CHAPTER I.

THE FLAVIAN DYNASTY

I.

THE NEW EMPEROR

 

SEPTEMBER in the year 70 marked the hundredth anniversary of the battle of Actium. The victor in that battle had succeeded in a task which had baffled his predecessors: he had discovered a form of government which secured continuance for the Roman domination of the Mediterranean world, and had given to the peoples of that world a century of undisturbed peace. But though the solution that Augustus devised—-the Principate—had many admirable features, which were to endure and develop, his determination to retain that Principate in his own family had proved unfortunate. Two generations after Augustus’ death found the nobles terrorized and the armies disgusted: the last of the line, Nero, had by his behaviour merely succeeded in getting himself feared by the army-commanders and despised as a mounte­bank by the common soldier. Yet the revolt which broke out in 68 was against the Princeps, not against the Principate: the rival armies were quite ready to see their own general pr in ceps. Republicanism, as a political creed, was dead save among a few theorists: even Piso’s conspiracy had aimed, not at overthrowing the system, but at substituting some other man for Nero.

Thus the main portion of Augustus’ great work stood firm. The Principate must remain, and there must be a princeps; all that was needed was a suitable person. But the three candidates who in the twelve months between July 69 and July 70 had greatness thrust upon them, unlike though they were in character and outlook, were unfortunate in having one notable similarity, an entire unsuitability for the post. The fourth candidate, Vespasian, while not a man of outstanding genius or originality, did possess the necessary insight and determination to survive. Some sketch of his career and character must form the prelude to any account of the work he did.

Vespasian was born at Reate, in the Sabine hill-country, in a.d. 9. His family, with generations of hard farming stock behind it, was respectable but not distinguished: in his early years he gained the patronage of Narcissus, served with credit in Germany and in Britain, obtained the consulship in 51 and a pro-consulship after. Then he fell on poverty and evil days; he was forced to mortgage his estates to his more brilliant brother, Flavius Sabinus; worse, he offended Nero by falling asleep at one of his recitals. He was living in obscurity when in 66 Nero unexpectedly offered him the command of three legions to put down the revolt that had broken out in Judaea. The offer seems strange, but Vespasian had proved his competence as a soldier, and his lack of birth and wealth were positive recommendations to Nero; he could never be a danger; the prophecy of the Jew Josephus that he would one day become emperor seemed laughable to Vespasian himself. Yet within twelve months it was justified, for on 1 July of 69 he was hailed as Imperator by the legions at Alexandria and on 3 July by the army in Judaea. Five months later the murder of Vitellius removed his only rival, and the Senate duly acknowledged his accession.

Of his soldierly ability there could be no doubt, and this was perhaps the most important immediate qualification: the armies accepted him and he could hold them in check. Important for the future was the fact that he had sons and heirs, Titus, now thirty years old, and Domitian, who was eighteen; thus a dynastic succession was possible. Next came a certain dogged courage: once convinced a thing must be done he would carry on stubbornly and resolutely against all obstacles. Nor was he a man dependent upon and gullible by subordinates; he was no aristocrat, extravagant and unaware of the value of money, but one who had known poverty, learnt to drive a hard bargain and to manage an estate frugally. Yet his farming ancestry had not made him a boor: he could quote Homer or Menander appositely, turn a jest in Greek or Latin, and was often able (like Abraham Lincoln) to tide over an unpopular measure or an awkward situation with a joke. Informing all his actions was an unconquerable common­sense and grip of realities: few men can have been so completely normal and sensible.

Even so the task that confronted the new emperor was formidable. Though the Civil War was ended the loyalty and morale of the armies had been shaken badly. There was a danger that the legionaries might learn to do what they did in the third century, dictate the form of rule and set up rulers as they pleased; how that danger was turned aside will be seen. Revolts, too, were still raging, in the West of the Batavi, in the East of the Jews; Pontus, Britain and Mauretania were in a disturbed state; in Africa two of the chief cities, Oea and Leptis, were conducting a war of their own (in which the Garamantes had readily joined), while on the north-eastern frontier barbarians—Dacians, Roxolani and Sarmatae—had seized the opportunity to cross the Danube and harry Roman territory. Besides the tasks of repression and defence it was essential to repair the material loss caused by the Civil War; for this money was plainly needed, yet there was the ominous fact that the guardians of the Aerarium, anxious at the depleted state of their treasury, were calling loudly for retrenchment. Most urgent of all, the moral and psychological damage of the war must be set right, and a healthy tone of con­fidence given to the whole Empire.

The task, though large, was compassable. Unlike Augustus, Vespasian had not to devise a new system. There had been a serious breakdown in the machinery, but no more; once the armies had been recalled to discipline, once the civil population had been nursed back to confidence, all that was called for was the patient competence of the mechanic. This competence Vespasian possessed: his qualities were just those necessary, and though he was already sixty years old, it was a robust and sane old age, strikingly different from the misanthropy of Tiberius and the invalidism of Claudius. With the Flavian dynasty the Roman Empire has reached a happier period: the glitter and extravagance of life under the Julio-Claudians vanish, and Roman history becomes in growing measure the story not of a court but of the peoples inhabiting a vast empire and learning to enjoy a common civilization.

II.

ROME AND THE EMPEROR

Vespasian began as a usurper. His position could not be sure till the Senate and People of Rome had confirmed the choice of the legions, had done for him what they had done for Galba, Otho and Vitellius. On 22 December, a.d. 69, the day after Vitellius’ death, the Senate met and expressed its will that all the usual powers should be conferred on the victor; this resolution was then passed by the People. It should be noted that it was not only the imperium proconsulate maius and the tribunicia potestas that were thus conferred: Augustus had needed, in addition to these, certain special powers from time to time, and exemption occasionally from laws; many of these powers and exemptions were now included en bloc in the law, as (for example) the right of convening the Senate and bringing business before it, or the right of commendatio. But Vespasian’s competence was more com­prehensive; the right of commendatio granted to him was apparently unlimited, and he had the right of advancing the pomerium when­ever he thought fit. Naturally, all acts done by or authorized by him before this date were validated. Thus he was now legally secured and could take his place as the lawful successor to the deified Augustus, to Tiberius and Claudius.

The most urgent need was action to allay panic and to restore confidence to a distressed world. While he was at Alexandria during the early summer of 70, Vespasian worked miraculous cures upon a blind man and upon a maimed man: the whole East should know that the power of the gods was upon him, and that he and his son Titus were the men, foretold in prophecy, who should come from Judaea to rule the world. In the West, his chief lieutenant, Mucianus, who arrived in Rome late in December 69, took power out of the hands of Antonius Primus and of the soldiery he could no longer control. He put to death the infant son of Vitellius, and another possible rival, Calpurnius Galerianus, and quickly restored some semblance of law and order. The new dynasty was represented by the young Domitian. A proclamation restored full civic status to all who had been convicted of maiestas under Nero or his successors, and from the Senate various commissions were appointed—to adjudicate upon claims for damage caused by the war, to make suggestions for greater economy in administration, and to search for copies of those old treaties and laws which had perished in the burning of the Capitol. As a sign to the whole world that the Roman power was unshaken the restoration of the Capitoline Temple was to be begun, and on 21 June 70 the foundation stone was laid amid general rejoicing. The revolts in East and West were to be put down: two good generals, Annius Gallus and Petilius Cerialis, were to deal with the Batavi, while it was learnt that the Emperor was leaving his own son, Titus, in Palestine to bring the Jewish rebellion to a speedy close.

Thus, though Vespasian did not reach Rome till about October 70, he had already manifested unmistakably that he stood for order and peace, and on his arrival he confirmed these signs. He himself took a hand in clearing the site for the new Capitol, and tradition cherished the picture of the plebeian Emperor carting away rubbish on his shoulder. He began the reduction of the Praetorian Guards from sixteen cohorts to the original nine. By the end of the year he could announce that the revolts of the Batavi and Jews had been crushed, and could close ceremonially, like Augustus, the Temple of Janus; the Senate voted to him and to Titus a triumph for the capture of Jerusalem. Coins and altars mirror something of the joy and thankfulness that was felt. A whole series of dedications from this eventful year has been preserved—to the Victory of Vespasian, to the Pax Augusta, and to” the lasting peace brought by the house of Vespasian and his sons”. The bronze coinage hailed Vespasian as ‘Champion of the People’s Freedom’ and celebrated ‘The Loyalty of the Armies,’ ‘The Restoration of Liberty,’ ‘The Fairness of the Emperor,’ ‘The People’s Good Fortune’ and other similar topics. Most significant, perhaps, of all the coin-types for its message was that which depicted in symbol and promised in its legend ‘The Eternity of the Roman People.’

It was essential to convince the world of two things, one that the succession was provided for and secure, second that the soldiers and the Praetorians would be under control. Vespasian kept his two sons assiduously before the public eye, though the elder was naturally more favoured: with Titus he held the ordinary consulship in 70, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77 and 79, while though Domitian only held the ordinary consulship with his father once—in 71—he was consul ordinarius with L. Valerius Catullus Messallinus in 73, and suffect consul in 75, 76, 77 and 79. Coins displayed the brothers, elder and younger, as ‘Principes Juventutis,’ and both bore the title Caesar, a title which henceforward indicates an heir to the throne. Titus was still further advanced: on his return from the East, in the spring of 71, he received the proconsular imperium, and was made partner with his father in tribunician power, which he held continuously from 1 July in that year, and in the year 73—4 he shared the censorship with Vespasian. He was allowed to write and sign letters and edicts in his father’s name, and in the Senate he often acted as quaestor to him; Suetonius does not exaggerate when he claims that he played the part of colleague and guardian of the Empire. Though Domitian’s position was lower, he yet held the consulship six times, and on inscriptions his name appeared frequently coupled with those of his father and brother.

There can be no doubt as to the significance of this. Apart from the prestige that this large number of consulships bestowed on his family, Vespasian made two things clear. One was that the stability of the government was assured: there was no lack of heirs, heirs who were being properly trained and were gaining ample political experience; it would take more than one man’s assassination to produce a break in the succession. Secondly the future rulers were to be Flavians, for no other family would be so well fitted. “My sons shall succeed me, or no one,” he declared: it was a choice between the rule of his family or anarchy.

