Introduction
In normal times, Vespasian's son Domitian would have embarked on the cursus honorum, the series of public offices required of all politicians, in ad 69. Domitian, however, came of age in unusual times. At eighteen, having survived the civil war, he found himself acting on his absent father's behalf, hailed as Caesar by the Senate and, despite being too young by twelve years, made praetor.Footnote 1 Once Vespasian returned to Rome in late ad 70, Domitian's situation became problematic. Placing someone who had wielded imperium back among his teenage coevals might have seemed too much of a demotion. Brian Jones notes that the emperor thereafter awarded his son many honours without responsibility, but concludes that ‘it is difficult to see what else Vespasian could have done’.Footnote 2
What he could have done was to accede to Domitian's repeated requests to follow the family tradition and join the army.Footnote 3 Once Vespasian was back in Rome, there was nothing obvious to forbid this. A stint as a junior staff officer under a trusted lieutenant (Petillius CerialisFootnote 4 immediately comes to mind) would have been suitable and easily arranged, but it never happened. The question becomes, why not?
Pat Southern suggests that in the early years, Vespasian kept Domitian close at hand to apprentice him in the arts of civil government.Footnote 5 This is possibly true, but a stint in the army would not have precluded that plan. Whatever may or may not have been intended, the public saw only that when father and son appeared in public, Vespasian was carried in a raised chair, sella, Domitian in a litter, lectica (Suet. Dom. 2.1). Suetonius characterizes this as a public reprimand, and certainly it would have been seen as a humiliation.Footnote 6 But if so, Domitian surely would have abandoned the practice once his father was gone. He did not. Rather, as emperor, he instead tried to change public perception of the lectica by outlawing its use by loose women (probrosis feminis lecticae usum ademit (Suet. Dom. 8.3)).
Elsewhere Suetonius suggests Domitian's continued use of the litter was a matter of sheer laziness: Laboris impatiens pedibus per urbem non temere ambulavit, in expeditione et agmine equo rarius, lectica assidue vectus est (Suet. Dom. 19.1). Professor Edwards translates this as ‘He would not tolerate physical effort and rarely went about the city on foot, nor did he often ride a horse when on the march or in battle but would generally be carried in a litter.’Footnote 7
Edwards’ translation is in keeping with most others, taking impatiens to suggest a dislike of exertion stemming from self-indulgence.Footnote 8 Commentaries have followed suit. Jones argues for disinclination, referring to Cassius Dio's description of Domitian as, ἄπονος, ‘indolent’ (Cass. Dio 67.6.3), and to Pliny's description of Domitian in the Panegyricus as iners (Plin. Pan. 14.5), a term also floating ambiguously between ‘unable’ and ‘unwilling’.Footnote 9 Caberet-Dupaty and Rolfe, however, opted for a secondary definition of impatiens as ‘incapable of’, for which Suetonius, perhaps unwittingly, offers evidence, making Domitian's behaviour less a matter of sloth than of necessity.Footnote 10
Crurum gracilitas, digiti restrictiores
Suetonius refers to thinness of legs (crurum gracilitas) four times, first in describing Germanicus, then his son Gaius, and then Nero.Footnote 11 Germanicus improved his legs through equi vectatione post cibum, ‘post-prandial horseback riding’ (Suet. Calig. 3.1); Nero was otherwise healthy; Gaius’ other health issues overshadow his problematic neck and legs.Footnote 12 Only in Domitian's case does Suetonius couple gracilitas to an illness, describing his later life as marred crurum gracilitate, quae tamen ei valitudine longa remacruerant, ‘by thin legs, which had grown spindly because of his long illness’ (Suet. Dom.18.1).Footnote 13
Precision is wanting here. How long and at what age did Domitian suffer this illness?Footnote 14 How long after the illness did his legs deteriorate? What illness might this be? Nosology was in its infancy and, absent fuller evidence, polio (or some similar if now quiescent disease) suggests itself.Footnote 15 Granted, polio's onset is mild and generally lasts no more than ten days; but Suetonius is vague and Domitian's experience may have been unusual.Footnote 16 Polio need not require iron lungs or wheelchairs, and may not leave any permanent mark of its presence.
Weakened thin legs and claw toes, however, are known after-effects.Footnote 17 Suetonius describes Domitian's toes as restrictiores (Suet. Dom. 18.1). Janssen equates restrictiores with breviores, short, or little.Footnote 18 Ailloud translates the word as ‘trop courts’, Stahr and Martinet as ‘zu kurz’, ‘too short’, Orpianesi as ‘un po’ corte’, ‘a little short’.Footnote 19 The OLD, citing this quote, suggests ‘of toes, perh., bent in on themselves’.Footnote 20 Mooney proposes a ‘claw-like curvature of the big toes’.Footnote 21 The condition itself, in any event, can make walking painful.Footnote 22 Riding horseback, even more than walking, and especially in the absence of stirrups, places significant demands on the leg muscles, as Germanicus evidenced. Domitian made the effort for the triumphal parade in AD 71, riding a white horse while his father and brother rode chariots ahead of him.Footnote 23 Further descriptions of Domitian's riding horseback are confined to coins, statuary, and poetry.Footnote 24
Other data are suggestive. Ancient sources imply that the eighteen-year-old Domitian took no action during the fight on the Capitoline Hill.Footnote 25 His failure to travel all the way to Brundisium to greet his father, but to stop halfway at Beneventum, is the mark of a man who finds long journeys difficult.Footnote 26 The walls at the palace, polished to mirror consistency, would be welcome for a paranoid emperor who cannot run from assassins.Footnote 27
The wound and the bow
Had Domitian been born into any other family, bad legs would have mattered less. But as the son of the emperor, as well as for his own self-respect, he had obligations not just to his family but to the new dynasty. It was important that he demonstrate virtus, manly courage, especially in war. The possibilities for him were, however, limited. If incapable of wielding a gladius or pilum without embarrassing himself, Domitian would need to find another outlet. Gaius and Nero as young emperors without military experience had faced the same problem. Class expectations ruled out gladiatorial combat. Gaius and Nero opted for chariot-racing, only slightly less unsuitable for their rank.
