DOMITIAN. 



43 



3n - fixing them with a sharp instrument. He conducted 

 s "~ ~i ~~~~ warlike expeditions, in his own person, against the 

 Catti, the Dacians, the Sarmatians, and a few other 

 barbarous tribes ; but the sum of his exploits consisted 

 in pillaging, upon his march, both friend and foe; cau- 

 tiously avoiding to expose his person in the field; col- 

 lecting a few slaves or hirelings to represent his captive 

 enemies in a triumph ; and boosting of having cut off 

 whole nations which he had never once encountered. 

 His generals, also, were rarely successful, frequently 

 losing entire armies by their misconduct, and even 

 carefully avoiding to signalize themselves by brilliant 

 exploits, as they were well aware that every meritori- 

 ous commander, by exciting the jealousy and dread of 

 the tyrant, was sure to be either put to death, or to 

 be deprived of all honour and command. Of this, a 

 striking instance occurred in the fate of the celebrated 

 Agricola, who-c Mia-es.-es in Britain were followed by 

 his recal from that province, his dismission from all 

 military employment, hi> subjection to the emperor's 

 daily distrust, and finally, it is suspected, by an unfair 

 death. 



His principal amusement consisted in the shows of 

 the amphitheatre, which he conducted with the utmost 

 prodigality of expence, and refinement of cruelty. He 

 procured females to run in the circus, and fijrht like 

 gladiators. He caused an immense lake to be dug near 

 the Tiber, in which he exhibited sea-fights ; and fre- 

 quently prolonged these diversions through the whole 

 night by the light of the .noon or of torches. In or- 

 der to fill his treasury. uLen exhausted I)',- these ex- 

 travagant expences, he had recourse to every kind of 

 tttpine, extortion, and iniquitous confiscations ; seizing, 

 upon the slightest pretence, the estates of the wealthier 

 citi/ens. and reducing to beggary the most opulent fa- 

 milies throughout the empire. Nor was he more spa- 

 ring of the lives than of the fortunes of his subjects ; and 

 while he plundered tho-e whose riches he coveted, he 

 cut off others whose virtues he dreaded. He com- 

 manded the astrologers to cast the nativities of the most 

 illustrious persons in the city, and put to death all those 

 who were pointed out as dMthted to attain an empire. 

 He accused the knights and senators of treason upon 

 the most trifling grounds, and either procured them to 

 l>c condemned by tlie senate, or commanded them to 

 become their own executioners. In the event of any 

 conspiracy or insurrection, he tortured and butchered 

 whomsoever he pleased, by charging them as accom- 

 plices. Many of the most virtuous characters he cool- 

 ly put to death, for no other reason than because their 

 niplary lives seemed to reproach his debaucheries, 

 and to demonstrate their disapprobation of his conduct. 

 I le is said to have taken an inhuman pleasure in 

 beholding the sufferings which he inflicted ; nnd to 



delighted in exciting the terrors of those whom 

 red. At an entertainment, as described by Dio 



us, to which he had invited the principal senators 

 ami knights, the guests were conducted into a spacious 

 h.-'.ll. hung round with black, and lightened only by a 

 few melancholy lamps, so as to discover a range of 

 coffins, upon which were inscribed the names of those 

 ho were invited. \Vhilc they were looking in con- 

 sternation upon this gloomy spectacle, and momenta- 

 rily expecting the doom which it foretold, the doors 

 Middenly bur-t open, and they were surrounded by a 

 Towd of naked figures, whose bodies were painted 

 l.-lack, holding naked swords in the one hand, nnd 



ig torches in the other. Having beheld these 

 supposed executioners dancing around them for some 



time, and been made to experience in imagination all 

 the horrors of a violent death, the doors were again 

 opened, and they were permitted to withdraw. 



As some of those whom he sacrificed had professed 

 the philosophy of the Stoics, he banished from Rome 

 and Italy all philosophers and teachers of the liberal 

 arts, and commanded many of their writings to be 

 publicly burned. In the 14th year of his reign, A D. 

 9.5, he proceeded to fill the measure of his crimes by 

 a cruel persecution of the Christians, whom he ordered 

 to be treated in every quarter of the empire as declared 

 enemies of the state; and multitudes of whom were 

 either condemned to banishment, or punished with 

 death. Among the noble sufferers in this proscription, 

 may be mentioned the emperor's own cousin-german, 

 Flavius Clemens, and his wife Flavia Domirilla. The 

 apostle John is understood to have been at the same 

 period banished to the isle of Patmos, where he wrote- 

 the Apocalypse. Long before the commencement of 

 this persecution, Domitian had gone so far in his mad- 

 ness, as to declare himself a god, and to require divine 

 honours to be paid to him. But, with all his pretend- 

 ed divinity and sanguinary precautions, he was per- 

 petually harassed with the apprehension of assassina- 

 tion, which was still farther increased by certain pro- 

 digiesand predictions which preceded his death. Hence 

 he became suspicious of his most intimate friends and 

 nearest relatives; and this distrust of his own family 

 only rendered it the more necessary for them to con- 

 sult their own safety by hastening his end. It is said, 

 that his wife Domitia, having found a paper which n 

 child had taken from the emperor's pillow, and which 

 contained a list of several persons destined for slaugh- 

 ter, with her own at the head of them, immediately 

 formed a conspiracy against his life with the other de- 

 voted objects of his suspicion. As if possessed with a 

 presentiment of his approaching fate, the tyrant be- 

 came doubly circumspect; and among other precautions, 

 is said to have caused the gallery in which he usually 

 walked to be lined with a polished stone, which re- 

 flected objects like a looking glass, that he might rea- 

 dily perceiv what was doing on every side of him. 

 On the da? his death, as lie wa? going to bathe be- 

 fore dinnr nis chamberlain, Parthenius, introduced 

 to him Stt^ anus, the steward of the banished Domi- 

 tilla, a man of great strength, who had undertaken to 

 dispatch the tyrant. Having his arm in a sling, as if 

 it had l>een hurt, he the more easily concealed a dagger; 

 and while the emperor was attentively reading a me- 

 morial which he had presented relating to some alleged 

 conspiracy, he plunged the weapon in his belly. Not- 

 withstanding his wound, Domitian struggled for some 

 time with Stephanus, and even succeeded in throwing 

 him to the ground, when the other conspirators, en- 

 tering the apartment, speedily dispatched him with 

 many wounds. Some officers of his guard, who were 

 not privy to the plot, alarmed by the noise, hastened 

 to the spot, and put .Stephanus to death; but the other 

 conspirators had succeeded in making their escape. 

 Thus perished, in the 45th year of his age, and after 

 a reign of 1.5 years, the most detestable tyrant that 

 ever oppressed the Roman world. The soldiers, whose 

 pay he had increased, and who had frequently shared 

 his rapines, were the only persons among his subject* 

 who regretted his death, and wished to take vengeance 

 upon his murderers. The senators, on the contrao-y, 

 publicly expressed their joy, and loaded his memory 

 with the bitterest invectives. They ordered all the 

 pictures, statues, and other representations of him, tfe 



Oomitisvi. 