Another danger point had been the legionaries. By the new régime the soldiers were kept in hand and in a good state of discipline, under extremely able commanders, some of whom may have been related to the ruling house. The Praetorians had proved unruly in the past, and the examples of Sejanus and of Nymphidius Sabinus showed that their Prefect might easily cherish undesirable ambitions; they were now placed under the sole control of Titus. It was a generous but bold step, for rumours had already circulated about Titus’ supposed ambitions in the East; it was said he had let the army salute him as imperator after the capture of Jerusalem, and issued coins on which that title was given him; he was alleged to have attended the Apis Ceremony, and in the course of the ritual to have placed a diadem upon his head. None of these things need have weighed heavily with Vespasian, and the confidence the father placed in his son was fully repaid: Titus was faithful and vigilant, over-vigilant indeed according to our sources. For there were still disaffected elements to form a nucleus for the ‘ continual conspiracies ’ which Suetonius records, and it would have been sheer folly to run risks.

Presumably these conspiracies—of which we have no details except of one in 79—aimed at murdering Vespasian and his sons and at setting up a new princeps in his place. There was opposition, however, from another quarter, more vocal and more stressed in our sources, though the danger from it was smaller. The focus of this opposition was a small coterie of Republican-minded senators, led by Helvidius Priscus, and supported by such men as Arulenus Rusticus and Junius Mauricus. From the start they had determined to magnify the importance of the Senate and to minimize the part of the princeps : possibly they imagined that Vespasian, conscious of his humble origin, could be overawed by the patres ; if so they were soon undeceived. But in the first few weeks they made themselves prominent. On the question of choosing members for an embassy to the Emperor, Helvidius Priscus demanded that they should be chosen for merit by their fellows on oath, rather than by lot, as was usual. When the praetors complained of the poverty of the State and the consul designate advised that this should be reserved for the Princeps to deal with, Helvidius was insistent that the Senate alone should tackle the problem, and he demanded that the restoration of the Capitol should be carried out by the State and Vespasian merely invited to assist.

These heroics did not win approval, and common-sense prevailed. But on some other matters senators were inclined to prove difficult. Many of them—C. Cassius Longinus, Helvidius Priscus, Q. Paconius Agrippinus, and Musonius Rufus—had suffered humiliation and exile under Nero, and some could not forget it. Cassius Longinus was wiser, devoting the remainder of his life to those legal studies in which he had already acquired fame ; Paconius Agrippinus was prepared to serve under a new and better princeps ; but the others were eager for revenge. Musonius Rufus attacked a Neronian informer, P. Egnatius Celer, and gained his condemnation. Heartened by this, Helvidius turned on the redoubtable Eprius Marcellus himself, while Junius Mauricus asked Domitian to throw open the Imperial archives and disclose the names of the informers. But though the body of senators, in new-found fervour, took an oath that they had done nothing to harm any man’s life or goods, vindictiveness was not to be allowed play: both Domitian and Mucianus urged a general amnesty, the accusation against Marcellus was dropped, and he himself presently promoted to the governorship of Asia.

Thus Helvidius’ day of glory was short: the Senate soon returned to a more submissive attitude. For the next few years, however, Helvidius was a thorn in the side of the ruling house. By his family connections he belonged to the irreconcilables; his wife Fannia was a daughter of the Thrasea Paetus, whom Nero had put to death, and a grand-daughter of the Caecina Paetus who had joined in a conspiracy against Claudius ; his conduct must have been deliberate. He insulted Vespasian in word and act, refusing him his titles and reviling him. Vespasian asked him not to come to the Senate­House, if he meant simply to disagree with him and abuse him, but Helvidius persisted. Indeed he went further: he attacked monarchical systems and praised republican, and to the people he openly advocated revolution. The upshot could not be doubtful :  placable though he was, Vespasian could not offer himself as a perpetual target for insult, and could not allow a senator to preach sedition. On some charge, unknown to us, he was banished and, shortly after, put to death, though Vespasian was extremely reluctant and even tried to recall the executioners.

Helvidius, indeed, was one of the few victims of Vespasian’s reign, and some others may conveniently be mentioned with him. The Emperor had to face savage attacks from a class of people called variously in our sources ‘philosophers,’ ‘ Stoics ’ and ‘ Cynics.’ The last term seems the truer: at this time there arose again a class of itinerant moralists, who preached anarchy, inveighed against all rulers, and gloried in an utter unconventionality and indecency. Few of these can have been Stoics, for the Stoics had no objection to monarchy per se, only to bad monarchs, whereas these mob-orators were against all rule and order. So irritating and insulting did their attacks become that Mucianus, enraged, persuaded Vespasian in 71 to banish not only Cynics but all astrologi and philosophi from Rome: among others Demetrius the Cynic and C. Tutilius Hostilianus, a Stoic, had to leave the city.

This opposition may then be termed ‘philosophic,’ but there is no direct evidence for what has been sometimes assumed— that it aimed at replacing a hereditary Principate by one based upon election. It would not be easy to disentangle the Republican and the Cynic elements in Helvidius Priscus, but one thing seems clear, that he was utterly opposed to any form of Principate, whether hereditary or elective. The Cynics went even further: while Helvidius may have advocated a return to some form of the old Republic, they were against all government and all holders of power. For generations they continued their exasperating attacks on the Emperors; Lucian records that Peregrinus actually abused and insulted the gentle Antoninus Pius himself—who took no notice—until at last the Prefect of the City drove him from Rome. It was unfortunate that these extravagances should bring the name of philosophy into disrepute, but they did: not only do Quintilian and Tacitus express their grave disapproval, but Dio Chrysostom and Lucian inveigh against the Cynics, who will do anything for publicity, while two Greek writers, who—be it observed—had both held official posts, Appian and Cassius Dio, are severest of all in their strictures. The average Roman had never had much taste for academic discussion; when the Cynics combined this with anarchic and subversive doctrine Roman official opinion was bound to be hostile.

Even to these Cynics Vespasian showed tolerance, if exile from Rome instead of flogging or execution can be counted as tolerance. He refused to put them to death, and when Demetrius continued his attacks and railings from outside Rome merely replied, “You are doing your utmost to get yourself killed by me, but I don’t kill dogs for barking.” But the Cynics succeeded in placing the Emperor in a difficult position; his patience was not inexhaustible, and a few years later their determined efforts at martyrdom met their reward.

Politically the most important achievement of the early years was the censorship which Vespasian and Titus held in 73-4. A century before, Augustus had had to fill the gaps caused among the patrician ranks by war and the proscriptions, and to reward merit or service to himself by promotion to the Senate; Vespasian had a like task. The number of patrician families had shrunk considerably, partly owing to natural causes, partly to persecution, while civil war and confiscation had also depleted the Senate. There is no doubt that Vespasian, at the very beginning of his reign, had irregularly given men senatorial rank to secure their loyalty: but the great work of restoration waited until his censorship. His policy was at once prudent and liberal he w; as the first to adlect provincials inter patricio; the soundness of his choice is shown by three names—M. Ulpius Traianus, M. Annius Verus, and Cn. Julius Agricola. Men of merit, whether Italian or provincial, found their careers forwarded, and thus C. Antius A. Julius Quadratus, L. Baebius Avitus, and C. Fulvius Lupus Servilianus were adlected inter praetorios : among others added to the Senate, were an Ephesian, Tib. Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, a Galatian, C. Caristanius Fronto, and L. Antonius Saturninus. All these men were to play a considerable part—Antonius Saturninus a sinister one—in the two generations after 70. After completing the work of the censorship Vespasian not only advanced the pomerium—like Augustus and Claudius before him—but was able also to dedicate the Temple of Peace, in which he placed the spoils of the Jewish campaign: the Roman People could regard him now as conqueror, peace-bringer, and restorer of the State.

Within six years from his accession Vespasian had restored peace and order, stabilized the financial system, new patrician families and refilled the Senate, and secured the succession for his family. From 75 to 79 there is little to record, though one or two items stand out. During the Jewish War one of the client-kings who had helped prominently was M. Julius Agrippa II; Titus fell violently in love with his sister Berenice. In 75 the brother and sister visited Rome and were greeted with great honour: Agrippa was granted the praetorian insignia and Berenice was lodged in the Palatium. Possibly, imagining that she was going to be Titus’ wife, Berenice behaved arrogantly: we know she held her own court in Rome, for Quintilian records that he had pleaded before her. The memory of Cleopatra was not dead, many Romans honestly dreaded a union between Titus and an Oriental princess. Some Cynic preachers managed to slip back into Rome, and denounced the marriage and the ruling house; one of them, Diogenes, was caught and flogged, another, Heras, was executed. Such a punishment may represent a hardening in the governmental attitude towards ‘philosophers,’ or merely the personal exasperation of Titus. But the mischief was done, the marriage made impossible, and Titus must let Berenice depart ‘invitus invitam.’

In legislation Vespasian was content to confirm or carry further the measures of Augustus or Claudius, and to correct-anomalies. One method of evading the provisions of the Augustan marriage laws had been by creating trusts (fideicommissa) instead of making legacies: the S.C. Pegasianum of 73 put a stop to this by extending to fideicommissa the same restrictions with regard to caelibes and orbi as attached to inheritance under the Augustan law. A law of Claudius had forbidden money-lenders to make loans to a young man against his father’s death : a S.C. Macedonianum, apparently passed in this period, strengthened this by directing that no action was to be given to such a creditor even though the father had since died. Apart from this we hear of little, save that Vespasian abolished one anomaly in the mass of rules relating to the status of children of parents of unequal status by declaring that, in accordance with ius gentium, the children of a slave mother must themselves be slaves and the property of her owner.

