Domitian has gone down in history as one of Rome’s worst emperors. When he met his violent end in AD 96, subsequent writers did everything they could to demolish his reputation, but during his reign between AD 81 and 96, this last ruler of the Flavian dynasty presented his own image of himself. A new exhibition at Leiden’s Rijksmuseum van Oudheden displays the results of recent research into this image, comparing it, and Domitian’s posthumous reputation, to the patterns of expectation held by the inhabitants of the Roman Empire regarding their emperor, his military activities, and his policies. We have used a broad palette of sources for these analyses, ranging from literary texts from antiquity, to coins, inscriptions, and, above all, archaeological sources of diverse nature and quality. The picture of Domitian and his day that emerges from these sources is considerably more layered and varied than the exceedingly negative portrayal of the emperor after his death.
While God on Earth: Emperor Domitian questions this dark view of Domitian, the intention is not to belatedly rehabilitate him, but to demonstrate that in many respects he was not so very different from the emperors before and after him. It should certainly be emphasised that all Roman emperors, including those deemed ‘good’, were autocrats whose primary concerns were maintaining their power and promoting their own interests. The reputations of such absolute rulers could be made and broken within antiquity, which partly explains why some emperors come off better than others in the historical record. By shedding light on the mechanisms of image-creation in ancient times, while simultaneously presenting a much broader source base for Domitian and his world, we hope to make clear the extent to which an individual’s image could be determined by more than just facts and deeds.
So, who was Domitian? Born in Rome in AD 51, he was the second son of soldier and politician Titus Flavius Vespasian (AD 9-79; emperor 69-79) and Flavia Domitilla (died before AD 69). His brother Titus (AD 39-81; emperor 79-81) and sister Flavia Domitilla the Younger (died before AD 69) also lived in Rome, while their father Vespasian was often away on campaign in his capacity as a high-ranking military officer. The Flavians were a family of modest status from outside Rome who had climbed the social ladder chiefly via the army. No one in this period could have suspected that Vespasian and his two sons would eventually form the second dynasty of Roman emperors.
