Domitian | Page 2

the cession and interest of
his brother. He greatly affected a modest behaviour, and, above all, a
taste for poetry; insomuch, that he rehearsed his performances in public,
though it was an art he had formerly little cultivated, and which he
afterwards despised and abandoned. Devoted, however, as he was at
this time to poetical pursuits, yet when Vologesus, king of the Parthians,
desired succours against the Alani, with one of Vespasian's sons to
command them, he laboured hard to procure for himself that
appointment. But the scheme proving abortive, he endeavoured by
presents and promises to engage other kings of the East to make a
similar request. After his father's death, he was for some time in doubt,
whether he should not offer the soldiers a donative double to that of his
brother, and made no scruple of saying frequently, "that he had been
left his partner in the empire, but that his father's will had been
fraudulently set aside." From that time forward, he was constantly
engaged in plots against his brother, both publicly and privately; until,
falling dangerously ill, he ordered all his attendants to (481) leave him,
under pretence of his being dead, before he really was so; and, at his
decease, paid him no other honour than that of enrolling him amongst
the gods; and he often, both in speeches and edicts, carped at his
memory by sneers and insinuations.
III. In the beginning of his reign, he used to spend daily an hour by
himself in private, during which time he did nothing else but catch flies,
and stick them through the body with a sharp pin. When some one
therefore inquired, "whether any one was with the emperor," it was
significantly answered by Vibius Crispus, "Not so much as a fly." Soon
after his advancement, his wife Domitia, by whom he had a son in his
second consulship, and whom the year following he complimented with
the title of Augusta, being desperately in love with Paris, the actor, he
put her away; but within a short time afterwards, being unable to bear
the separation, he took her again, under pretence of complying with the
people's importunity. During some time, there was in his administration

a strange mixture of virtue and vice, until at last his virtues themselves
degenerated into vices; being, as we may reasonably conjecture
concerning his character, inclined to avarice through want, and to
cruelty through fear.
IV. He frequently entertained the people with most magnificent and
costly shows, not only in the amphitheatre, but the circus; where,
besides the usual races with chariots drawn by two or four horses
a-breast, he exhibited the representation of an engagement between
both horse and foot, and a sea-fight in the amphitheatre. The people
were also entertained with the chase of wild beasts and the combat of
gladiators, even in the night-time, by torch-light. Nor did men only
fight in these spectacles, but women also. He constantly attended at the
games given by the quaestors, which had been disused for some time,
but were revived by him; and upon those occasions, always gave the
people the liberty of demanding two pair of gladiators out of his own
school, who appeared last in court uniforms. Whenever he attended the
shows of gladiators, there stood at his feet a little boy dressed in scarlet,
with a prodigiously small head, with whom he used to talk very much,
and sometimes seriously. We are assured, that he was (482) overheard
asking him, "if he knew for what reason he had in the late appointment,
made Metius Rufus governor of Egypt?" He presented the people with
naval fights, performed by fleets almost as numerous as those usually
employed in real engagements; making a vast lake near the Tiber [801],
and building seats round it. And he witnessed them himself during a
very heavy rain. He likewise celebrated the Secular games [802],
reckoning not from the year in which they had been exhibited by
Claudius, but from the time of Augustus's celebration of them. In these,
upon the day of the Circensian sports, in order to have a hundred races
performed, he reduced each course from seven rounds to five. He
likewise instituted, in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus, a solemn contest in
music to be performed every five years; besides horse-racing and
gymnastic exercises, with more prizes than are at present allowed.
There was also a public performance in elocution, both Greek and Latin
and besides the musicians who sung to the harp, there were others who
played concerted pieces or solos, without vocal accompaniment. Young
girls also ran races in the Stadium, at which he presided in his sandals,

dressed in a purple robe, made after the Grecian fashion, and wearing
upon his head a golden crown bearing the effigies of