Domitianus Rex

Ok, so I've been reading about Domitian of late. He's gone down in history as a terrible despot. However, he was realy just an inexperienced ruler who although capable, was not used to Roman politics. Well, I ask myself, what if he had been more experienced, if he had been made part of the Imperial government.


79 AD. The Emperor Vespasian dies, to be succeeded by his 40 year old son, Titus. Titus is respected by the army for his triumph over the Jewish revolt; he is an experienced administrator, general and diplomat, having spent the early months of 69 AD making deals with various military governors to secure his father’s march on Rome.

Titus is a strong soldier and a popular man with the nobility- especially after abolishing the treason courts that had been instruments of terror in the days of Nero. Titus also appoints his brother, the politically green Domitian, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. Titus trusted his brother, and once he was forced to abandon his Jewish mistress Berenike, he recognised him as his defacto heir. Titus’s new regime seemed secure- he had the Praetorians, the army, the nobility and the people. However, it seemed that the Gods were not pleased by his leadership. Within two months of his accession, Mount Vesuvius exploded, killing thousands and displacing thousands more. Titus himself went to Misenum, where the oversaw relief efforts. He tried to stop the people moving to Rome while also trying to keep them off the Campanian estates of the Senate, who would not take kindly to thousands of squatters on their lands.

In Spring of 80 AD Rome’s two greatest enemies- plague and fire, struck. Thousands were struck down as the Tiber Island hospital was flooded by the dying. Those worst affected were the doctors treating the sick. Soon everyone feared to go near the infected, so those who found themselves sick were abandoned in the streets to fend for themselves against their sickness and the packs of dogs that roamed the deserted streets.
The fire served to clear the plague from the city, yet it spared neither the people nor the Gods. The Pantheon and the Temple of Jove were both fired, and the valleys that ran between the Seven Hills became channels of flame. Thousands more perished in the fire, while nearly a quarter of the city’s population was displaced.

At this time Titus was in Campania, and the relief effort was conducted by the most unlikely of people. Domitian as Praetorian took the decision to declare martial law. The Praetorian cohorts kept order as best they could, while Domitian bypassed the Senate and made himself the magistrate responsible for the corn supply. When Titus returned he found Rome in ruins. Nearly one third of the buildings were destroyed, mostly in the poor regions where population was densest. He broke down in tears when he saw the thousands of blackened bodies piled up on the Campus Martius. In a twist of irony, the last remnants of Nero’s Golden House too were swallowed.

Titus, it seemed, was cursed. The great soldier was put under more strain as a harsh winter delayed corn shipments and hundreds more froze to death. Rome, already swollen by refugees from the south, it seemed was to burn and then to freeze. However, the two brothers Flavius managed to overcome the harshness of the climate. A whole legion was drawn from the Rhine and put to work rebuilding the city. The thousands of refugees too were put to work. Numerous Senators decried the brothers as Nero reincarnated, and that they would come to live in a city of golden statues to their own megalomania and temples to their own egos.

Such accusations were born by Titus, yet Domitian, finding himself in the spotlight for the first time in his life, retorted by denouncing the leading Senators as traitors and threatened to reopen the treason courts. One Senator, in reference to Sulla’s reign of terror almost a century ago, asked if there would be lists of accused. Domitian, politically outmanoeuvred, retreated to the Praetorian camp where he oversaw the reconstruction efforts.

Senatorial opposition towards the Flavians coalesced around a small party of Senators, who were dubbed by history the Legati (the tied together) who were fiercely anti- Flavian. They numbered some 40, and their names have not gone down in history as their memory was declared anathema by their colleagues after their downfall. The Legati conspiracy is seen as the last Republican conspiracy, for it involved deposing the Flavians and then having the Senate declare a State of Emergency, resulting in two of their leading members being made Dictator and Master of Horse. The plan was found out, however, and reported to Domitian on July 14th 80 AD.

The tragic events of that day had happened in a flurry of paranoia and mistaken identity. What can be surmised is this: the Senate had met in the Curia on normal business. Marcus Nerva intended to address them on the matter of Domitian’s control of the grain supply. He was expected to ask for a vote that would return control to a Senator. The Legati, however, intended to hijack the proceedings and, having hidden swords in their togas, force a vote pronouncing anathema upon the Flavians. Once this was done, they would rally the mob to support a Second Republic.

What occurred, however, was that the plot’s existence was leaked to Domitian, who soldiers to arrest those implicated. However, the people received word of this, and when they heard that Nerva, a respected Senator, was planning to launch an ‘anti-Imperial’ speech, it was assumed he was the conspiracy’s ringleader. A mob of some 3,000 concerned and Imperialist plebeians convened on the Curia and besieged the building.

The Senators within, when they heard of the plot (they were probably the last to realise the treason afoot) found themselves at sword-point. The Legati, who were the best armed in the building, held the rest hostage and demanded that at least Domitian resign his position as defacto ruler of the city. The demands fell on deaf ears, as the mob swarmed over the building. Every entrance was hurriedly sealed. However, they had not counted upon Rome’s enemy- fire. The roof was burned, and thick smoke descended on those within.

Outside, Titus had only just arrived, and found the situation completely out of control. His soldiers cleared a path through the mob, which was dispersed with several casualties. Suddenly the doors to the chamber opened and a desperate rush of Senators fell straight into the soldiers. Those found with swords were swiftly disarmed, and of the 40 conspirators, all but three were taken alive.