There is little more to chronicle, though two events darkened the last year of Vespasian’s reign. Orosius records that a plague visited Rome and carried off many victims, and this is our only notice of what may have been a serious disaster. The second event was a conspiracy formed against him by two of his trusted friends, A. Caecina Alienus, the general, and Eprius Marcellus, the orator and ex-governor of Asia. Conceivably it was a move by those who saw Vespasian was ageing, and feared the rule of Titus, but that can be only conjecture. The vigilance of Titus discovered the plot, but only just in time: Caecina, arrested as he was leaving the palace after dinner, was found to be carrying on him a speech for delivery to the soldiers, and was executed out of hand; Marcellus was given a form of trial and committed suicide. The danger must have been pressing, but that is all we know.

In the late spring of 79 Vespasian’s health, till then untroubled, began to break. Even so he insisted on carrying on with business, and neither his courage nor his humour failed him. He refused to be put out by reported omens, light-heartedly referring their significance to others; when his final illness struck him he jested, ‘Vae, puto, deus fio.’ On June 24 he struggled to his feet to die as he said an imperator should, ‘standing,’ and collapsed. He died as a soldier; his jest came true in his deification as Divus Vespasianus.

III.

RE-ORGANIZATION: FINANCIAL AND PROVINCIAL

 

The longest remembered though the least popular part of Vespasian’s task was the hardest—the creation of financial stability. Fortunately he was well fitted for the part. A man of simple tastes himself, with no mind for display, he put an abrupt end to the ostentatious extravagance of the court of Claudius or Nero; a tone of greater moderation and of frugality spread from the princeps downwards to all classes. But parsimony and retrenchment alone were insufficient, what was needed was more money; that meant increased taxation, and Vespasian grappled firmly with the problem. At the very outset the officials in charge of the Aerarium had complained that funds were low ; when Mucianus began dismissing the Vitellian veterans from the Praetorian Guard, so great was the amount of cash needed to pay their pensions that one suggestion made was that a special loan of sixty million sesterces should be raised by private subscription. No one could fail to be aware of the gravity of the situation and Vespasian was wisely frank: startling though it might be he announced that he would have to collect no less than forty thousand million sesterces in order to make the State solvent again.

This immense estimate has naturally caused questioning. To one of the earlier commentators, Bude, it appeared so vast that he proposed to emend it to four thousand million. One thing seems clear, that the sum Vespasian named was a capital sum and not the required yearly revenue. Though the extent of the Empire was larger, and though prices may have risen a little, it is inconceivable that the expenses of its administration alone demanded a revenue one hundred times as large as that of the Aerarium in Augustus’ day (400,000,000 sesterces). The revenues of the Empire had increased amazingly during a century of peace and security: Egypt alone now produced well over five hundred million sesterces; it is the only province for which we possess a reliable figure, but if we bear in mind the great prosperity and wealth of such regions as Africa, Spain, Gaul and Syria, we may reasonably conclude that the total revenue accruing might be at least five times as much as the Egyptian, that is some two thousand five hundred million sesterces. Financial figures in ancient history, especially when derived from manuscripts and not from stone or bronze, are notoriously untrustworthy, but it looks as though the sum that Vespasian named was less than twenty times the annual revenue of the Empire and that it could be obtained without undue harshness or pressure. The most immediate use for the money would be to help the devastated areas in North Italy and Gaul: in addition the increased number of legions and the extensive frontier schemes initiated by the Flavians would call for large sums ; finally, there were ambitious and grandiose building schemes for Rome, for the people must be amused and fed and kept contented. But immediate needs were not all : it is a reasonable assumption that the sane and cautious Vespasian meant to establish a definite capital fund which could produce a yearly income, and that some portion of the forty thousand million was destined for this. Whether any special taxes were to be devoted to this fund—as Augustus had arranged for the Aerarium militare—we cannot tell.

There is no doubt, however, that taxation was considerably increased and sometimes even doubled: but it is fair to remember that many of the provinces had made such strides in prosperity that the earlier assessment was on the low side and they could afford to contribute more. A glance at Gaul will show how fortunes had risen. Caesar had imposed on the country a tribute of forty million sesterces; in the Julio-Claudian period C. Julius Secundus left to the town of Burdigala two million sesterces, and the colony of Lugdunum on one occasion offered the State four million; under Nero the Arverni could afford to pay the sculptor Zenodorus, for a colossal statue of Mercury, the sum of forty million. Considerable changes in provincial organization took place under Vespasian; while some were due to military needs, as the incorporation of the kingdom of Commagene in Syria or the formation of the new large province of Galatia-Cappadocia, many were obviously designed to increase revenue. One such change is typical of Vespasian’s shrewdness. When Nero gave freedom and immunity to Greece he compensated the Senate, whose province it had been, by giving it Sardinia and Corsica. Vespasian had little of Nero’s philhellene sentiment: convinced by their internal quarrels that the Greeks ‘had lost the art of liberty,’ and annoyed by outbreaks and riots, he took even this freedom away from them. But Achaea was impoverished and could make no great contribution to the revenue, so Vespasian graciously returned it to the Senate, and took over again the fertile and wealthy territory of Sardinia and Corsica. For like reasons, doubtless, Vespasian deprived Rhodes and Byzantium and Samos of liberty and assigned them to provinces, Rhodes and Samos to Asia and Byzantium to Bithynia-Pontus. There is evidence for considerable re-organization in this region: an inscription shows that in Domitian’s reign there was a provincia Hellesponti controlled by a financial procurator, while a passage in Festus speaks of a provincia insularum being established. (If this is correct Rhodes and Samos may have been incorporated in this new provincia insularum. The Lycian cities had always been turbulent; though deprived of freedom by Claudius, they may have regained it under Nero, but Vespasian deprived them of it finally, and made them into a province to which he added Pamphylia. Most of these changes appear to have taken place in the first years of his reign, by 73—44, and all must have meant definite increases to the Imperial exchequer.

In addition new taxes were imposed, though here again we possess little detailed information. We should probably assign to the early years the first organization of three special treasuries, the fiscus judaicus, the fiscus Alexandrinus, and the fiscus Asiaticus. The fiscus judaicus simply appropriated to the Capitoline Temple the two drachmas which every Jew used to pay annually to the Temple at Jerusalem: as the number of Jews in the Empire was something near five million the revenue brought in was considerable. On whom the taxes that filled the two other chests were imposed and what they brought in we do not know, though it has been conjectured that the fiscus Alexandrinus was connected with the Egyptian corn-supply.

Besides increasing taxation and improving organization (which included some control of the tax-collecting companies) the Emperor kept a strict watch on public property: public land which had been unlawfully occupied, whether in Italy or the provinces, he won back for the State1. He even tackled the problem of subsiciva, that is, land that had been left unallotted in a colony. These subsiciva were of two kinds, either plots lying outside the centuriation or supposedly uncultivable pieces within it; being unassigned, they were still technically public property though, naturally enough, in course of time they had been occupied. Vespasian began to reclaim this land from the squatters: his action roused indignation, and deputations came from all Italy. Vespasian compromised characteristically; there should be no more confiscations, but he kept what he had already taken.

The raising of money is an ungrateful task, and Vespasian’s imposition of taxation and efficient methods made him a natural target for attacks and lampoons. The Alexandrians were quick to find a nickname for him, and our sources have plenty of anecdotes which show him as a man who never disdained to make economies or profits however small. But though Vespasian used every device to extort money, he was no miser, and he did not spend on himself; rather he spent generously and wisely on the defence and stability of the Empire and encouraged culture. He was never tyrannical in his exactions, and where people could show reason for immunity or special treatment, he secured it to them: thus, after due investigation, he confirmed to the Vanacini, of northern Corsica, the beneficia that Augustus had granted. Needy but deserving senators were supported by yearly grants, and he encouraged education and the arts by the establishment of professorial chairs and by handsome donations to poets and literary men. Quintilian was appointed to the chair of Latin Rhetoric, the poet Saleius Bassus was rewarded with 500,000 sesterces. This official encouragement of education was followed by individuals and communities alike : we find the younger Pliny endowing a school at Comum, and teachers visited and were often given permanent appointments in provincial towns. Typical of the enhanced position of teachers is the fact that Vespasian was ready to grant them immunity from taxation and freedom from having soldiers billeted upon them.

Money was allotted freely to public works and improvements, both in Rome and in the provinces. One great symbolic achievement was the new temple of Capitoline Juppiter, completed in 71, but Rome could also boast of the Temple of Peace, the Colosseum, and other buildings; provincial capitals such as Antioch benefited too, and bridges and roads were constructed over the whole Empire. Small provincial towns received benefactions and recorded them gratefully. Occasionally the inscription points a moral, as when the town of Cadyanda in Lycia declares that “the Emperor Vespasian built the bath-house out of money rescued for the city by him”; more often it is simply a commemoration of the benefaction, but there is scarcely a province that did not benefit from the imperial care and generosity.

Equally important was the work of romanization, which Vespasian did his utmost to promote. He granted Latin rights to the whole of Spain, and henceforward there were no longer peregrini there, but only the two grades of citizenship. This generous measure must have entailed a work of re-organization lasting over years—it has been reckoned that some four hundred new charters were required—but its wisdom cannot be questioned: apart altogether from the fact that it gave Vespasian a new recruiting-ground, it encouraged a vigorous local municipal life and was a fitting reward to a region that had been under Roman sway for nearly three hundred years and had already made considerable contributions to literature. In other provinces, usually in mountainous or less developed regions, progress was helped by the foundation of new colonies; to mention a few names only, in Africa Ammaedara, in Northern Spain Flaviobriga, in Switzerland Aventicum, in Pannonia Sirmium and Siscia, in Moesia Scupi, in Thrace Deultum and Flaviopolis, and in Syria Caesarea received new settlers and became centres for the spread of civilization. Throughout the Empire Vespasian encouraged municipia too, while in some of the Western provinces the appointment of officials, subordinate to the governor, to assist him in judicial administration, the legati iuridici, implies an increase in litigation which is usually regarded as a sign of advancing civilization. In fact the provinces were steadily progressing: Spain and Narbonensis had already contributed their quota of men to the Senate and to the magistracies, and it is significant that in the year 80 for the first time an African, Q. Pactumeius Fronto, achieved the consulship.

