DOMITIAN was born upon the ninth of the calends of November [24th October], when his father was consul elect
					(being to enter upon his office the month following), in the sixth region of the
					city, at the Pomegranate, in the house which he
					afterwards converted into a temple of the Flavian family. He is said to have
					spent the time of his youth in so much want and infamy, that he had not one
					piece of plate belonging to him; and it is well known, that Clodius Pollio, a
					man of pretorian rank, against whom there is a poem of Nero's extant, entitled
					Luscio, kept a note in his hand-writing, which he sometimes produced, in which
					Domitian made an assignment with him for bad purposes. In the war
					with Vitellius, he fled into the capital with his uncle Sabinus, and a part of
					the troops they had in tie city.s But the enemy breaking in, and the temple
					being set on fire, he hid himself all night with the sacristan; and next
					morning, assuming the disguise of a worshipper of Isis, and mixing with the
					priests of that idle superstition, he got over the Tiber, with
					only one attendant, to the house of a woman who was the mother of one of his
					school-fellows, and lurked there so close, that, though the enemy, who were at
					his heels, searched very strictly after him, they could not discover him. At
					last, after the success of his party, appearing in public, and being unanimously
					saluted by the title of Caesar, he assumed the office of praetor of the City,
					with consular authority, but in fact had nothing but the name; for the
					jurisdiction he transferred to his next colleague. He used, however his absolute
					power so licentiously, that even then he plainly discovered what sort of prince
					he was likely to prove. Not to go into details, after he had made free with the
					wives of many men of distinction, he took Domitia Longina from her husband,
					AElias Lamia, and married her; and in one day disposed of above twenty offices
					in the city and provinces; upon which Vespasian said several times, "he wondered
					he did not send him a successor too."

He likewise designed an expedition into Gaul and Germany, without the least necessity for it, and
					contrary to the advice of all his father's friends; and this he did only with
					the view of equalling his brother in military achievements and glory. But for
					this he was severely reprimanded, and that he might the more effectually be
					reminded of his age and position, was made to live with his father, and his
					litter had to follow his father's and brother's carriage, as often as they went
					abroad; but he attended them in their triumph for the conquest of Judaea, mounted on a white
					horse. Of the six consulships which he held, only one was ordinary; and that he
					obtained by 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 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.

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.

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
					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, 
					and building seats round it. And he witnessed them himself during a very heavy
					rain. He likewise celebrated the Secular games, 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
					Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; with the flamen of Jupiter, and the college of
					priests sitting by his side in the same dress; excepting only that their crowns
					had also his own image on them. He celebrated also upon the Alban mount every
					year the festival of Minerva, for whom he had appointed a college of priests,
					out of which were chosen by lot persons to preside as governors over the
					college; who were obliged to entertain the people with extraordinary chases of
					wildbeasts, and stage-plays, besides contests for prizes in oratory and poetry.
					He thrice bestowed upon the people largess of three hundred sesterces each man;
					and, at a public show of gladiators, a very plentiful feast. At the festival of
					the Seven Hills, he distributed large hampers of
					provisions to the senatorian and equestrian orders, and small baskets to the
					common people, and encouraged them to eat by setting them the example. The day
					after, he scattered among the people a variety of cakes and other delicacies to
					be scrambled for; and on the greater part of them falling amidst the seats of
					the crowd, he ordered five hundred tickets to be thrown into each range of
					benches belonging to the senatorian and equestrian orders.

He rebuilt many noble edifices which had been destroyed by fire, and amongst them
					the Capitol, which had been burnt down a second time; but all
					the inscriptions were in his own name, without the least mention of the original
					founders. He likewise erected a new temple in the Capitol to Jupiter Custos, and
					a forum, which is now called Nerva's, as also the temple
					of the Flavian family, a
					stadium, an odeum, and a naumachia; out of the stone dug from which,
					the sides of the Circus Maximus, which had been burnt down, were rebuilt.

He undertook several expeditions, some from choice, and some from necessity. That
					against the Catti was
					unprovoked, but that against the Sarmatians was necessary; an entire legion,
					with its commander, having been cut off by them. He sent two expeditions against
					the Dacians; the first upon the defeat of Oppius Sabinus. a man of consular
					rank; and the other, upon that of Cornelius Fuscus, prefect of the pretorian
					cohorts, to whom he had entrusted the conduct of that war. After several battles
					with the Catti and Daci, he celebrated a double triumph. But for his successes
					against the Sarmatians, he only bore in procession the laurel crown to Jupiter
					Capitolinus. The civil war, begun by Lucius Antonius, governor of Upper Germany,
					he quelled, without being obliged to be personally present at it, with
					remarkable good fortune. For, at the very moment of joining battle, the Rhine
					suddenly thawing. the troops of the barbarians which were ready to join L.
					Antonius, were prevented from crossing the river. Of this victory he had notice
					by some presages, before the messengers who brought the news of it arrived. For
					upon the very day the battle was fought, a splendid eagle spread his wings round
					his statue at Rome, making most joyful cries. And shortly after, a rumour became
					common, that Antonius was slain; nay, many positively affirmed, that they saw
					his head brought to the city.

