96
The assassination of a tyrant
The Romans, after dispensing with their Republic, tried a series of imperial dynasties. The problem was that, while the founder was often a man of restraint and competence, his children or grandchildren were likely as not to be monsters. The very able Augustus gave way to the paranoid Tiberius, the ghoulish Caligula, the dotard Claudius, and the fiendish Nero. After a year of four rival claimants Nero was replaced by the moderate Vespasian. Unfortunately Vespasian’s decent son Titus died early and was replaced in 81 AD by the younger Domitian, whose tale Chambers takes up here:
The obituary for this day includes the name of one of those monsters, who disgrace so frequently the annals of the ancient Roman empire. On 18th September, 96 A. D., the Emperor Domitian was assassinated by a band of conspirators, after having rendered himself for many years the terror and detestation of his subjects. The son of Vespasian, and the brother and successor of Titus, he exhibited in the commencement of his reign a great show of righteous severity, and came forward as a reformer of public morals. Several persons who had transgressed the laws of conjugal fidelity, as well as some vestal virgins who had violated their vows, were punished with death. It was not long, however, before his real character showed itself; and he became a disgrace to humanity by his acts of cruelty and avarice. Cowardice and falsehood entered largely into his disposition, which, if we are to credit all the accounts that have descended to us, seems to have scarcely had a redeeming point. Multitudes of persons were put to death, either because the emperor desired their wealth, or from his having become apprehensive of their popularity or influence. Secret informers were encouraged, but philosophers and literary men were slaughtered or banished, though Martial and Silius Italicus could so far degrade poetry, as make it the vehicle for flattery of the imperial monster.
A favourite amusement of his, it is said, was killing flies, in which he would spend whole hours, and nothing seemed to give him greater pleasure than to witness the effects of terror on his fellow-creatures. On one occasion, he invited formally the members of the senate to a grand feast, and caused them on their arrival to be ushered into a large hall, hung with black and lighted with funeral torches, such as only served to exhibit to the awe-struck guests an array of coffins, on which each read his own name. Whilst they contemplated this ghastly spectacle, a troop of horrid forms, habited like furies, burst into the apartment, each with a lighted torch in one hand, and a poniard in the other. After having terrified for some time the members of Rome’s legislative body, these demon-masqueraders opened the door of the hall, through which the senators were only too happy to make a speedy exit. Who can doubt that the character of Domitian had as much of the madman as the wretch in its composition?
At length human patience was exhausted, and a conspiracy was formed for his destruction, in which his wife and some of his nearest friends were concerned. For a long time, the emperor had entertained a presentiment of his approaching end, and even of the hour and manner of his death. Becoming every day more and more fearful, he caused the galleries in which he walked to be lined with polished stones, so that he might see, as in a mirror, all that passed behind him. He never conversed with prisoners but alone and in secret, and it was his practice whilst he talked with them, to hold their chains in his hands. To inculcate on his servants a dread of compassing the death of their master, even with his own consent, he caused Epaphroditus to be put to death, because he had assisted Nero to commit suicide.
The evening before his death, some truffles were brought, which he directed to be laid aside till the next day, adding, ‘If I am there;’ and then turning to his courtiers said, that the next day the moon would be made bloody in the sign of Aquarius, and an event would take place of which all the world should speak. In the middle of the night, he awoke in an agony of fear, and started from his bed. The following morning, he had a consultation with a soothsayer from Germany, regarding a flash of lightning; the seer predicted a revolution in the empire, and was forthwith ordered off to execution. In scratching a pimple on his forehead, Domitian drew a little blood, and exclaimed: ‘Too happy should I be were this to compensate for all the blood that I cause to be shed!’ He asked what o’clock it was, and as he had a dread of the fifth hour, his attendants informed him that the sixth had arrived. On hearing this he appeared reassured, as if all danger were past, and he was preparing to go to the bath, when he was stopped by Parthenius, the principal chamberlain, who informed him that a person demanded to speak with him on momentous business of state. He caused every one to retire, and entered his private closet. Here he found the person in question waiting for him, and whilst he listened with terror to the pretended revelation of some secret plot against himself, he was stabbed by this individual, and fell wounded to the ground. A band of conspirators, including the distinguished veteran Clodianus, Maximus a freedman, and Saturius the decurion of the palace, rushed in and despatched him with seven blows of a dagger. He was in the forty-fifth year of his age, and fifteenth of his reign. On receiving intelligence of his death, the senate elected Nerva as his successor.
