Domitian Sentence Examples
The construction of the coast road, the Via Severiana, from Ostia to Tarracina, added to the importance of the place; and the beauty of the promontory with its luxuriant flora and attractive view had made it frequented by the Romans as early as 200 B.C. Galba and Domitian possessed country houses here.
It was finished in the thirteenth year of Domitian (93).
The second advance was made by Domitian about A.D.
We do not, however, know its date, save that, if not Domitian's work, it was carried out soon after his death, and the whole frontier thus constituted was reorganized, probably by Hadrian, with a continuous wooden palisade reaching from Rhine to Danube.
Worship of an emperor during his lifetime, except as the worship of his genius, was, save in the cases of Caligula and Domitian, confined to the provinces.
But Domitian, according to pagan historians, bore hardly on them.
Indeed it would seem that Domitian instituted a persecution of the Jews, to which Nerva his successor put an end.
When Vespasian was proclaimed emperor at Alexandria,Domitian escaped with difficulty from the temple of the Capitol, which had been set on fire by the Vitellians, and remained in hiding till his father's party proved victorious.
Domitian's succession (on the 13th of September 81) was unquestioned, and it would seem that he had intended, so far as his weak volition and mean abilities would allow, to govern well.
Domitian was the first emperor who arrogated divine honours in his lifetime, and caused himself to be styled Our Lord and God in public documents.
AdvertisementThough he took the title of imperator more than twenty times, and enjoyed at least one triumph, Domitian's military achievements were insignificant.
It was speedily crushed; but from that moment Domitian's character changed.
The name St Elmo is an Italian corruption through Sant' Ersno of St Erasmus, a bishop, during the reign of Domitian, of Formiae, Italy, who was broken on the wheel about the 2nd of June 304.
Thenceforward he devoted himself to literary work under the patronage of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
A false interpretation of Gregory of Tours, apparently dating from 724, represented St Denis as having received his mission from Pope Clement, and as having suffered martyrdom under Domitian (81-96).
AdvertisementThe so-called exedra of Herodes Atticus (which answers in all respects to a nymphaeum in the Roman style), the nymphaeum in the palace of Domitian and those in the villa of Hadrian at Tibur (five in number) may be specially mentioned.
When young, Arrian was the pupil and friend of Epictetus, who had probably withdrawn to Nicopolis, when Domitian expelled all philosophers from Rome.
His successes, however, had aroused the envy and suspicion of Domitian.
The reign of Domitian, although it silenced the more independent spirits of the time, Tacitus and Juvenal, witnessed more important contributions to Roman literature than any age since the Augustan, - among them the Institutes of Quintilian, the Punic War of Silius Italicus, the epics and the Silvae of Statius, and the Epigrams of Martial.
But it is not in the Silvae, nor in the epics and tragedies of the time, nor in the cultivated criticism of Quintilian that the age of Domitian lives for us.
AdvertisementWe know the daily life, the familiar personages, the outward aspect of Rome in the age of Domitian xvi.
Iunius Iuvenalis or Juvenal (c. 47-130), sum up for posterity the moral experience of the Roman world from the accession of Tiberius to the death of Domitian.
In the time of Domitian the whole lake belonged to the imperial domain.
Sidetes) by their testimony before the authorities brought to an end the (Palestinian) persecution of Domitian (Hegesippus ap. Eus.
But even if we date the rise of heresies in the reign of Domitian instead of Trajan, 2 the attributing of this epistle against 2 O n this point (date of the outbreak of heresy) there is some inconsistency in the reported fragments of Hegesippus.
AdvertisementAntonius Saturninus headed a rebellion in Germany, which threatened seriously to bring Domitian's rule to an end.
But his promptitude raised him higher in the favour of Domitian, and he was advanced to the consulship in 91.
When the revolution of 96 came, and Nerva replaced the murdered Domitian, one of the most important posts in the empire, that of consular legate of Upper Germany, was conferred upon Trajan.
Nerva saw that if he could not find an Augustus to control the army, the army would find another Domitian to trample the senate under foot.
It is probable that the northernmost part of the great limes Germaniae, from the Rhine at Rheinbrohl, nearly midway between Coblenz and Bonn, to a point on the Main east of Frankfort, where that river suddenly changes its course from north to west, was begun by Domitian.
But the precarious tenure of their possession had been deeply impressed on them by the disasters and humiliations they had undergone in these districts during the reign of Domitian.
Domitian attacked him but was compelled to make an ignominious peace.
It was impossible for a soldier like Trajan to endure the conditions accepted by Domitian; but the conquest of Dacia had become one of the most formidable tasks that had ever confronted the empire.
That the emperor had an honest and soldierly satisfaction in his own well-doing is clear; but if he had had anything like the vanity of a Domitian, the senate, ever eager to outrun a ruler's taste for flattery, would never have kept within such moderate bounds.
Here for the first time a consistently elaborated world-historical interpretation is carried out from the reign of Domitian to Lyra's own period.
Both these writers assign the Apocalypse to the reign of Domitian.
