An exhibition in Rome makes an attempt to re-dimension the life and dying of Domitian, final of the Flavian emperors (81-96 AD).
“Woe is me, I feel I’m turning into a god,” complained the famously down-to-earth Vespasian on his deathbed. On mortgage from the Farnesi assortment Naples and right here occupying about ten metres of wall house the top of the identical ‘divinised’ emperor and founding father of the Flavian dynasty is a central exhibit of this enthralling present within the Capitoline Museums.
If something, the ‘caput’ is greater than that of Constantine within the museum courtyard under. And is equally intact. Besides above the brow has, someplace in historical past, been neatly sliced off, so the remainder of the top could possibly be used as a basin: Search for the opening drilled by the ear.
And why no large head for Domitian? The reason being within the damnatio memoriae within the reign of his successor, the emperor Nerva. As right here, a number of heads of Domitian, do survive, however every a tenth or much less of the dimensions of his father’s (Vespasian) or his brother (Titus). Proving that damnatio memoriae, given the hundreds of heads ordered then despatched all through the empire, was solely partial. Sheer numbers of them in circulation is one clarification.
Erasing Domitian
The identical with cash, one right here exhibiting Domitian’s face rubbed out, one other coin intact. One other issue was that defacement would lower their price. Additionally there’s the sheer effort concerned. Penn Museum in Pennsylvania hosts a plaque to Domitian the place the primary line of lettering is erased, the next strains solely partly in order the traditional workmen grew drained. Or perhaps their chisels broke? Then, come references to Domitian in Egyptian hieroglyphs, nonetheless untouched due to the restrictions in his opponent’s language abilities.
However again to commemorative heads. Fished up from the Tiber right here is one in every of verdant copper sufficiently small to suit contained in the palm of 1’s hand, presumably thrown there to satisfy the senate’s decree. The one really monumental-size statue doing Domitian honour is a 2.5m-high silky basalt child Hercules full with leonine head-dress. The ecstatic statue-felling senators vividly described by Pliny the Youthful will need to have ignored Diocletian’s order that the statue’s face be modelled on his personal.
So Diocletian has gone down in historical past as one of many ten worst emperors, a byword for random cruelty, paranoia and a ratbag of different vices. Historian/gossip monger Suetonius, writing below “a superb emperor” Hadrian, explains Domitian’s character alongside the identical strains as he had beforehand used for Caligula. Id est. Domitian begins out because the senate’s bonus princeps whose reddish complexion was seen as an indication of youthful modesty, however finally ends up a monster as energy and suspicion get the higher (or worse) of him.
No good qualities?
That imperial blush, to a different author, signaled nothing however disgrace. Dio Cassius, an ex-senator writing in Greek, Pliny and the historian Tacitus are all loath to concede that Domitian had any good qualities in any respect. Tacitus implicates the emperor in Julius Agricola’s dying, although this may be balanced by the extra concrete indisputable fact that Agricola, ex-governor of Britain, was the historian’s father-in-law.
Most damning of all is Juvenal who renames Domitian the ‘bald Nero’. The poet’s Satire IV accuses him of filling his court docket with foreigners and upstarts. Nonetheless extra repulsive is Satire II’s accusation of Domitian’s briefly abandoning his spouse Domitia for Julia, his niece, then forcing on her an abortion from which she died. ‘…his too-fertile niece wolfed tablets, introduced on an abortion,/ and each embryo lump was the dwelling spit of Uncle.’*
In the meantime, compounding the crime, the identical emperor continued to concern moralistic decrees, one condemning a vestal virgin to be bricked up alive for an affair with a secret lover. Hypocrisy to take advantage of fashionable proponent of household values cringe? Or pretend information, contemplating that Juvenal for an earlier satire had, in line with many specialists, been despatched into exile by Domitian himself. After years mulling over his destiny within the desert of Egypt, right here was the poet’s revenge, come September 96 Domitian ending up stabbed and entombed.
Fly-killer
At the price of being an imperial lickspittle, Martial is an exception for faithfully portraying Domitian’s advantage. Then would come the early Christian writers reviling Domitian for exiling John the Divine to Patmos within the Aegean, sentencing him to be boiled in oil, an ordeal from which Foxe’s E-book of Martyrs says John miraculously escaped. Petrarch writes of “Titus, the nice and good-looking son” and Domitian “the unhealthy and good-looking one.” Centuries later Gian Battisti Lilli publishes a poem referred to as Domitian the fly-killer, referring to one of many emperor’s favorite hobbies.
After so many allegations, pretend or in any other case, it’s a aid to seek out oneself again within the realm of everlasting objects. And, uncommon in any exhibition, in situ: the 15 rooms /chapters of the Villa Caffarelli a part of the museum match the spot the place Domitian constructed the Temple to Capitoline Jove. This to thank the god for defense afforded him when as a boy, disguised as a priest of Isis, he was capable of escape the invading troops of his father’s rival, Vitellius. Additionally in thanks, he constructed one other temple to Isis close by, since supplanted by the S. Maria in Aracoeli church, and from which comes a suitably votive plaque to the identical goddess.