Within, several of the older Senators had succumbed to the smoke. One of these was the hapless Nerva. As Titus organised the firefighting crews, memories a decade old of the burning Temple in Jerusalem must have flooded back.

The day after the city mourned its loss. However, Titus declared that there would be no summary executions. He arranged a public trial for the Legati Conspiracy. It was impossible to tell who was involved in the plot, so all Senators present were accused. This served only to alienate them, yet when faced with the baying Roman mob, all of them agreed to testify in their own defence rather than face their own unilateral punishments. But first, a week of mourning was announced. Two days after the disaster the funeral of the fallen Senators. Titus and Domitian were both pallbearers, and they both delivered eulogies full of regret and shame at the days proceedings. Domitian, a nervous public speaker and with a slight stammer, delivered his speech that nonetheless moved the people to tears. They demanded that only he could be the judge presiding over the coming trial.

After the weeks mourning, the trial began. After the first day all but the 40 Legati were acquitted. Those who were found as suspects were charged with the following:

1. Treason against the Senate and People’s Republic of Rome
2. Disturbance of the Public Peace
3. The murders of the fallen Senators including Nerva
4. Blasphemy against the Divine Augustus
5. Blasphemy against the Divine Vespasian

Titus distanced himself from the proceedings, yet encouraged his brother to be lenient. Domitian was in no mood for leniency, however, and after three days of proceedings in which the crowd watching always numbered over 4,000, he delivered his verdict. They were all found guilty. He determined that three of them, Marcus Sulspicius Herosius, Gnaeus Poppeius Umbilico and Julius Licianus Rufullius, deserved the greatest punishment Rome could deliver. They were each dragged through the streets by hooks before being tied into sacks with a dog, a snake and a rooster. They were then thrown into the River Tiber. The rest of the conspirators were crucified- a slaves death.

The Legati Trial made the Flavians enormously popular. The reconstruction efforts continued apace, and by 83 AD Rome was deemed somewhat restored. In a show of solidarity, the new Imperial Palace on the Palatine was a modest affair, and Domitian declined to live there, preferring a comfortable townhouse on the Esquiline Hill. Here he kept an open house and received many supplicants asking for patronage.

The Disaster of the 14th July 80 AD would forever emasculate the Roman Senate, which would never recover even the little power it had in the early Imperial era. Titus appointed himself Censor, and refilled the Senatorial ranks with people he knew he could trust. After some two years of disaster, it looked as if the city’s fortunes were improving.

In 84 AD martial law was lifted, and the Senate given control of the city back. However, the office of Censor would always be held by the Emperor. Titus was not a popular emperor. He was, however, a respected emperor. His Herculean efforts in the years of disaster earned him great respect among all classes and people. He used this grudging respect to quietly bring his mistress Berenike back to Rome. He made her his Queen, and after some misapprehension, she was accepted, if not liked. It was most likely her who persuaded Titus to order the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Berenike, as Queen of Judea, was a client king of Rome. However, she lived in Rome, and so she appointed a certain Flavius Josephus as ruler of Judea. He oversaw the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Via Gallileum, a road that went north from Jerusalem parallel to the Jordan to Capernum and then further north to Syria. By this time a sect of Jews, who called themselves Christians, had grown in importance. They based their faith around the return of a messiah and the destruction of the Jewish kingdom. However, once the Jewish kingdom began rebuilding itself with Roman aid, many of their prophet’s sayings rang hollow and so it became just another flavour of Judaism.

Titus was not a well man. the years of strain had almost broken him, yet he had recovered somewhat, especially in the arms of his wife. He never fathered a child, however, and so in 85 AD he nominated Domitian as his heir and made him co-Emperor. Domitian said that he desired military experience, and in an effort to gain support in the army, befriended Marcus Trajanus, a loyal and gifted general. Domitian was placed in command of the Danube frontier, and he ordered Trajan to lead two legions to the Danube for a war with Dacia. They both prepared through 86 AD, and a crossing would have been made had not Titus died on 21st October 85 AD.

Titus’s death was universally mourned. He had seen Rome through three natural disasters and a political scandal unseen since the days of the Claudians. Domitian returned to Rome and there oversaw the burial of his beloved brother. Ignored by his father, Domitian had been brought closer to his brother by politics and disaster. Some said that this was the purpose of the two years of disaster- to test the two brothers and prepare Domitian for the Imperial Purple.

Titus was deified by a unanimous Senatorial vote and he was entombed in an enormous mausoleum between Ostia and Rome. Domitian stayed in Rome for two months to secure his place in the Roman hierarchy before returning to the Danube for a new war of conquest.
 
Interesting. I agree that Domitian (and, for that matter, Caracalla) have gotten short shrifts by history because of their short reigns, so this looks promising.
 
Thanks all- you'd think I'd get more comments after killing half of Rome, putting the Senate on trial for treason and making Domitian an effective absolute ruler. Any more comments?
Try and update ASAP. Busy these days though :(
 
Saepe Fidelis

Interesting developments. In the short term you have a continuation of dynastic rule, especially if Domitian produces heirs. Which probably removed, or at least delays the period of best Roman rule, by the adoptive emperors. Although could still happen, if Domitian doesn't marry and possibly Trajan, or another leader, takes over.

In the longer term the big butterfly will be the failure of Christianity, at least your hinted at that. Could still emerge at a later stage or another monotheistic religion becoming dominant.

Steve
 
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