Where necessary Vespasian took strong measures to secure efficient control: thus it seems likely that he made the Senate accept as governor for the province of Asia the wealthy but unpopular Eprius Marcellus, and that he retained him there for three years, during which a number of administrative alterations were made. However distasteful Marcellus may have been to the more Republican-minded senators, his ability was undoubted, his, wealth set him above the temptations that might have attacked another governor, and he possessed previous experience of the region. As far as we can judge—the evidence is not abundant—Vespasian’s appointments were good: throughout his whole reign we hear only of one accusation for extortion, against C. Julius Quadratus Bassus, ex-quaestor of Bithynia, and in the end he was acquitted. He insisted certainly on a high standard of efficiency: a young dandy who came, reeking with scent, to thank him for an appointment, he rebuked with the words “I would sooner you smelt of garlic” and cancelled his appointment. His officials, generals and governors, formed a new aristocracy or service, for the old aristocracy of birth had either died out or been killed by the Julio-Claudians ; they had the good sense to carry on the administration of the Empire, whatever the emperor, and were ready (in Eprius Marcellus’ phrase) “to admire the old times but fall in with the present.”

Fortunately for this new aristocracy of service Vespasian was a man like themselves—keen, energetic, shrewd—whom they could admire and under whom they were willing to serve. A more moderate tone set in: not only did Vespasian cut down the feverish extravagance of Julio-Claudian times, but he also achieved a greater simplicity at court. He laughed at the flatterers who tried to find him a heroic ancestry, and he pruned away much of the formality that had been growing up; there were no longer grades of admission to the imperial presence, for Vespasian made himself equally accessible to all. He abolished too the custom of searching all who were admitted to the presence; Claudius, mindful of the assassination of Gaius, had first introduced it, Vespasian was sufficiently confident to dispense with it. He did not fear the consequences of assassination, for he had provided against them: he even forgave conspirators freely, jokingly remarking that they were fools not to realize what a burden of cares the Principate carried. “It will be hard,” judges Suetonius, “to find one instance of an innocent person being punished, unless when he was away and knew nothing of it or at least against his will or when he had been misled.” Here was a real clemency and tolerance, utterly different from the much-lauded Clementia of Nero. He won men over to serve under him because he did not spare himself, and worked as hard as he asked others to work. Two of his predecessors he obviously regarded with admiration, Augustus and Claudius. We have already noted how much of his legislation aimed at developing and safeguarding the laws of these two states­men : it is significant that much of his coinage deliberately copies the coinage of Augustus, and that he placed his amphitheatre in the middle of the City because he was informed that Augustus had intended to build one there, significant too that he completed the Temple of Divus Claudius on the Caelian, and restored his cult. It was a fitting reward that he should take his place next after them on the roll of deified emperors; that, after Divus Augustus and Divus Claudius, Divus Vespasianus should be handed down to the gratitude of posterity.

IV.

TITUS

Vespasian dead Titus succeeded as a matter of course; on the 24th June 79 he became princeps, and that same day received the titles of Pontifex Maximus and Pater Patriae. He had one child, Julia, a girl of about thirteen, but no son; his brother Domitian was bound to be his heir, and Titus protested he should be his partner and his successor. But he did nothing to confirm his protestations: Domitian remained as before Princeps Juventutis; he held a consulship in 80 with his brother but he received no share of proconsular imperium and no grant of tribunician power. There was a lack of sympathy between Titus and his assertive and ambitious brother and nothing could heal it. It was plain that he distrusted him; Domitian retorted by complaining that Titus had tampered with Vespasian’s will and by assiduously undermining him.

Men had dreaded Titus’ accession, remembering his ruthlessness, his extravagance, and his affairwith Berenice, but he completely falsified their expectations. There were no executions, no trials for maiestas, on the contrary informers were publicly scourged and then sold into slavery or banished to those islands to which they had often sent victims. Court life remained on the same modest level as in his father’s day. Berenice, who apparently returned to Rome, he again dismissed. In the enthusiastic accounts which have come down he stands out as the ideal princeps, solicitous for the welfare of all and loved by his people. Under forty when he succeeded, handsome, brilliant and gracious, the stormer of Jerusalem, the favourite of the soldiers, fluent both in Greek and in Latin, equally adept in the arts of peace and war, all that he did only increased his popularity and esteem; when he died after a little over two years’ rule he had become (in Suetonius’ phrase) ‘amor ac deliciae generis humani.’

The little we know of his laws and actions reveals a paternal and equitable spirit. He put a stop to two evil practices; the first was one by which informers who had failed to net their victim on a charge under one law tried under another, the second was one by which they tried to invalidate a dead man’s testamentary dispositions by challenging his right to free status. The first Titus prohibited altogether, the second he forbade after a term of years had passed; this term was fixed by Nerva and by Marcus Aurelius later at five years.

He showed a like kindly spirit in meeting two disasters which befell Italy. The first was a fire at Rome, which destroyed, among other buildings, the Porticus Octaviae with its libraries, the Iseum, and the recently restored temple of Capitoline Juppiter and so made a large rebuilding programme necessary. The second was the famous eruption of Vesuvius on August 24 a.d. 79, which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Here he showed, as Suetonius records, “not only the anxious care of a princess but the love of a father.” He had senators appointed by lot to act as curatores for the ruined district, and assigned the property of those who died intestate to the relief of distress. It was in this eruption that a friend of Titus lost his life, the elder Pliny: he went impelled by scientific curiosity about the phenomena of the erup­tion, he stayed to rescue panic-stricken fugitives; ‘quod studioso animo inchoaverat, obit maximo.’

The games that Titus gave at the opening of the Colosseum were lavish and splendid, lasting a hundred days; his benefactions were frequent and liberal. Tradition remembered with praise a remark of his at the close of a day when he could not remember any benefit conferred—“Friends, I have lost a day”. Some ancient critics and most modern have seized upon this characteristic and drawn from it the generalizations that, had he lived longer, he might have been a second Nero, and that his liberality drained the Treasury. Both seem ill-founded: by his dismissal of Berenice and the frugality of his private life he showed he could control himself, and the evidence for wastefulness is not strong. True, by one edict he confirmed all beneficia granted by his predecessors to corporations or individuals; but it may be remarked that any beneficia that had passed the critical scrutiny of Vespasian must have been well-deserved, and that all succeeding emperors followed Titus’ equitable practice. The fact too that he reclaimed some of the subsiciva suggests that he had all his father’s financial shrewdness, and had no intention of wasting public money.

Loved though he was, he had to face the danger of conspiracies. Yet we hear that he forgave all plotters, even promoted some. It was partly a wise clemency, partly fatalistic composure. Himself a soldier, knowing his family had come to power by the strangest of destinies, he felt—like the Illyrian soldier-emperors of two centuries later—that “empire was a gift of Fate”. But against his own brother this could not avail him, though he remonstrated with him with tears. Whether Domitian assisted him out of life, as various traditions assert, cannot be told, but he certainly did not lack the will to do so. Titus was attacked by a fever and died in his father’s country-house at Reate on September 13, 81. His death was greeted by a spontaneous outburst of mourning and affection, such as were manifested for few rulers, and his deification naturally followed. One discordant note alone sounds through the chorus of praise and that was from the Jews, who, hating the destroyer of their Temple, ascribed to him an agonizing end; to the rest of the world he was Divus Titus, undeniably to be reckoned among the good rulers that Rome had enjoyed.

V.

DOMITIAN: THE COURT AND THE ARISTOCRACY

 

The death of Titus left no doubt as to his successor, and Domitian galloped away from his death-bed to be acclaimed as Imperator by the Praetorians that very day (13 September, 81). The Senate made no difficulty about conferring upon him all the usual powers: from September 14 Domitian counted his years of tribunician power, and by the end of the autumn he had also accepted the titles of Pontifex Maximus and Pater Patriae, and had conferred upon his wife Domitia the title of Augusta.

He was a man of very different stamp from his brother. Born in 51, he had lived through days when his father was out of favour at court and so had known poverty and neglect: there is nothing to show that he had received a good education, and throughout his reign he was content to let others draft his letters, speeches and edicts. In the critical autumn of 69 he had been besieged upon the Capitol, and had only escaped by disguising himself as a follower of Isis. Then, for a few months before the return of his father, as representative of the ruling house he had suddenly enjoyed power: he used it to the full, issuing commissions and making appointments so widely that Vespasian said it was a mercy that his son did not send a successor to him. But with the advent of his father things altered: though he rode behind the chariot of Vespasian and Titus on their triumph, though he was allowed to hold the consulship seven times, though he was given the titles ‘Princeps Juventutis’ and Caesar and was plainly destined for succession some day, that day was to be far off. Vespasian refused all his petitions to be sent campaigning: he gave him no share in tribunician power nor in real responsibility. Domitian retired and turned to the consolations of poetry: his enthusiasm was probably genuine enough—throughout his whole life Minerva was his patroness and things Greek his passion—but there is nothing beyond the flattery of his dependents to suggest that he achieved greatness in literature, and we need not regret the disappearance of his poem on Titus’ Jewish War or of his tract on The Care of the Hair. Minerva was, after all, goddess of other things besides Literature, and what Domitian wanted most was glory in war and a controlling hand in administration. Power and consciousness of power—things for which he had longed—were his at last, and he meant to use them to the full.

It will be convenient to relate briefly affairs at Rome and in the court-circle down to the time of his assassination, and then to consider his administrative and legislative record. But at the outset the reader must be warned that the study of his reign is hedged about with difficulties. The epigraphic evidence is scanty, and contemporary literary sources, especially the poets, mostly sustain a fortissimo of adulation. In notable contrast those who survived him, such as Pliny and Tacitus, give full vent to their loathing. The short Life of Domitian by Suetonius, though it embodies material of great value and maintains a more balanced tone than might be expected, has little hint of chronology and is marred by some unaccountable omissions. Book 67 of Dio Cassius, which is mainly preserved in Xiphilinus, affords a chronological framework, it is true, but, apart from that, little more than the conventional tradition. Generally speaking this tradition looked upon him as but one more instance of a ruler ruined by power, and placed him in the class of Gaius or Nero.