Not till the last years of Domitian is it possible to discover conditions which would explain the apprehensions and experiences of our writer.
So far as we can discover, no persecution was directed against Christians as Christians till Domitian's time.
Such an attitude on the part of a Christian is not explicable before the closing years of Domitian; for, apart from Caligula, he was the first Roman emperor who consistently demanded divine honours.
This fusion could hardly have taken place before the first half of Domitian's reign, when the last Neronic pretender appeared.
The earliest external evidence is practically unanimous in ascribing the Apocalypse to the last years of Domitian.
Though a few later authorities, such as Epiphanius and Theophylact, assign the book to earlier or later periods, the main body of early Christian tradition attests the date of its composition in the closing years of Domitian.
When, however, we combine the preceding arguments with that of the early church tradition, the evidence for the Domitian date outweighs that for any other.
But what then is to be made of the above reckoning when it was taken over by the Apocalyptist who wrote in Domitian's reign ?
Some scholars are of opinion that this writer identified Domitian with the eighth emperor, the Nero redivivus, the beast from the abyss.
But this is unlikely, notwithstanding the fact that even some pagan writers, such as Juvenal, Pliny and Martial (?), traced a resemblance between Domitian and Nero.
For Domitian in that case would be the sixth, and the preceding five would have to begin with Galba - a most improbable supposition.
This strange statement suggested some historical allusion, and the discovery of the allusion was made by Reinach, who points out that Domitian by an edict in A.D.
Since Domitian died in 96, the book was therefore written between A.D.
Some of the emperors wore crowns on occasion, as Caligula and Domitian, at the games, and stellate or spike crowns are depicted on the heads of several of the emperors on their coins, but no idea of imperial sovereignty was indicated thereby.
From the time of Domitian, when each legion had a separate camp, the name of the legion was added to the title, e.g.
He was praetor (66) and twice consul, in 71 with the emperor Vespasian for colleague, and again in 90 with Domitian.
On the murder of Domitian, in September 96, Nerva was declared emperor by the people and the soldiers.
The new emperor recalled those who had been exiled by Domitian; what remained of their confiscated property was restored to them, and a stop was put to the vexatious prosecutions which Domitian had encouraged.
Domitian had been arbitrary and high-handed, and had heaped favours on the soldiery while humiliating the senate; Nerva showed himself anxious to respect the traditional privileges of the senate, and such maxims of constitutional government as still survived.
The praetorian guards had keenly resented the murder of their patron Domitian, and now, at the instigation of one of their two prefects, Casperius Aelianus, whom Nerva had retained in office, they imperiously demanded the execution of Domitian's murderers.
There exists a series of its coins with heads of emperors from Domitian to Alexander Severus.
He reached Rome the day after the death of Vitellius, and found Domitian, Vespasian's son, at the head of affairs, but until the arrival of Vespasian the real master of Rome was Mucianus.
As no mention is made of Mucianus during the reigns of Titus or Domitian, he probably died during the reign of Vespasian.
The Apocalypse is plausibly dated by Reinach and Harnack near to the precise year 93, and the other writings may be referred to the reign of Domitian (81-96), though many critics would extend the limit to some two decades later.
Flavius Clemens, who was consul with his cousin, the Emperor Domitian, in A.D.
His life, in the form of a warm panegyric, written at his widow's request by Herennius Senecio, caused its author's death in the reign of Domitian.
Few English scholars, for instance, would accept as late a date as 120140 for James, and I Peter may be as early as 65, as Harnack himself admits, though he prefers a date in the reign of Domitian.
On the basis of the epistles of Paul to Timothy, Timothy is traditionally represented as bishop of Ephesus, and tradition also tells that he suffered under Domitian.
Primus must have been alive during the reign of Domitian, since four epigrams of Martial are addressed to him.
This is the version of the expectation of Nero's second coming preserved in the form given to the prophecy, under Domitian, by the collaborator in' the Apocalypse of John (xiii., xvii.).
The younger Sulpicia lived during the reign of Domitian.
South of the town are the villages of Genna, Guehda (with a temple dedicated to Ammon, Mut and Khonsu), Bulak (pop. 1012), Dakakin, Beris (pop. 1564), Dush (with remains of a fine temple bearing the names of Domitian and Hadrian), &c.
In, 90 he was expelled with the other philosophers by Domitian, who was irritated by the support and encouragement which the opposition to his tyranny found amongst the adherents of Stoicism.
After two severe reverses, the Romans, under Tettius Julianus, gained a signal advantage, but were obliged to make peace owing to the defeat of Domitian by the Marcomanni.
Decebalus restored the arms he had taken and some of the prisoners and received the crown from Domitian's hands, an apparent acknowledgment of Roman suzerainty.
But the Dacians were really left independent, as is shown by the fact that Domitian agreed to purchase immunity from further Dacian inroads by the payment of an annual tribute.
A question arose in the time of Domitian between the inhabitants of Falerio and Firmum as to land which had been taken out of the territory of the latter (which was recolonized by the triumvirs), and, though not distributed to the new settlers, had not been given back again to the people of Firmum.
