Expedition - Domitian Rule

In 79 CE, during the Emperor Titus's rule, the Roman Empire experienced a catastrophic natural disaster when Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. One year later, Rome itself was struck by a devastating fire that burned for three days and destroyed many public buildings. Soon after, Emperor Titus died of a fever and Rome's recovery was left to his When Domitian came to the throne, not everybody viewed him in the same way. I think the people were perfectly fine with Domitian because he was rebuilding Rome after this terrible fire that had swept through the center of the city. The Praetorian Guard also liked him enormously and did so for certainly the first part of Domitian's reign. The Senate hated him. He refused to give the Senate the level of power that they had had, even though that was relatively limited. He basically viewed himself as an absolute ruler, insisted on being referred to as Lord and God, Dominus et Deus. At the beginning of his reign, the economy was very stable. Vespasian had a lot of income from his wars in Judea, so the coffers were relatively full in spite of the fact that Vespasian, his father, had built a lot of structures, foremost among them the Colosseum in the center of Rome. In order to keep those coffers filled, one really has to go to war and bring more money into the state coffers, and Domitian did go to war. We have coinage that records Domitian's successes on the battlefield. If you look at the reverses of many of the coins that were struck during his reign, it will show a captive Dacia or a captive Germany, so highlighting Roman strength over the enemy, but in fact those campaigns were far less successful than the coins would have you believe. So there wasn't a lot of new money coming in, and there was a lot of money that was necessary for the new building program that Domitian had inaugurated. So the entire city of Rome is rebuilt during the reign of Domitian because so much of it had been destroyed in that fire in 80 AD. So we find a new palace of the emperors being built on the Palatine Hill. That would give us the word palace, in fact, named after the hill where the house was located. Then a monumental stadium for the Roman people. He was very good at building entertainment complexes, so a stadium which still survives today in the same state, but now called Piazza Navona. Next to it a monumental concert hall called an Odeon, where people could see musical events. A new pantheon, not the one that we currently have, which dates to the early 2nd century AD, but a pantheon, a temple dedicated to all the gods that again had burned in the fire of 80 AD. The Arch of Titus honoring the military campaigns of his newly deceased brother. The whole city was redone, and one sees, at least at the beginning, a stronger economy in that Domitian revalued the Roman currency, increasing the percentage of silver in the denarius, the silver coin that the Romans used. But over time the treasury began to be depleted because of Domitian's enormous building program, again without additional money coming in from the conquests. Our best evidence for his personality comes from the writer Suetonius, who wrote a chapter on Domitian's life, and he describes him as a very haughty, arrogant man, who was thoroughly unpleasant, and who was an absolute dictator, who insisted upon being addressed as Lord and God, who had no tolerance for the Senate as a democratic institution, putting the senators to death whenever they disagreed with something that he had done, or when he thought that they were plotting his overthrow. He apparently was very sensitive about the baldness, premature baldness that he had, so we don't know that he was doing combovers, but he was certainly wearing wigs, at least according to Suetonius. Now there was also his moral code, which angered many of the people. So he had a very strict moral code wherein anyone convicted of adultery was exiled from the city. He buried a Vestal Virgin alive, a woman who had violated her vows of chastity, which was technically possible. It was on the books as something that you could do, but nobody did it, burying a Vestal Virgin alive. And this, he did all of this in spite of the fact that according to Suetonius, he was quite lascivious himself, having affairs right and left, including with his own niece. Now we can't assess all of these things, but the general feeling among many of the Romans was that he was not practicing what he preached. So we don't know exactly how the assassination plans developed. Certainly the Senate was the linchpin for this program. I mean, they hated him, and he had executed 20 members of the Senate, so you can imagine they were anxious to get rid of him as fast as they possibly could. The Praetorian Guard, the imperial guard, had to be brought into the preparations because no one could have gotten to Domitian if the guard hadn't been co-opted into this program. And there were various servants in the palace who reportedly were also brought into it. So in 96 AD, they carried out their plan and Domitian died of multiple stab wounds, and there were no demonstrations in the street following the death. His successor, a man named Nerva, who would only rule for two years, but who would be the first of a series of five good emperors, one after the other, from 96 AD to 180 AD, he came in the next day and everyone accepted him. The Senate was delighted that Domitian was gone. The Praetorians seemed to have been just fine with this change, as were the people. The block that we have in the center of the Roman Gallery originally formed part of a larger monument, which was probably an equestrian statue of the Emperor Domitian. So it would have shown Domitian on horseback, and it would have been set up by the people of Pozzuoli to thank Domitian for having spent funds on road maintenance or road improvement or road building. That's the most likely explanation for it. And so there was a monumental inscription that praised Domitian over the course of many lines, giving all of his titles and recording thanks from the people of Pozzuoli. And after Domitian was assassinated in 96, the Senate quickly met, and the Senate obviously hated him, so they decreed a damnatio memoriae, a damnation of memory. And in that decree, they stipulated that the name of Domitian should be erased from every monument where it had appeared, and the image of Domitian should be erased from every monument where it had appeared. We can see enough of the letters that we can reconstruct what the inscription looked like originally. So if you look at the end of the first line of the inscription, you'll see R.I. That's the end of Caesare, or Caesar, which of course was one of the titles of Domitian. If you look over here, you'll see A.N.A. for Putiolana, or the Roman colony of Pozzuoli, has set this up in thanks for what Domitian has done to better the colony, to better the city. And you can see, as you look at the way in which those hammer blows hit the stone, that those who were destroying the inscription got tired from time to time. So you look up at the first line, they started with great energy, great strength, great resolve, and they're getting tired even by the end of the first line, which is why we can see the R.I. of Caesare. And then either they take a break, or they bring in a new team, and you again see how much energy they have as they're hammering out these letters. But they get tired again, obviously, by the time they get here, which is why we can see Putiolana. And at a certain point, clearly they say, do we really need to erase punctuation marks? Who cares? And so they leave those unhammered. But there's enough here that we can reconstruct the entire inscription in Latin and provide the English translation. So as I mentioned, the defaced side of this monument, the side with the battered inscription of Domitian, is on exhibit for, or on exhibit on display in the Forum for a few years, so that people can see, that the people, the Senate can see, that the people of Pozzuoli complied with the senatorial decree mandating the erasure of Domitian's name. And then it seems as if they realize that this is a kind of scar in the center of the city that they can dispense with. So they turn the stone around. This side was originally the back of the monument. It would now become the front. And rather than having an inscription, it will have, will receive a relief. The relief is that of Praetorian guards. We're certain they're Praetorians because, as you see on the shield, there's the zodiac sign of Scorpio, the scorpion, which is of course the zodiac sign of Tiberius. And the scabbard is also typical for the Praetorians. And if the Praetorian guard is here, then originally the emperor would have been here as well. You're not going to have the Praetorians alone. They're probably there protecting the emperor. So this is part of a much larger monument. And in fact, there is a second relief that joins to this, which is in Berlin, in the Altus Museum in Berlin. But we still don't know what kind of monument it is. It's almost certainly a triumphal monument, but we don't know the form. Whether it's a triumphal arch or whether it's the base for another equestrian statue, we simply don't know.