Much of this is exaggerated, yet a large residuum of truth remains. Domitian was in some ways unfortunate. His claim to rule rested not on the rescue of an empire from ruin or on any overwhelming prestige, but simply on the fact that he was a son of the divine Vespasian. But twelve years was not enough to root the Flavian dynasty deep, and Divus Vespasianus could not bequeath to his descendants the same veneration as Divus Augustus. If Domitian had possessed a less autocratic temper or a more genial personality he might have secured power for his family. But though endowed with a fair share of the ability and shrewdness of his father he lacked the good humour that can render efficiency palatable. A student of astrology, given to spending long hours in solitude, grim and ironic, treating with contempt even those he invited to his table, a lover of austere legalism and archaic correctness, his constant reading was the records of Tiberius’ reign, and the two men had much in common. But whereas hesitation and uncertainty led Tiberius on into false positions, Domitian knew his own mind from the start; what fills Tacitus and Pliny with horror is no occasional act of vengeance or outburst of passion, but the fact that Domitian’s cruelty was calculated and deliberate, conceived and carried out in pursuit of a definite aim.

That aim was the unconcealed exaltation of the Princeps into a ruler pre-eminent over Senate, People and Army, and the consequent lowering of all to the grade of ministers and servants. Domitian held the consulship frequently: from 82 to 88 consecutively he was consul ordinarius, then in 90, 92 and 95. It might be merely the continuation of the policy of his father and brother, but it resulted in his holding the office seventeen times, more often than any princeps before. But the consulship alone did not give him all the prestige he sought. In the early years of his reign disturbances on the middle Rhine offered him the chance of that military fame and those victories for which he longed so ardently. But while detractors belittled his conquests and mocked at his victories as sham, he used them eagerly to enhance his eminence still further. After his triumph in late 83 he assumed the cognomen Germanicus, and issued coins announcing it and proclaiming his conquest of Germany ; henceforth he wore the dress of a triumphator even in the Senate-House, and was attended by twenty-four lictors. On the model of his father he was given censoria potestas, apparently early in 85, but instead of resigning after eighteen months he continued in the exercise of power with the title of censor perpetuus, and thus possessed permanently absolute and undisguised control over the personnel of the Senate, a control which he did not hesitate to use. The commemoration of his victories was to pass into the calendar, for September and October were renamed Germanicus and Domitianus ; these titles were certainly used during his reign, though they did not outlast his death.

In private affairs he showed himself equally autocratic. He had destined his cousin T. Flavius Sabinus as his partner for the consulship of 82; at the election in 81, the herald, by an unlucky slip, announced him not as consul but as Imperator. At the moment Domitian took no action, but he would not endure even the suspicion of an equal, and before the end of 84 he had got rid of Sabinus, on an unknown charge. It was rumoured that his wife Domitia had a lover in Paris, the dancer; Domitian killed him and divorced Domitia, probably in 83. In her place henow took the widow of Sabinus, his own niece, Julia, though not as wife but as mistress ; but it would seem that about a year later he took back his divorced wife, and the two women lived together with him in the palace.

Further ostentation of his power and position followed. The suppression in 86 of a revolt of the Nasamones in Africa afforded him the opportunity of declaring to the Senate “I have ended the existence of the Nasamones,” and from now onwards courtiers and poets greeted him as ‘Master and God’; it is just possible that he used this style himself. More display came when, in this same year he instituted four-yearly games, upon the Greek model, in honour of Capitoline Juppiter; Rome was to have its Olympian games, with contests in literature, in chariot-racing, and in athletics. Over them he himself presided, in Greek dress, wearing a golden crown with medallions of Juppiter, Juno, and Minerva embossed upon it, while his fellow-judges wore crowns upon which among these gods his own effigy appeared as well. Into the Quinquatria, the festival sacred to Minerva, he also introduced literary contests, and he celebrated these yearly at his villa upon the Alban Mount. By these foundations he honoured the two deities, Juppiter and Minerva, whom he most respected, and in whose honour he had built temples in Rome, and he perhaps hoped to impose something of Greek refinement upon the Roman populace. But by this, like Nero, he simply alienated the aristocracy; we have only to read Pliny’s approval of the abolition of similar games at Vienna in Gaul, to appreciate how deep would be the feeling against such practices being introduced into the capital.

Nor was the situation abroad favourable. In 84 or 85 Agricola was recalled, wisely, in view of events in the North-East, but a source of discontent to those who shared Agricola’s views: in 86 the newly-consolidated Dacian kingdom inflicted a crushing blow upon a Roman army, which the boasted annihilation of the Nasamones could hardly offset. Dissatisfaction at last began to issue in plots against this second Nero; on September 22 in 87 the Arvai Brethren are found sacrificing ‘ob detecta scelera nefariorum.’ It was probably the first serious danger Domitian had encountered, and trials may have lasted some time, but we have no details of any plot and cannot profitably conjecture the names of the conspirators.

October of the year 88 witnessed the holding of Ludi Saeculares, by which Domitian riot only celebrated the passing of one more saeculum in Rome’s long history, but perhaps intended to impress on men’s minds the coming of a new and glorious Flavian Age. His coinage shows how great a stress he laid upon the celebration, and it is even possible that he deliberately anticipated the date—for one hundred and ten years after the Augustan celebration would have brought them to 93—because he was anxious to give the Roman People at this time a spectacle at once solemn and heartening: if not, his mathematicians were badly out in their reckoning. But if Domitian dreamed that the celebration would have an edifying effect on the Empire he was to have a rough awakening. Scarcely were they over when alarming news reached the capital: L. Antonius Saturninus, the legate of Upper Germany, had been acclaimed as Imperator by the legions at Moguntiacum and was in open revolt. The danger was urgent: Saturninus had been in correspondence with others, he had summoned barbarian tribes to assist him, it might be the beginning of a movement such as had overthrown Nero, and in the depth of winter (mid-January, 89) Domitian hastened northwards.

But before he had got far the danger had collapsed, thanks to the promptitude and loyalty of L. Appius Maximus Norbanus, the legate of Lower Germany, and by the end of January the Senate was already proclaiming fervent thanksgivings and vows for the safe return of the Princeps. But Domitian did not return: he continued his march to Moguntiacum and there made inquisition. Though Maximus, with a courage that does him credit, had burned Saturninus’ correspondence, some of Saturninus’ accomplices were known and more were suspected; there were executions, the extremest tortures were used to extract confession or information, and of those found guilty two alone obtained pardon. Saturninus’ head was sent to Rome to be exhibited on the Rostra, and Domitian soon after turned eastwards to deal with an invasion of the Iazyges.

It had been a great deliverance: in Rome itself the usual vows were made and poets execrated the dead traitor. A less usual memorial arose in the South of Italy, where a citizen of Beneventum dedicated in his native town a temple to Isis, ‘the great mistress of Beneventum,’ with obelisks in front of it which Domitian had ordered to be fetched from Egypt; the whole temple, apparently, was an ex voto for the safety and return of the Emperor. But neither Italian deities nor foreign goddesses could relieve his suspicious mind, for the conspiracy of Saturninus had given him a shock from which he never recovered. From 89 his rule became more tyrannical, since he saw conspirators and rivals around him everywhere. He began to listen favourably to delatores and to those who played upon his fears, and once an emperor was willing to listen there were not lacking men to inform. Chief among these were M’. Aquilius Regulus, A. Didius Gallus Fabricius Veiento, and the blind L. Valerius Catullus Messallinus, but there were others whose names have been handed down to infamy, a rhetorician Pompeius, a dancer Latinus, and a so-called ‘philosopher’ Seras.

Aided by these creatures Domitian struck blow after blow against those who seemed for any reason formidable. By an edict in 89 he banished philosophers and astrologers from Rome, and during the next years he steadily eliminated the objects of his fear or resentment. He dared not trust influential generals or governors: C. Vettulenus Civica Cerialis, a proconsul of Asia, was charged with conspiracy and executed even during his tenure of office, probably in 90, and a governor of Britain, Sallustius Lucullus, was put to death for allowing a new kind of lance to be named after him instead of after the Emperor. Men of ability and reputation withdrew from public life; Sextus Julius Frontinus went unemployed, C. Julius Cornutus Tertullus lived in retirement, Herennius Senecio held no post after the quaestorship; Agricola, who had been living unobtrusively at Rome since his return from Britain, was not allowed to proceed to the governorship of Syria, which Domitian had hinted should be his, and did not dare let his name go forward for the province of Asia. Seventy years experience of maiestas had supplied informers with a stock of useful precedents and had taught them how easily trivial matters could be worked into serious accusations, but some of the charges are so vaguely recorded that it is impossible to give any detailed account.

The fate of Mettius Pompusianus is typical: he was rumoured to have an imperial horoscope, and to possess a map of the whole empire; he had made from Livy a collection of speeches by kings and generals, and had given some of his slaves hated names like Mago or Hannibal. The fatuity of such charges is reminiscent of those brought in the earliest years of Tiberius, but there was no Tiberius presiding to dismiss them with scorn; instead, Pompusianus was driven into exile on Corsica, and in 91 he was executed. His disgrace appears to have involved other members of his clan, for M. Mettius Rufus, who had been appointed Prefect of Egypt in 89, disappears from records at this date and his name has been erased on some documents, while his son Mettius Modestus, who had dared to revile the notorious informer Regulus, was sent into exile. This same year too, a distinguished noble, M. Acilius Glabrio, was first compelled to fight in the arena at Domitian’s Alban villa, and when he emerged successful, was exiled; a rhetorician called Maternus was executed for reciting an exercise against tyranny, and we ought probably to assign to this same period the execution of another rhetorician, Hermogenes of Tarsus, who was killed for lampoons against the Emperor, while his slave-copyists were crucified. Even provincials were not safe, for it is nearly certain that the trial and execution, on an unknown charge, of the wealthy Athenian Hipparchus, the grandfather of Herodes Atticus, falls within these years. His vast landed estates were confiscated, and though some funds may have escaped, his property must have meant a considerable accession to the imperial chest.