He made many innovations in common practices. He abolished the Sportula, and revived the old practice of
					regular suppers. To the four former parties in the Circensian games, he added
					two new, who wore gold and scarlet. He prohibited the players from acting in the
					theatre, but permitted them the practice of their art in private houses. He
					forbad the castration of males; and reduced the price of the eunuchs who were
					still left in the hands of the dealers in slaves. On the occasion of a great
					abundance of wine, accompanied by a scarcity of corn, supposing that the tillage
					of the ground was neglected for the sake of attending too much to the
					cultivation of vineyards, he published a proclamation forbidding the planting of
					any new vines in Italy, and ordered the vines in the provinces to be cut down,
					nowhere permitting more than one half of them to remain. But
					he did not persist in the execution of this project. Some of the greatest
					offices he conferred upon his freedmen and soldiers. He forbad two legions to be
					quartered in the same camp, and more than a thousand sesterces to be deposited
					by any soldier with the standards; because it was thought that Lucius Antonius
					had been encouraged in his late project by the large sum deposited in the
					military chest by the two legions which he had in the same winterquarters. He
					made an addition to the soldiers' pay, of three gold pieces a year.

In the administration of justice he was diligent and assiduous; and frequently
					sat in the forum out of course, to cancel the judgments of the court of The One
					Hundred, which had been procured through favour, or interest. He occasionally
					cautioned the judges of the court of recovery to beware of being too ready to
					admit claims for freedom brought before them. He set a mark of infamy upon
					judges who were convicted of taking bribes, as well as upon their assessors. He
					likewise instigated the tribunes of the people to prosecute a corrupt aedile for
					extortion, and to desire the senate to appoint judges for his trial. He likewise
					took such effectual care in punishing magistrates of the city, and governors of
					provinces, guilty of malversation, that they never were at any time more
					moderate or more just. Most of these, since his reign, we have seen prosecuted
					for crimes of various kinds. Having taken upon himself the reformation of the
					public manners, he restrained the licence of the populace in sitting
					promiscuously with the knights in the theatre. Scandalous libels, published to
					defame persons of rank, of either sex, "he suppressed, and inflicted upon their
					authors a mark of infamy. He expelled a man of quaestorian rank from the senate,
					for practicing mimicry and dancing. He debarred infamous women the use of
					litters; as also the right of receiving legacies, or inheriting estates. He
					struck out of the list of judges a Roman knight for taking again his wife whom
					he had divorced and prosecuted for adultery. He condemned several men of the
					senatorian and equestrian orders, upon the Scantinian law. The
					lewdness of the Vestal Virgins, which had been overlooked by his father and
					brother, he punished severely, but in different ways; viz. offences committed
					before his reign, with death, and those since its commencement, according to
					ancient custom. For to the two sisters called Ocellatae, he gave liberty to
					choose the mode of death which they preferred, and banished their paramours. But
					Cornelia, the president of the Vestals, who had formerly been acquitted upon a
					charge of incontinence, being a long time after again prosecuted and condemned,
					he ordered to be buried alive; and her gallants to be whipped to death with rods
					in the Comitium; excepting only a man of praetorian rank, to whom, because he
					confessed the fact, while the case was dubious, and it was not established
					against him, though the witnesses had been put to the torture, he granted the
					favour of banishment. And to preserve pure and undefiled the reverence due to
					the gods, he ordered the soldiers to demolish a tomb, which one of his freedmen
					had erected for his son out of the stones designed for the temple of Jupiter
					Capitolinus, and to sink in the sea the bones and relics buried in it.

Upon his first succeeding to power, he felt such an abhorrence for the shedding
					of blood, that, before his father's arrival in Rome, calling to mind the verse
					of Virgil, 
						 Impia quam caesis gens est epulata
							juvencis 
						 G. ii.537 
					 
