DOMITIAN, Titus Flavius (Imperator Caesar Domitianus Augustus), Roman Emperor. - Born in Rome on 24 Oct. 51 A.D., died on 18 Sept. 96. He succeeded his brother Titus on 13 Sept. 81. Gloomy and irascible by nature, he came to the Empire exasperated by the long wait. At first, however, he showed himself liberal and moderate, combining the firmness of his father and the gentleness of his brother. He restored and built many temples and public buildings, gave sumptuous spectacles, attended to justice and the good morals of the people, exterminating the informers. He fought successfully in Britain and in Germany, against the Chatti and the Dacians, extending and consolidating the frontiers of the Empire. Very soon, however, he manifested his dictatorial spirit, making himself hated by the senate, which hatched continuous conspiracies; these had no other outcome than to make D. ever more suspicious and tyrannical, increasing proscriptions, vexations and condemnations.
The heavy expenses he incurred had emptied the coffers of the treasury. D. then thought to remedy this by exacting with greater harshness the Jewish tax of the didrachma and extending it also to all those who professed or seemed to live according to Jewish customs. Among these were included the Christians, not yet clearly distinguished from the Jews in the opinion of the Roman authorities. The refusal opposed by the Christians for religious and social reasons that are quite understandable, together with the suspicions and calumnies of interested parties, seems to have been the cause of a persecution against them, which is attested with certainty by ancient writers worthy of credence. Among the victims were D.'s own cousin, Flavius Clemens, who had been consul in 95, with his wife Flavia Domitilla and many others accused of impiety and profession of Judaism, Acilius Glabrio, accused of conspiracy and of following new superstitions. Another victim was the apostle St. John, who, according to the testimony of Tertullian (De praeser. haeret., 36), is said to have been immersed at Rome in a cauldron of boiling oil, and having come out of it unharmed, was relegated to the island of Patmos where he wrote the Apocalypse. In this same work, moreover, there is no lack of allusions to the persecution and to the martyrs of Asia Minor, among whom Antipas is expressly named (v. Apoc. 2, 8-13; 6, 9 ff.; 7, 13 ff.; 12, 11 ff.). The persecution, however, having been stirred up for political reasons, harsh as it was, was very soon revoked, especially after D. was able to ascertain that certain relatives of Jesus, accused as conspirators, were nothing but poor and peaceable peasants. A palace conspiracy, in which D.'s own wife was not unconnected, finally got the better of the tyrant, who was killed in Sept. of 96.
Bibliography4 works
1910, pp. 48-57; P. Allard, Storia critica delle persecuzioni, Italian trans., I, Florence 1913, pp. 88-128; A. Cordara, La persecuzione in casa Flavia e la congiura contro D., in Didascaleion, 5 (1916), pp. 113-94; Fliche-Martin-Fruta, I, pp. 209-302.
Agostino Amore