These cases can be dated with some approach to certainty: there remain other victims about whom little is known beyond the name, for though the nature of the charge is sometimes indicated the date is quite obscure. To have been a friend of the Emperor was no protection: M. Arrecinus Clemens had been for a brief space Prefect of the Praetorians to Vespasian, yet though he was then a favourite of Domitian, he was one of those condemned to death. C. Julius Bassus, another friend, suffered relegation and was not restored till after Domitian’s fall. Salvidienus Orfitus was first exiled on a charge of conspiracy and then put to death, while L. Salvius Otho Cocceianus was executed because he had celebrated the birthday of his uncle, Otho, as a day of rejoicing.

Such is a part of that melancholy roll of sufferers, of which a full list was afterwards drawn up by various writers. But the effects of this policy of terrorism had so far been limited in range. The city-populace had its shows and games and was supplied with food, and Domitian had been able to gratify it by the sight of two triumphs in November 89. The legionaries, too, were satisfied by the victories gained and by the re-assertion of Roman supremacy in war, and their loyalty was confirmed by the recent rise in pay, one-third as much again, which their Imperator had awarded them, and by the generous grants of immunity from various taxes and burdens which veterans received. The persecution fell mainly upon the Senatorial and upper classes, and how they felt is well shown by Pliny’s account of his visit to Q. Corellius Rufus. Rufus had been legate of Upper Germany in 82, and was doubtless a fair sample of the administrative class; in old age and retirement, though racked by pain, he clung to life, “so that I can survive that brigand for one day at least.”

Yet in fairness to Domitian it should be recorded that his administration, as will be seen later, was keen and efficient; evil he may have been, but his servants were acknowledged to be good, and many of the men who were to hold distinguished positions under Trajan served their apprenticeship under Domitian. Tacitus and the younger Pliny are famous examples; but there were many others, men who though they might disapprove of the reigning princeps yet realized the necessity of a Principate. There is nothing to confirm the suggestions of Domitian’s enemies that he was ruled by favourites or freed­men: his secretaries, Claudius, Epaphroditus, and Abascantus, were kept in their place and did not dominate his councils. Nor were the informers secure; though these later prosecutions stand in singular contrast to the principle that Domitian had enunciated at first—‘a princeps who does not punish informers encourages them’—he was not under their thumb; Veiento, Regulus and Mettius Carus survived his reign, but Arrecinus Clemens and Baebius Massa, who had been informers, were punished. It would be truer to say that Domitian’s anti-Senatorial policy brought him, just as it had brought Nero, into conflict with opposition; against that opposition he might rely on informers, or use soldiers as agents-provocateurs, but all whom he used were alike his servants, and he was alone responsible for his policy.

It was upon the remnants of the Republican opposition that the next blow fell. Though during the second half of 92 Domitian had been absent from Rome, superintending the campaigns against the Suebi and Sarmatae, by January of 93 he had returned. But no action was taken immediately: he waited till after the death of Agricola (23 August, 93) and then in the winter of 93 and during 94 he launched his attack. The first victim was apparently the younger Helvidius Priscus, son of the revolutionary. Though a consular he was living in retirement, but he had written a farce about Paris and Oenone which Domitian interpreted as a satire upon his own relations to his wife. Whatever the charges preferred—whether treasonable libel or abstention from duties—the matter was represented as urgent and dangerous, and troops lined the Senate-House: his accuser Publicius Certus, a man of praetorian rank, obtained his condemnation and actually helped to drag the condemned man away. The next victim was Junius Arulenus Rusticus, who had published a panegyric upon Thrasea Paetus; for this he was condemned and executed, and his book, like that of Cremutius Cordus (, was ordered to be burnt. With these two the destiny of a third man, Herennius Senecio, was too closely linked for him to escape; he had not held any official post after the quaestorship, but he had written a Life of the elder Helvidius Priscus at the request of his widow Fannia and he was an enemy of Regulus; Mettius Carus acted as prosecutor, he was condemned and executed, and his book banned. Though these three alone were killed, heavy punishment fell on their relatives and members of their circle: Fannia, for instigating Senecio to write the life of her husband, had her estates confiscated and suffered relegation, as did her mother the aged Arria (widow of Thrasea Paetus), together with another member of the group, Verulana Gratilla, and the brother of Rusticus, Junius Mauricus. Finally, by a senatus consultum in 95, Domitian drove all philosophers not only from Rome but from Italy, and so teachers and preachers such as Artemidorus (the son-in-law of Musonius), or Epictetus, left Italy to wander or to find a home elsewhere.

On the 1st of January, 95, Statius, with the bold vision vouch­safed to minor poets, could discern his emperor “rising with the new sun, among the mighty stars, yet more brilliant than them and greater than the early dawn-star.” Domitian might well have been satisfied as he surveyed the world beneath his feet: there was peace in the Empire, the Dacian king had acknowledged his overlordship and sent his brother Diegis to accept the diadem from his hands, the temples were full of statues of him in gold and silver dedicated by his admirers, and he had so terrorized the Senators that he had them subservient to his will whenever he appeared in the Senate-House. One more group yet remained to stir his suspicions, and this group involved his own family. Flavius Clemens, a cousin of Domitian, was married to the Emperor’s niece, Domitilla; he was an easy-going, slothful creature who had so far kept in favour; indeed Domitian, despairing of an heir of his own, about the year 90 had proclaimed two of their children as his successors, had given them the names of Vespasian and Domitian, and had appointed Quintilian to be their tutor. In 95 Clemens was consul ordinarius for some four months, but scarcely had he resigned his office when, with his wife and with several others, he was called upon to answer an accusation of neglect of the State religion (atheotes). It may be that this accusation was due to their being favourers of Jewish or Christian rites, but whatever the precise implications attaching to the word atheotes, it proved fatal to Clemens and to the exiled Acilius Glabrio, for both were executed; Domitilla was spared but sent into exile. There may have been others involved but these are the only names that have come down to us.

Unimportant though Clemens was, his murder sealed the fate of his murderer; if a creature contemptissimae inertiae’ could be so treated, who was safe from attack? Not the Praetorian Prefects, for Domitian put them on trial even while they were in office, so that T. Petronius Secundus, the Prefect of Egypt, was summoned early in the year 96 to take up the vacant post with a certain Norbanus. Not the palace freedmen, for the Emperor, with senseless cruelty, ordered the execution of his a libellis Epaphroditus, because some twenty-seven years before he had helped Nero to commit suicide. Flattery and abasement before the ‘Master and God’ seemed the only way of escape; even moderate men were not immune from suspicion, for—as was subsequently discovered—Domitian had received and filed informations against both Pliny and Nerva. The suspense and dread of the last few months must have been appalling, and it could be ended only by Domitian’s death. For their common safety all parties, Domitia herself, the two new Praetorian Prefects, Entellus the successor of Epaphroditus, Parthenius the chamberlain, and various minor officials of the palace, joined in a plot. But first they must find another princeps, for there must be no civil war and no rival claimants, and so they approached Cocceius Nerva, an elderly, amiable and distinguished jurist of some literary pretensions. His natural fears of a trap were overcome; he consented and the plot could proceed.

It was by now September. The conspirators secured the instrument they needed in a freedman Stephanus. He had been a procurator of Domitilla and had her exile to avenge; more, he had been accused of misappropriating money and could hope for little mercy if Domitian heard his case. Tradition speaks of omens and of warnings enough to put the dullest on their guard: perhaps Domitian had some intimation of his peril. There was no time to lose, and on September 16 Stephanus attacked him, under the pretence of handing him a paper. Into the details of the last scene and the ferocious joy of the narrators there is no need to enter; the tyrant was killed, Stephanus was dispatched by those who rushed to help their master, the other and more prudent conspirators escaped unscathed for the moment, and Nerva was proclaimed princeps that very day. Domitian’s body was burned privately by his nurse, Phyllis, who laid the ashes in the temple of the Gens Flavia that he himself had built. Already the Senate was condemning his memory, and men were pulling down his statues; she mingled the ashes with those of his niece, Julia, Titus’ daughter, so that they might rest undisturbed.

VI.

ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION

 

Thus far we have seen Domitian mainly in his relations with the Senatorial class: they regarded him, with reason, as a persecutor and their description of him as a tyrant has prevailed. There is, however, another side to consider, how he administered the Empire.

In the capital his first task was to feed the populace and keep it contented, and this he achieved. Three times he distributed congiaria, amounting in all to 225 denarii a head, the last one apparently in 93; he also gave games, wild-beast hunts, races and a mimic naval battle, and for these purposes he erected two schools for gladiators, and constructed a naumachia by the Tiber. But he was eager to offer the people more refined amusements than these; the Capitoline Agon which he founded included contests (in the Greek manner) not only in sport but in literature, and for these he built a Stadium and an Odeum in the Campus Martius. Building suited well his taste for display and magnificence; besides, the death of Titus and the fire of the year 80 had left much work unfinished and much to repair and reconstruct. In consequence the achievement of his principate in building was solid and splendid. He restored the Saepta, rebuilt the temples of Sarapis and of Isis (in front of which he placed obelisks specially brought from Egypt, the Pantheon, and the Baths of Agrippa, and the Porticus Octaviae (with its libraries), all of which had been damaged; to fill the libraries he sought for books far and wide, even sending scribes to Alexandria to copy rare ones. In addition to work on the Colosseum he completed the Baths that Titus had begun and his temple to Vespasian, which now became the temple of the deified Vespasian and the deified Titus, and he also dedicated in the Campus Martius a colonnade, the Divorum Porticus, containing two shrines to their memory. Between the Forum Augusti and the new Forum Pacis, he swept away the untidy Argiletum and constructed a Forum of his own, which was later appropriated by Nerva. On the Quirinal he built a temple to the Gens Flavia, and on the Capitol, from which he had escaped in 69, disguised and in humiliation, he erected in gratitude a huge temple to Juppiter the Guardian, with an image of the god holding him in his lap. Most splendid of all was the restored temple of Juppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol, which with its columns of Pentelic marble, its doors plated with gold, and its gilded tiles, was one of the wonders of the world. But Domitian was determined, like Nero, to be properly housed; in Rome the architect Rabirius spent eleven years refashioning the imperial palaces, and on the Alban Mount, in the early years of his reign, there arose a magnificent villa, with theatre and amphitheatre close by, over­looking the waters of the Alban Lake, upon which, in summer, the imperial barge could float in unbroken calm and silence. Detractors complained that Rome was shaken by the weight of the lorry-loads that rumbled through the city and that vast sums were poured out on his private pleasure. Yet much of the money was not spent upon these or on display alone; apart from the temples, prosaic but useful work was certainly carried out by his engineers upon the water-system of Rome, and granaries for the storage of corn and spices and pepper were built. Still it cannot be denied that this huge programme of building was costly: the gold-work of the Capitoline Temple alone accounted for 12,000 talents, and during the twelve years between 81 and 93—for that year seems to mark the completion of the programme—enormous sums must have been expended.