Blood and circuses
And a few rooms cope with simply that, buildings. Domitian completed the Colosseum, inaugurated by Titus in 80 AD. Sure, ‘blood and circuses’, one would possibly level a finger, and a approach of enhancing his autocratic picture. Human rights activists would possibly name out Diocletian’s penchant for ‘pitting girls in opposition to dwarves’, animal conservationists lament his first introducing a rhinoceros who ‘tossed bulls round like balls’ to rephrase a Martial epigram.
However then he additionally constructed within the Campo Marzio his eponymous Circus for much less gory athletics competitions, plus the Odeon, for poetry and music. Proof maybe Diocletian was not all unhealthy is the funeral plaque to Q. Sulpicius Maximus, died aged 11, and 94 AD winner of the Greek poetry contest. Of the Odeon stay a number of stones within the façade of Villa Massimo on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. To the Domitian’s Circus we owe Piazza Navona, Rome’s drawing room.
Flavian Baroque
The above-mentioned Temples; the Palatine Palace, its ornate masonry, some fragments on show right here, giving rise to a style since referred to as ‘Flavian Baroque’; roads restored and, within the case of Through Domitiana, constructed from scratch; a brand new Discussion board Transitorium, now named after Domitian’s successor Nerva, however because the marks on bricks in its basement show really based by Domitian earlier than damnatio memoriae and the remaining caught up with him: All of those might rank Domitian as a latterday Augustus.
Together with so many new archways one a witty graffiti objects ‘apkei’/sufficient, transcribed into Latin as ‘arci’/arches. Vaingloriousness maybe, but in addition a approach of repairing the harm from fires below Nero and in, 80 AD, Titus.
The senators had been additionally unimpressed. Some had been able to admit Domitian’s potential as an administrator and even reward Domitian for stopping inflation by sustaining a relentless quantity of silver within the forex, but, in embarking on so many constructing tasks, he over-reached himself. Already ‘hated’ by the senate, he first started focusing on essential senators with exile and confiscations, then in as much as 40 instances had them put to dying, additionally as technique of elevating cash.
Germanicus
Warfare was one other supply of expense and, notably when no victory ensued, of grievance. Whereas Domitian managed to consolidate the line of defense in opposition to the Germans, awarding himself the title of ‘Germanicus’ – a containment coverage later pursued by Hadrian to usually agreed optimum impact, his marketing campaign in opposition to the Dacians concerned not enriching Rome however shopping for the enemy off.
Worse nonetheless, writes Dio Cassius, Domitian awarded himself a triumph, exhibiting off not actual booty however furnishings beforehand saved in his palace, actors changing precise captives. Cf. The ‘love’ a part of the title, he did handle to keep up the soldiery’s loyalty with an throughout the board pay-rise, a favour which legions within the east would repay after his dying by deifying his reminiscence, not damning it.
And thus to ‘Flavian girls’, one of many present’s penultimate rooms/chapters: There may be Julia, Domitian’s niece. And there, twice, in Domitia, each in essentially the most spectacular of hair-dos. And there may be an excavated hairpin to assist the entire structure in place. And there, on the wall, is Juvenal to satirise them. A contemporary-day misogynist might imagine ‘hyper-symmetrical fusilli or ‘tortellini’.
Juvenal from his infamously misogynistic Satire VI commentates: ‘So quite a few the tiers and storeys you would possibly take her for an additional Andromarque;/ she was so tall behind; you wouldn’t assume her the identical particular person…’ *A contemporary equal of high-heels then?
Love and hate
Once more, contemplating Domitia’s rumoured involvement in her husband’s homicide, love or hate is the motif, reflecting Catullus’s ‘I like and I hate, made an oxymoron/ of my former self, tormentedly your personal.’** No matter, most of the displays are beautiful, as is their presentation. In any other case random objects get ordered skilfully right into a story.
Historical past’s partialities, if not reversed, are a minimum of re-dimensioned by strong artefacts: from northern Iran a mirror inscribed with the balding emperor’s quip that hair, like grass, doesn’t final; from Munich a votive stone to Helios, its point out of Domitian chipped off; then from a ditch in Holland a cavalry-man’s bronze masks.
By Martin Bennett
*Translation by Peter Jones, ‘Juvenal, the Sixteen Satires’, Penguin Classics
**Translation by Martin Bennett
This text was printed within the July-August on-line version of Needed in Rome journal. The exhibition, titled Domiziano Imperatore. Odio e amore, could be visited at Villa Caffarelli, Musei Capitolini, till 29 Jan 2023.
