his bolster, and call in his servants; but that he found nothing at the head of the bed, excepting the hilt of a poniard, and that all the doors were secured; that the emperor in the meantime got hold of Stephanus, and throwing him upon the ground, struggled a long time with him; one while endeavouring to wrench his sword from him, another while, though his fingers were miserably mangled, to pull out his eyes. He was slain upon the 18th of the calends of September, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the fifteenth of his reign. His corpse was carried out upon a common bier by the public bearers, and buried by his nurse Phyllis, on an estate which had belonged to him by the Latin way, not far from Rome. But his remains were afterwards privately conveyed into the temple of the Flavian family, and mixed with the ashes of Julia, Titus’ daughter, whom the same woman had likewise nursed.
He was of a tall stature, a modest countenance, and very ruddy; had large eyes, but dim-sighted. His person was graceful, and in his youth completely such, excepting only that his toes were bent somewhat inward. He was at last disfigured by baldness, a fat belly, and the slenderness of his legs, which were reduced by a long illness. He was so sensible how much the modesty of his countenance recommended him, that he once made this boast to the senate, “Thus far you have approved of my disposition and countenance too.” He was so much concerned at his baldness, that he took it as an affront upon himself, if any other person was upbraided with it, either in jest or earnest.
He was so incapable of bearing fatigue, that he scarcely ever walked about the city. In his expeditions and on a march, he seldom made use of a horse, riding generally in a chair. He had no inclination for the exercise of arms, but was fond of the bow. Many have seen him kill a hundred wild beasts, of various kinds, at his seat near Alba, and strike his arrows into their heads with such dexterity, that he would, at two discharges of his bow, plant as it were a pair of horns upon them. He would sometimes direct his arrows against the hand of a boy standing at a distance, and expanded as a mark for him, with such exactness, that they all passed betwixt his fingers without hurting him.