					 Ere impious man, restrain'd from blood in vain, 
						 Began to feast on flesh of bullocks slain he designed to have
					published a proclamation, "to forbid the sacrifice of oxen." Before his
					accession to the imperial authority, and during some time afterwards, he
					scarcely ever gave the least grounds for being suspected of covetousness or
					avarice; but, on the contrary, he often afforded proofs, not only of his
					justice, but his liberality. To all about him he was generous even to profusion,
					and recommended nothing more earnestly to them than to avoid doing anything
					mean. He would not accept the property left him by those who had children. He
					also set aside a legacy bequeathed by the will of Ruscus Caepio, who had ordered
					"his heir to make a present yearly to each of the senators upon their first
					assembling." He exonerated all those who had been under prosecution from the
					treasury for above five years before; and would not suffer suits to be renewed,
					unless it was done within a year, and on condition, that the prosecutor should
					be banished, if he could not make good his cause. The secretaries of the
					quaestors having engaged in trade, according to custom, but contrary to the
					Clodian law, he pardoned them for what was past. Such portions of land as
					had been left when it was divided amongst the veteran soldiers, he granted to
					the ancient possessors, as belonging to them by prescription. He put a stop to
					false prosecutions in the exchequer, by severely punishing the prosecutors; and
					this saying of his was much taken notice of: " that a prince who does not punish
					informers, encourages them."

But he did not long persevere in this course of clemency and justice, although he
					sooner fell into cruelty than into avarice. He put to death a scholar of Paris,
					the pantomimic, though a
					minor, and then sick, only because, both in person and the practice of his art,
					he resembled his master; as he did likewise Hermogenes of Tarsus for some
					oblique reflections in his History; crucifying, besides, the scribes who had
					copied the work. One who was master of a band of gladiators, happening to say,
					"that a Thrax was a match for a Marmillo, but not so for the exhibitor of the games," he ordered
					him to be dragged from the benches into the arena, and exposed to the dogs, with
					this label upon him, "A Parmularian guilty of talking impiously." He put to
					death many senators, and amongst them several men of consular rank. In this
					number were, Civica Cerealis, when he was proconsul in Africa, Salvidienus
					Orfitus, and Acilius Glabrio in exile, under the pretence of their planning to
					revolt against him. The rest he punished upon very trivial occasions; as iElius
					Lamia for some jocular expressions, which were of old date, and perfectly
					harmless; because, upon his commending his voice after he had taken his wife
					from him, he replied, "Alas! I hold
					my tongue." And when Titus advised him to take another wife, he answered him
					thus: 'What! have you a mind to marry?" Salvius Cocceianus was condemned to
					death for keeping the birth-day of his uncle Otho, the emperor: Metius
					Pomposianus, because he was commonly reported to have an imperial nativity, and to carry about with him a
					map of the world upon vellum, with the speeches of kings and generals extracted
					out of Titus Livius; and for giving his slaves the names of Mago and Annibal;
					Sallustius Lucullus, lieutenant in Britain, for suffering some lances of a new
					invention to be called " Lucullean;" and Junius Rusticus, for publishing a
					treatise in praise of Patus Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus, and calling them both
					"most upright men." Upon this occasion; he likewise banished all the
					philosophers from the city and Italy He put to death the younger Helvidius, for
					writing a farce, in which, under the character of Paris and Oenone, he reflected
					upon his having divorced his wife; and also Flavius Sabinus, one of his cousins,
					because, upon his being chosen at the consular election to that office, the
					public crier had, by a blunder, proclaimed him to the people not consul, but
					emperor. Becoming still more savage after his success in the civil war, he
					employed the utmost industry to discover those of the adverse party who
					absconded: many of them he racked with a newinvented torture, inserting fire
					through their private parts; and from some he cut off their hands. It is
					certain, that only two of any note were pardoned, a tribune who wore the narrow
					stripe, and a centurion; who, to clear themselves from the charge of being
					concerned in any rebellious project, proved themselves to have been incapable of
					exercising any influence either over the general or the soldiers.

His cruelties were not only excessive, but subtle and unexpected. The day before
					he crucified a collector of his rents, he sent for him into his bed-chamber,
					made him sit down upon the bed by him, and sent him away well pleased, and, so
					far as could be inferred from his treatment, in a state of perfect security;
					having vouchsafed him the favour of a plate of meat from his own table. When he
					was on the point of condemning to death Aretinus Clemens, a man of consular
					rank, and one of his friends and emissaries, he retained him about his person in
					the same or greater favour than ever; until at last, as they were riding
					together in the same litter, upon seeing the man whd had informed against him,
					he said, " Are you willing that we should hear this base slave to morrow?"
					Contemptuously abusing the patience of men, he never pronounced a severe
					sentence without prefacing it with words which gave hopes of mercy; so that, at
					last, there was not a more certain token of a fatal conclusion, than a mild
					commencement. He brought before the senate some persons accused of treason,
					declaring, "that he should prove that day how dear he was to the senate;" and so
					influenced them, that they condemned the accused to be punished according to the
					ancient usage. Then. as if alarmed at the extreme severity of their
					punishment, to lessen the odiousness of the proceeding, he interposed in these
					words; for it is not foreign to the purpose to give them precisely as they were
					delivered: "Permit, me, Conscript Fathers, so far to prevail upon your affection
					for me, however extraordinary the request may seem, as to grant the condemned
					criminals the favour of dying in the manner they choose. For by so doing, ye
					will spare your own eyes, and the world will understand that I interceded with
					the senate on their behalf."

