The Younger Brother — Domitian: Lord and God

Rome, October 24, AD 51. Vespasian’s second son is born in a house on Pomegranate Street. His brother, Titus, is almost twelve years older. Suetonius writes that the boy grew up in poverty and ill repute: in the house there was not a single piece of silver plate. One day he will turn that house into a temple of his family. Remember it.

In December AD 69 he is eighteen. He survives the burning of the Capitol because he escapes disguised as a follower of Isis — you already know that. A few days later he is Caesar, the son of the new emperor, and does as he pleases. He takes away the wife of the senator Aelius Lamia. At first he keeps her at an estate by the Alban Mount as a mistress, then marries her. Her name is Domitia Longina. She is the daughter of the general whom Nero feared more than the Parthians.

For eleven years Domitian stands in the shadow. Under his father he receives not power but honors. At ceremonies he rides in a litter behind the chairs of his father and brother. Of six consulships only one is an ordinary consulship, and that because his brother stepped aside for him. He pretends to be modest, writes poems, reads them in public. Suetonius adds maliciously that later he despised poetry.

There is one more thing. In his youth astrologers had already predicted the year, the day, even the hour and manner of his death. Vespasian mocks this at dinner. The son turns down mushrooms. His father laughs that the boy does not know his own fate: it is not mushrooms he should fear, but the sword. Suetonius writes that from then on Domitian was always fearful. True, or added after the fact? Suetonius wrote when all Rome already knew the hour of that death.

When his father dies, Domitian hesitates over whether to give the soldiers a double bonus. Afterward he repeats without embarrassment that the will was forged and that he was supposed to rule jointly with his brother. His brother forgave him — you know that from the episode on Titus.

On September 13, AD 81, Titus dies in the land of the Sabines. Domitian does not wait at the bedside — you know what he did from the previous episode. On September 14 he is already emperor. In a month he will turn thirty.

He declares his brother a god. He delivers a eulogy over him with tears in his eyes. But he abolishes the horse races on Titus’s birthday, and in speeches and edicts keeps tossing out ambiguous remarks about him. In the Senate he boasts that it was he who gave power to his father and brother, and that they only handed it back to him.

Now no one stands ahead of him.