For Domitian, the answer was archery, at which he excelled.Footnote 28 Suetonius describes private hunts on Domitian's Alban estate, involving hundreds of diverse animals. The author describes his releasing two successive head shots, giving the unfortunate animal the effect of horns. Domitian would also have a slave stand at a distance, hold out his right hand, fingers spread, allowing Domitian to send an arrow between the digits.Footnote 29
Pliny, for one, was not impressed. He disdains Domitian's hunting trophies as poor specimens, domitas fractasque claustris,‘tamed and broken by captivity’ (Plin. Pan. 81.3.2). He contrasts Domitian's staged hunts with Trajan's more virile relaxation of tramping through forests and over mountains to drive out, chase down, and kill off wild and dangerous animals that threaten farmers.Footnote 30
Pliny does not say what weapons Trajan used, but bows seem unlikely. Roman soldiers typically trained in swords and javelins; bows were a weapon for foreign auxiliaries. Josephus mentions an exception, the centurion Priscus who killed a Jewish champion during the siege of Jerusalem.Footnote 31 Suetonius credits Domitian's brother Titus with killing a dozen men with as many arrows in an assault against Jerusalem.Footnote 32 The story invites scepticism. Josephus confirms the slaughter, but does not say what weapons were used, leaving his reader to assume that Titus was in the vanguard and achieved this feat through close-quarter fighting.Footnote 33 Suetonius, by combining Titus’ alleged archery skills with mortal combat, in effect makes Domitian's expertise little more than a circus trick – impressive, but ultimately frivolous.
Accordingly, what might have been praiseworthy in a more popular figure (such as Titus) became fodder for the men who would blackguard Domitian's reputation for the next 2,000 years. From his habit of hunting game with bow and arrow, Domitian is elsewhere shown to extend his appetite for the hunt into a more degraded arena. A hostile author needs just a short leap to the bizarre and perverse story of a man and his flies.
The stylus and the fly
Besides archery, the young Domitian had an interest in poetry and appears to have produced and shared enough to make his interest worth mentioning. Tacitus and Suetonius dismiss the production and interest as sham.Footnote 34 No extended samples survive for us to judge, and contemporary praise must be suspect.Footnote 35 J. L. Penwill posits as Domitian's magnum opus an epic poem concerning the Capitoline Hill battle between Vitellians and Flavians in AD 69, the bulk of which was never written.Footnote 36 Here begin the rumours of Domitian, alone with tablet and stylus and writer's block, filling his uninspired time in fly-catching.
Penwill's reference is variously sourced from the ancient record. Suetonius wrote that, on becoming emperor, Domitian would spend hours at a time alone in a room, first capturing flies, then impaling them with a sharpened stylus. Word of this alleged habit spread, such that when asked if anyone else was inside with him, the noted wit Vibus Crispus, amicus of Domitian, replied, ‘Not even a fly’.Footnote 37
Cassius Dio backdates the habit to his teenage years, using only the verb κατεκέντει, to impale, conjuring an image of Domitian spearing the insects in mid-flight.Footnote 38 The author ends the anecdote by repeating (without attribution) the droll Vibus Crispus joke. To anyone familiar with Domitian's skill as an archer, the parallel of stylus to arrow will not have been lost, adding that element of truth that makes any good joke work. Suetonius by contrast robs the act of any hint of Domitian's toxophilia and imbues it instead with pure childish sadism.
The story continued to grow and degrade in the telling. Aurelius Victor extends this youthful pastime into the emperor's later years when, his sex drive failing, Domitian created a special killing room ‘swarming with flies’ into which he would repair for a relaxing bout of mass muscicide.Footnote 39 Any tale so juvenile, so grotesque, so creepy, so unlikely, must be repeated, and, unsurprisingly, Aurelius claims this one was the basis of ‘many jokes’.Footnote 40 Accordingly, we see how a (presumably good-natured) witticism from a trusted friend referencing Domitian's remarkable skill can morph into evidence of an act that lowers the emperor to a level not quite human.Footnote 41
Conclusion
When discussing the relevant passages (Suet. Dom. 18,1; 19), commentaries on Suetonius have tended to note the Greek and Roman habit of correlating physical limitations to character flaws.Footnote 42 Southern mentions Domitian's illness in the early pages of her biography (dating it prior to AD 69)Footnote 43, and includes a full chapter in which she writes: ‘The unknown quantity is the extent to which Domitian's behaviour was innate and pre-ordained and how much of it was a product of experiences during his early years and throughout his reign.’Footnote 44 She does not, however, draw any significance from the subject's illness or his physical anomalies or their possible secondary effects, either practical or psychological.
Romans were unsympathetic and ungenerous towards the physically challenged, and if Domitian's condition was severe enough to keep him from active military service, the Flavians had good reason to downplay the fact. What psychological effect his condition may have had on him over the years one can only speculate – modern people deal with chronic disabilities large or small in any number of ways: stoically, indifferently, resentfully, cheerfully, or with dark humour. Domitian's own idiosyncratic ways, insofar as they can be posited, must be placed in the context of his time and place.Footnote 45 If the above conjectures are at all correct, much of Domitian's ancient and modern reputation, largely critical, invites a measure of re-examination.
