Domitian | Page 7

of
the year and day when he should die, and even of the very hour and
manner of his death; all which he had learned from the Chaldaeans,
when he was a very young man. His father once at supper laughed at
him for refusing to eat some mushrooms, saying, that if he knew his
fate, he would rather be afraid of the sword. Being, therefore, in
perpetual apprehension and anxiety, he was keenly alive to the slightest
suspicions, insomuch that he is thought to have withdrawn the edict

ordering the destruction of the vines, chiefly because the copies of it
which were dispersed had the following lines written upon them:
Kaen me phagaes epi rizanomos epi kartophoraeso, Osson epispeisai
Kaisari thuomeno. [830]
Gnaw thou my root, yet shall my juice suffice To pour on Caesar's head
in sacrifice.
(492) It was from the same principle of fear, that he refused a new
honour, devised and offered him by the senate, though he was greedy
of all such compliments. It was this: "that as often as he held the
consulship, Roman knights, chosen by lot, should walk before him,
clad in the Trabea, with lances in their hands, amongst his lictors and
apparitors." As the time of the danger which he apprehended drew near,
he became daily more and more disturbed in mind; insomuch that he
lined the walls of the porticos in which he used to walk, with the stone
called Phengites [831], by the reflection of which he could see every
object behind him. He seldom gave an audience to persons in custody,
unless in private, being alone, and he himself holding their chains in his
hand. To convince his domestics that the life of a master was not to be
attempted upon any pretext, however plausible, he condemned to death
Epaphroditus his secretary, because it was believed that he had assisted
Nero, in his extremity, to kill himself.
XV. His last victim was Flavius Clemens [832], his cousin-german, a
man below contempt for his want of energy, whose sons, then of very
tender age, he had avowedly destined for his successors, and,
discarding their former names, had ordered one to be called Vespasian,
and the other Domitian. Nevertheless, he suddenly put him to death
upon some very slight suspicion [833], almost before he was well out
of his consulship. By this violent act he very much hastened his own
destruction. During eight months together there was so much lightning
at Rome, and such accounts of the phaenomenon were brought from
other parts, that at last he cried out, "Let him now strike whom he will."
The Capitol was struck by lightning, as well as the temple of the
Flavian family, with the Palatine-house, and his own bed-chamber. The
tablet also, inscribed upon the base of his triumphal statue was carried

away by the violence of the storm, and fell upon a neighbouring (493)
monument. The tree which just before the advancement of Vespasian
had been prostrated, and rose again [834], suddenly fell to the ground.
The goddess Fortune of Praeneste, to whom it was his custom on new
year's day to commend the empire for the ensuing year, and who had
always given him a favourable reply, at last returned him a melancholy
answer, not without mention of blood. He dreamt that Minerva, whom
he worshipped even to a superstitious excess, was withdrawing from
her sanctuary, declaring she could protect him no longer, because she
was disarmed by Jupiter. Nothing, however, so much affected him as
an answer given by Ascletario, the astrologer, and his subsequent fate.
This person had been informed against, and did not deny his having
predicted some future events, of which, from the principles of his art,
he confessed he had a foreknowledge. Domitian asked him, what end
he thought he should come to himself? To which replying, "I shall in a
short time be torn to pieces by dogs," he ordered him immediately to be
slain, and, in order to demonstrate the vanity of his art, to be carefully
buried. But during the preparations for executing this order, it happened
that the funeral pile was blown down by a sudden storm, and the body,
half-burnt, was torn to pieces by dogs; which being observed by
Latinus, the comic actor, as he chanced to pass that way, he told it,
amongst the other news of the day, to the emperor at supper.
XVI. The day before his death, he ordered some dates [835], served up
at table, to be kept till the next day, adding, "If I have the luck to use
them." And turning to those who were nearest him, he said,
"To-morrow the moon in Aquarius will be bloody instead of watery,
and an event will happen, which will be much talked of