The abuse naturally reappeared under a man like Domitian; the delators, with whom Vespasian had not interfered, although he had abolished trials for majestas, were again banished by Trajan, and threatened with capital punishment in an edict of Constantine; but, as has been said, the evil, which was an almost necessary accompaniment of autocracy, lasted till the end of the 4th century.
The motive which a writer of satire must have had for secrecy under Domitian is sufficiently obvious; and the necessity of concealment and self-suppression thus imposed upon the writer may have permanently affected his whole manner of composition.
If any conjecture is warrantable on so obscure a subject, it is more likely that this temporary disgrace should have been inflicted on the poet by Domitian.
But if he was banished under Domitian, it must have been either before or after 93, at which time, as we learn from an epigram of Martial, Juvenal was in Rome.
Thus the manners and personages of the age of Domitian often supply the material of satiric representation, and are spoken of as if they belonged to the actual life of the present,' while allusions even in the earliest show that, as a finished literary composition, it belongs to the age of Trajan.
Book I., embracing the first five satires, was written in the freshest vigour of the author's powers, and is animated with the strongest hatred of Domitian.
In the second satire, the lines 29 seq., " Qualis erat nuper tragico pollutus adulter Concubitu," show that the memory of one of the foulest scandals of the reign of Domitian was still fresh in the minds of men.
The third satire, imitated by Samuel Johnson in his London, presents such a picture as Rome may have offered to the satirist at any time in the 1st century of our era; but it was under the worst emperors, Nero and Domitian, that the arts of flatterers and foreign adventurers were most successful, and that such scenes of violence as that described at 2 77 seq.
The fifth is a social picture of the degradation to which poor guests were exposed at the banquets of the rich, but many of the epigrams of Martial and the more sober evidence of one of Pliny's letters show that the picture painted by Juvenal, though perhaps exaggerated in colouring, was drawn from a state of society prevalent during and immediately subsequent to the times of Domitian.
Thus the satires were published at different intervals, and for the most part composed between loo and 130, but the most powerful in feeling and vivid in conception among them deal with the experience and impressions of the reign of Domitian, occasionally recall the memories or traditions of the times of Nero and Claudius, and reproduce at least one startling page from the annals of Tiberius.
It is true that he finds the most typical examples of lust, cruelty, levity and weakness in the emperors and their wives - in Domitian, Otho, Nero, Claudius and Messalina.
If we could imagine the elder Cato living under Domitian, cut off from all share in public life, and finding no outlet for his combative energy except in literature, we should perhaps understand the motives of Juvenal's satire and the place which is his due as a representative of the genius of his country.
The king had twelve lictors; each of the consuls (immediately after their institution) twelve, subsequently limited to the monthly officiating consul, although Caesar appears to have restored the original arrangement; the dictator, as representing both consuls, twenty-four; the emperors twelve, until the time of Domitian, who had twenty-four.
Thither, in virtual banishment, Juvenal was sent as prefect by Domitian.
The introduction to a dialogue called Virgilius orator an pceta is extant, in which the author (whose name is given as Publius Annius Florus) states that he was born in Africa, and at an early age took part in the literary contests on the Capitol instituted by Domitian.
The emperors formed a single estate out of a considerable part of this district, including apparently the whole of the lake, and Domitian was especially fond of residing here.
It was said that he was accused of treason both by Nero and by Domitian, but escaped by miraculous means.
Vacancies were originally filled by co-optation, but by the Domitian law (104) the selection was made, by seventeen out of the thirty-five tribes chosen by lot, from candidates previously nominated by the college.
The Romans also used lead as an alloy in their bronze coins, but gradually reduced the quantity, and under Caligula, Nero, Vespasian and Domitian, coined pure copper coins; afterwards they reverted to the mixture of lead.
After the extinction of the family of Augustus in the 1st century Gaul had made many emperorsGalba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian and Domitian; and in the 2nd century she provided Gauls to rule the empireAntoninus (138161) came from Nfmes and Claudius from Lyons, as did also Caracalla later on (211217).
Under Domitian, who claimed her special protection, the worship of Minerva attained its greatest vogue in Rome.
After having served with the army in Thrace and been quaestor in Crete and Cyrene, Vespasian rose to be aedile and praetor, having meanwhile married Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of a Roman knight, by whom he had two sons, Titus and Domitian, afterwards emperors.
Pliny's eulogy of Trajan and his denunciation of Domitian are alike couched in extravagant phrases, but the former perhaps rests more uniformly on a basis of truth and justice than the latter.
The praetorian guards had keenly resented the murder of their patron Domitian, and now, at the instigation of one of their two prefects, Casperius Aelianus, whom Nerva had retained in office, they imperiously demanded the execution of Domitian's murderers, the chamberlain Parthenius and Petronius Secundus, Aelianus's colleague.
The chief historical monument of this region is the Saalburg, an ancient Roman fort serving as a centre of communications along the limes or fortified frontier-line drawn from Rhine to Main by Domitian (see Limes Germanicus).