On that important aspect of an emperor’s policy, the financial, we have little accurate information though plenty of assertion. Domitian had no intention of doing things shabbily: his constant instruction to his agents was ‘ne quid sordide facerent.’ But to add to the cost of buildings and shows, there were the increased pay of the soldiers and wars between 81 and 93 to finance, while no new sources of revenue had been tapped. Money must have been needed; whence did it come ? To Pliny the Younger, writing in the reaction that followed Domitian’s death, Domitian was a monster of rapacity, whose lavish grants to the populace were drawn from murder and confiscation. Suetonius, more detached and writing a little later, notes a deterioration in Domitian’s character and is inclined to explain it by the hypothesis that ‘contrary to his natural disposition lack of funds made him predatory and fear made him cruel,’ and this explanation seems more reasonable.

From the start, however, he had all his father’s financial shrewdness. Though in Italy and Rome he was lenient enough at first, elsewhere taxes were gathered in strictly. The Nasamones in Africa are said to have revolted because of the exactions of the collectors, and the poll-tax upon Jews was rigorously enforced, giving rise to many malicious prosecutions. Other sums, too, went to enrich the Imperial chest: Frontinus declares that Domitian appropriated to it the income that accrued from the aqueducts; Pliny avers that any means was employed to rake money into the Fiscus—prosecutions under obsolescent laws (such as the Lex Voconia of 168 b.c.), trials for maiestas with subsequent confiscations, the encouragement of slaves to lay information against their masters, and so on. On one point we can certainly trace a definite hardening, for those condemned to relegatio no longer retained their property but forfeited it to the Fiscus. Apart from that the evidence is not overwhelming, for in the last years of the reign, when prosecutions followed each other fast, most of Domitian’s building programme had been carried out, the wars in the North were over, and expenses should therefore have fallen. It may well be that under Domitian the process of centralizing the finances of the Empire initiated by Claudius was being carried still further, but we must not overlook the possibility that these trials and confiscations were not the result of an economic need, but were rather part of a definite political purpose, that purpose being the complete crippling, financial and moral, of the aristocratic opposition. In the present state of the evidence, however, it would be unwise to pronounce definitely, for we have no means of judging the Emperor’s intentions: we can only view, through the glass of a hostile tradition, his actions. In fairness to Domitian it must be noted that, however great the financial stringency, he did not take the fatally easy step (that Nero had taken and that Trajan was to take) of debasing the coinage; indeed recent researches suggest that he raised it somewhat above the Neronian level.

But in spite of all that Domitian spent on pleasing the populace he was never its servant, like Nero; he would allow it spectacles and shows, but he disapproved of mimes and farces and forbade actors to appear in public. It was a step that Tiberius would have applauded, and it is amusing to watch the efforts Pliny makes to minimize a measure of which he approved but which a tyrant had ordained. It well illustrates the rigorous and reformatory side of his character, and leads to a consideration of Domitian’s own legislation and of his attitude towards jurisdiction. An archaic severity pervades much of it, whether it be the revival of half-forgotten laws or the enactment of new ones. One salutary enactment came early, a veto on the practice of castration, and Scantinia, which imposed a fine upon those found guilty of un­natural vice, and he put some restrictions upon prostitutes; they were deprived of the right to ride in a litter, and were not allowed to accept legacies or inheritances, in effect were reduced to the status of freedwomen. It was an easy and grateful task for his enemies to retort that he himself was tainted by most of the vices that he burned to repress, but even a glance at the poems of Martial and Juvenal suggests that Rome badly needed such legislation, and much of it was re-enacted by succeeding emperors.

Some phrases in contemporary poets imply that he enforced the provisions of the Lex Julia de adulteriis, and where his religious sense was shocked as well he showed himself implacable. A case of adultery by Vestal Virgins had been overlooked by his more charitable father and brother, but in 83 when three Vestals were found guilty, their lovers were relegated and they themselves merely allowed to choose their mode of death. Seven years later he had grown austerer still: the Chief Vestal, Cornelia, was guilty; her lovers (save one, Valerius Licinianus) were beaten to death with rods, and Cornelia was condemned to be buried alive. It was, indeed, the traditional punishment, but the infliction of it sent a thrill of horror through the City, and men whispered that Domitian had merely gratified his cruelty.

As an upholder of the hierarchical order of society he tried to discourage over-indulgence to slaves and easy manumission; thus he warned the court of the recuperatores that they must not grant to a claimant the free status to which he pretended, except on convincing proof, and he went so far as to restore to his former master an escaped slave who had actually risen to centurion’s rank. Two decisions of his, preserved in the Digest, show a harshness of temper typical of him and quite out of touch with the humaner trend of the times; the first, a senatus consultum, ordained that if a man could prove that there had been fraudulent or collusive manumission of a slave, he could own that slave in future; the second laid down that if a slave, on some charge, had been put in chains awaiting trial, the usual pardons and remissions granted by the Senate on days of public rejoicing should not apply to him; he could not be loosed even though his master should offer bail, and the trial must be carried through. It was a measure that wrung a protest from the equitable Papinian, yet it is likely enough that throughout Domitian plumed himself on being a supporter of the Augustan Roman tradition, and many of his actions hark back to the first princeps. He paraded an anxiety to uphold the dignity and status of the different orders. As in Augustus’ time, authors of lampoons against noted men and women were severely punished and their writings burnt. A certain Rustius Caepio had directed in his will that a sum of money should be paid to senators as they entered the Curia; it was a practice possible and frequent in small municipalities, but Domitian cancelled the order, as not befitting the dignity of the Senate of Rome. Herein he was undoubtedly right, as in his other provisions for public order and decency; to the Equites he again secured their coveted fourteen rows of seats in the theatre, and he insisted that Roman citizens must, on public occasions, wear the distinctive Roman dress, the toga.

At the beginning of his reign he displayed a lenity and generosity over money-matters which Suetonius candidly admits. There was to be none of the cheese-paring policy of his father; the Fiscus was full and there was no need to hunt out long-standing debts; those more than five years old were cancelled, and in future an informer must bring his charge within a year and was liable to exile if he failed to prove his charge. Malicious accusations, even though they might bring gain to the Fiscus, he severely discouraged. By constant attendance at the courts, like Tiberius or Claudius before him, he secured the impartial administration of justice against influence or bribery; indeed judges who took bribes found themselves degraded. He refused to accept a legacy if the testator had left children alive, and in his treatment of the problem of subsiciva, he showed the same liberal attitude. To evict occupiers after long undisturbed possession, as his father and Titus had done, was extremely unfair; to leave things as they were would subject them to the vexatious attentions of informers. He took the wise and generous step of granting the subsiciva in free­hold to the occupiers, and solved the problem for good.

A second incursion into agrarian matters was not so helpful. Like others in his time he was struck by the predominance of vine over wheat in Italy and elsewhere, and feared a possible shortage of corn supplies. His remedy was drastic; by an edict he forbade the planting of any more vines in Italy, while in the provinces existing vineyards were to be reduced by one half and the ground given over to wheat-growing. Suetonius adds that he did not follow the edict up vigorously: it would certainly have had to face considerable opposition and possibly it was not introduced in some provinces at all, but it is thought that in Northern and Central Gaul and to a certain extent in the Danubian provinces it was put into effect.

About his administration of the provinces there is little that can be affirmed, for evidence is singularly lacking, and it may be that Nerva and Trajan have absorbed some of the credit due to him. Following the condemnation of his memory many of his monuments were overthrown and mention of him erased, and this makes knowledge difficult. Suetonius records his deliberate opinion that he gave such attention to controlling magistrates in the City and governors in the provinces that they were never more just or more moderate; since his death we have seen many of them accused on every kind of charge. In this strict control of his helpers he resembled his model Tiberius. The only recorded trial, however, is that of Baebius Massa, the proconsul of Baetica, prosecuted by the whole province, which chose Pliny and Herennius Senecio as its advocates: Massa had been an informer, but Domitian put no obstacles in the way, and in 93 he was duly tried and condemned. Similar was his treatment of an avaricious aedile; he made the tribunes hale him before the court of the Senate on a charge of extortion.

The regular routine work was conducted smoothly: in Italy roads were mended and improved, and in the provinces, especially in Asia Minor, the road-system was kept in a high state of efficiency; the repairs recorded here show how all-important was swift communication between the Danubian and the Eastern armies. Over the whole Empire generally the work of romanization was going on steadily, and there is no need to note Domitian’s contribution in each province, for he was simply carrying on the task left him by his father. As might be expected from his disposition, he showed a marked sympathy for the cities of Greece. He allowed Corinth to mint money again, he held the office of Archon Eponymus at Athens, in 84 he undertook to repair the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and in 93 he rebuilt for Megalopolis at his own expense a colonnade that had been burnt down. Equally keen was his interest in the historic cities of Greek Asia Minor, such as Rhodes and Ephesus; he apparently extended the boundaries of the temple of Ephesian Artemis, and in that city there stood his own temple with a colossal cult-statue. Apart from one or two isolated dedications, as that from the Koinon of the Lycians or from Smyrna, little remains in the peninsula to record his principate. To the south-east, the little client-kingdom of Chalcis was absorbed into the province of Syria in the year 92, and the principality of Emesa suffered the same fate; Judaea remained quiet. In Egypt we find a canal being dug to connect the Nile with Alexandria, a few dedications and the tariff-table at Coptos, but that is all. On many even of these monuments the abhorred name has been obliterated: others probably endured even worse treatment, flung down and shattered to pieces.

