Epaphroditus (executed in AD 95)

Mummy portrait of a young man from Hawara, Egypt, 1st century AD, Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago. Epaphroditus, a freedman, was Nero’s secretary. No recognised portrait of him survives; an image of the period, only related to him.

Epaphroditus was a freedman and secretary of Nero. Suetonius writes that in AD 68 he helped the emperor take his own life. In AD 95 Domitian had him executed. Suetonius gives the charge that he helped his master die, and Dio that he did not save him from death. Both write that the emperor wanted to frighten his own freedmen: a patron must not be killed, even for a good reason (Suetonius, Domitian 14.4; Cassius Dio 67.14.4).

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