The personnel sent out to govern these provinces was good; many who afterwards attained high places under Trajan or Hadrian had already been employed by Domitian. To mention a few names—T. Avidius Quietus, P. Calvisius Ruso Julius Frontinus, C. Caristanius Fronto, Tacitus himself, and the two Asiatic senators, Tib. Julius Celsus Polemaeanus and C. Antius A. Julius Quadratus, all held commands or governorships in his reign. Good fortune has preserved for us an admirable edict issued by one of his governors, L. Antistius Rusticus, who was legate of the enlarged province of Galatia-Cappadocia between 84 and 94. Owing to a severe winter and scarcity of corn the price of wheat had soared high in the city of Antioch-by-Pisidia, and in answer to a petition from its Senate Rusticus orders a general declaration of all grain in store to be made by all the inhabitants, who must be prepared (after making reasonable deductions) to sell the surplus at a price to be fixed by him. The price, as it is most unfair that men should make a profit from the hunger of their fellow-citizens, is fixed at a little above the normal. The only complaint that could justly be made was that Domitian gave some of the highest offices to knights and freedmen; thus he included knights as well as senators in his consilium, he placed his Praetorian Prefect, Cornelius Fuscus, at the head of the legions in the Dacian War, and doubtless his emergency order to a procurator, C. Minicius Italus, to take charge of the province of Asia upon the death of a proconsul, caused scandal among the nobility. But to that the answer is that most of these were energetic and trustworthy men, and that their choice was a concession to efficiency like the sending of the Greek-born Senators to positions of trust in the Eastern, though not in the Western, provinces. As his successors approved his choice of governors, so they continued in office his capable secretary Cn. Octavius Titinius Capito, who held the post of Latin secretary under both Nerva and Trajan.

A final topic remains, his deification. Both Suetonius and Dio assert that he styled himself ‘Master and God’ and liked to be so addressed. Inscriptions, naturally enough, bear no trace of this, but the fact that in 89 Martial can speak of an ‘edictum domini deique nostri,’ and the scornful remarks of Pliny and Dio Chrysostom later leave no doubt that in the second half of his reign Domitian did accept a form of address which implied his divinity and mastership. In fact he was moving, though with greater deliberation and more calculated, policy, along the path that Gaius and Nero had already trodden. As god-monarch of the Roman realm, placed above all both in appearance and in fact, he needed no Senate to partner him but only ministers and servants; hence the opposition of the Senatorial order and its pitiless suppression.

Terrorism certainly flourished during the last years; even soldiers could be used as spies and agents-provocateurs. An interesting passage in Epictetus deals with the theme of how confidence begets confidence : it proceeds—

“That is how imprudent men are trapped by soldiers in Rome. A soldier in civilian dress comes and sits by you and begins by abusing Caesar, whereupon you, regarding the fact that he began the abuse as a sort of guarantee of trustworthiness, say all that you yourself feel; the next moment you are bound and being led away.”

Such a passage implies quite definitely that the masses as well as the nobles could fall victims on charges of treason. And Domitian’s assertiveness seems to have introduced a new practice: for three generations men had been accustomed to take an oath by the genius of the Princeps, but always voluntarily and not as an official form; during his reign we find for the first time men swearing in public documents by the genius of the living Emperor, while those who wished to flatter him began to make sacrifices to his genius. It looks as though Domitian seized upon this voluntary action and turned it into a test of loyalty: a man suspected or accused might now save himself and prove his loyalty by offering sacrifice before the image of the princeps ; if he refused he could then be charged with atheotes. Dio Cassius notes the increasing number of trials for this offence in the last years, and this charge not only served possibly to get rid of obstinate and Republican-minded people, but it brought Domitian into conflict with the Jews and the Christians, neither of whom could acknowledge his divinity. An Emperor who demanded worship from his subjects might one day, like Gaius, demand it of the Jews too, and revoke existing edicts of tolerance. Jewish tradition relates that, about 95, the Senate was deliberating on a decree expelling all Jews from the boundaries of the Empire, and that a famous rabbi, Gamaliel II, with some friends, made a hurried winter journey to Rome to avert the threatened persecution. Christian tradition too branded Domitian as a persecutor, who sought out the kindred of Jesus Christ and punished adherents of the new religion. It is curious, certainly, that Flavius Clemens was claimed as an adherent both by Jews and Christians, and that archaeological evidence suggests that both Domitilla and Acilius Glabrio, who were punished apparently for atheotes were, if not Christian, at least favourably inclined towards the sect. We cannot doubt that in the last three or four years both Jews and Christians, as well as Romans, had much to fear from an Emperor who could demand worship of himself as a proof of loyalty. But the dagger of Stephanus put an end to their fears as to the fears of others. The last ruler of the Flavian house perished without an adult heir. For twenty-seven years the family had directed Roman affairs: it remains to estimate their achievement.

Martial, writing some years after Domitian was safely out of the way, dismisses his reign curtly as almost counterbalancing the good that Vespasian and Titus had done:

‘Flavia gens quantum tibi tertius abstulit heres,

Paene fuit tanti non habuisse duos’.

Yet his verdict merely shows that he had not lost the art of pleasing those in power: indeed, once ‘liberty’ was the order of the day some of the unlikeliest people invested in busts of Brutus and Cassius. To agree with Martial would be utterly unjust. Domitian’s cruelty to a certain class was real and terrible, but it was limited in its incidence: he paraded absolutism, giving to the imperial position the airs of divinity and the pomp of a despot; apart from that he did little to undo and much to forward the work of his father, and that work was a great one. To take defence first: for some two hundred years Rome had been accustomed to enlarge her territories by the conquest of the barbarian: now, in the background, forces were moving and gathering that would call a halt to Roman aggression and test her defences; in the two succeeding chapters the reader will see something of the strength of the peoples that lay outside, to the East and North of Rome’s boundaries. The frontiers needed attention: the development of a more scientific defenceline, the provision of better communications, the disciplining of the legions under experienced commanders (of which an account will be found in the fourth chapter), were among the most enduring things that Vespasian and his sons did.

While the empire was protected against attacks from without the Flavians strove hard to improve its internal stability. Finance was set on a better basis, the administrative machine was made to run more smoothly, and an aristocracy of office, recruited from good provincial as well as Italian stock, was created to help control it. There were few famous Republican families left by the end of the first century, and still fewer believers in a Republican system: the Flavians established the Principate more firmly, and in the new aristocracy they and their successors found a class that was willing to co-operate with them. It is worth observing with what care Vespasian chose his officers; whether it was Petilius Cerialis, or Julius Agricola, or Q. Paconius Agrippinus, all had had previous experience of the provinces to which they were sent. He was not afraid to employ men of Eastern origin to help administer the Eastern regions: Tib. Julius Celsus Polemaeanus and C. Antius Julius Quadratus were adlected by him to the Senate, and afterwards held important posts. Traditional Roman sentiment may have felt some resentment at such appointments, especially at the loud fanfares with which they were celebrated in the East—‘in all time’, records one inscription, ‘he was fifth from the whole of Asia to enter the Senate, and from Miletus and the rest of Ionia the first and only’—but of the generous wisdom of such a policy we can feel no doubt. And Vespasian knew well how to reward good service with office and honours and was shrewd enough to point the contrast between his predecessors’ treatment of such officials and his own.

Within the framework of the Empire thus defended and served by more capable officials the process of romanization was going steadily on. The foundation of colonies, the granting of municipal rights, the encouragement of education (whether by the creation of professorial chairs and endowment of new schools, or by the immunities and privileges granted to teachers), were all instruments of this process, and this work was simply continued and developed by succeeding emperors.

Most important, perhaps, of all the Flavian achievement, was the restoration of confidence. Had the anarchy of 69 not been quickly suppressed, Mediterranean civilization might have been badly shaken: ‘the empire was adrift and in danger’, judges Suetonius: it was brought back to safety. The steps taken to control the armies are related more fully elsewhere, here we need only record that they succeeded. Vespasian and Titus had both led armies, and Domitian was wise enough to go in person to the scene of action and so had the troops devoted to him. What danger there may have been that the Empire should become the prize or plaything of armies or generals was averted, and the legal basis of the Principate remained civilian. To all the provinces and peoples comprising the Empire the Flavian dynasty restored that confidence in the lasting strength of Rome, in her aeternitas, which had tottered for a while; such was the message of the coins that promised Aeternitas and linked that promise to the Princeps. A striking example of this sentiment has survived in an inscription from Acmonia in Phrygia. The town had received by the will of a rich citizen a considerable benefaction: Senate and People ordain how the money is to be spent; then comes the clause—‘and this decree is to be guaranteed by the eternity of the empire of the Romans.’ Belief in the eternal lasting power of Rome was restored, and with it belief in the foresight and loving care (providentia) of the emperor. This unceasing anxiety for the welfare of the peoples of the empire was an aspect on which some early rulers, such as Augustus and Claudius, had already laid stress; from now on it grew more prominent still. It was that ‘principis sollicitudo’ of which Suetonius speaks in recording Titus’ activities after the eruption of Vesuvius; from the time of the Flavians Providentia (or its Greek equivalent Pronoia) comes to be looked on as a natural attribute of the good Princeps; to that loving care all, Senate, People and subjects look for safety and deliverance. Materially and morally, in strength and in confidence, the Flavians restored a shaken realm, and that is their great achievement.

 

 

CHAPTER II

THE PEOPLES OF NORTHERN EUROPE THE GETAE AND DACIANS