Having exhausted the exchequer by the expense of his buildings and public
					spectacles, with the augmentation of pay lately granted to the troops, he made
					an attempt at the reduction of the army, in order to lessen the military
					charges. But reflecting, that he should, by this measure, expose himself to the
					insults of the barbarians, while it would not suffice to extricate him from his
					embarrassments, he had recourse to plundering his subjects by every mode of
					exaction. The estates of the living and the dead were sequestered upon any
					accusation, by whomsoever preferred. The unsupported allegation of any one
					person, relative to a word or action construed to affect the dignity of the
					emperor, was sufficient. Inheritances, to which he had not the slightest
					pretension, were confiscated, if there was found so much as one person to say,
					he had heard from the deceased when living, " that he had made the emperor his
					heir." Besides the exactions from others, the poll-tax on the Jews was levied
					with extreme rigour, both on those who lived after the manner of Jews in the
					city, without publicly professing themselves to be such, and on those who, by concealing
					their origin, avoided paying the tribute imposed upon that people. I remember,
					when I was a youth, to have been present, when an old man, ninety years of age,
					had his person exposed to vitw in a very crowded court, in order that, on
					inspection, the procurator might satisfy himself whether he was
						circumcised. From his
					earliest years Domitian was any thing but courteous, of a forward, assuming
					disposition, and extravagant both in his words and actions. When Caenis, his
					father's concubine, upon her return from Istria, offered him a kiss, as she had
					been used to do, he presented her his hand to kiss. Being indignant, that his
					brother's son-in-law should be waited on by servants dressed in white, he
					exclaimed, οὺκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίν .
						 Too many princes are not good.

After he became emperor, he had the assurance to boast in the senate, "that he
					had bestowed the empire on his father and brother, and they had restored it to
					him." And upon taking his wife again, after the divorce, he declared by
					proclamation, "that he had recalled her to his pulvinar." He was not a little pleased
					too, at hearing the acclamations of the people in the amphitheatre on a day of
					festival, "All happiness to our lord and lady." But when, during the celebration
					of the Capitoline trial of skill, the whole concourse of people entreated him
					with one voice to restore Palfurius Sura to his place in the senate, from which
					he had been long before expelled -he having then carried away the prize of
					eloquence from all the orators who had contended for it,-he did not vouchsafe to
					give them any answer, but only commanded silence to be proclaimed by the voice
					of the crier. With equal arrogance, when he dictated the form of a letter to be
					used by his procurators, he began it thus: " Our lord and god commands so and
					so;" whence it became a rule that no one should style him otherwise either in
					writing or speaking. He suffered no statues to be erected for him in the
					Capitol, unless they were of gold and silver, and of a certain weight. He
					erected so many magnificent gates and arches, surmounted by representations of
					chariots drawn by four horses, and other triumphal ornaments, in different
					quarters of the city, that a wag inscribed on one of the arches the Greek word
						' ἄρκει , " It is enough."' He filled the office of consul
					seventeen times, which no one had ever done before him, and for the seven middle
					occasions in successive years; but in scarcely any of them had he more than the
					title: for he never continued in office beyond the calends of May , and for the most part only till the
					ides of January . After his two
					triumphs, when he assumed the cognomen of Germanicus, he called the months of
					September and October, Germanicus and Domitian, after his own names, because he
					commenced his reign in the one, and was born in the other.

Becoming by these means universally feared and odious, he was at last taken off
					by a conspiracy of his friends and favourite freedmen, in concert with his wife.
						 He had long entertained
					a suspicion 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
					kernly 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:
						 κἤν με φάγησ ἐπί ῤίζαν ὅμωσ ἔτι 
						 ὄσσον ἐπισπεῖσαι Καίσαρι Θυομένῳ. 
					 Gnaw thou my root, yet shall my juice suffice 
						 To pour on Caesar's head in sacrifice. 
				 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, 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.

His last victim was Flavius Clemens, 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, 
					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 phenomenon 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 monument. The tree which just before the
					advancement of Vespasian had been prostrated, and rose again, 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, halfburnt, 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.

The day before his death, he ordered some dates, served up at
					the 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 all the world over." About midnight, he was so terrified
					that he leaped out of bed. That morning he tried and passed sentence on a
					soothsayer sent from Germany, who being consulted about the lightning that had
					lately happened, predicted from it a change of government. The blood running
					down his face as he scratched an ulcerous tumour on his forehead, he said, "
					Would this were all that is to befall me!" Then, upon his asking the time of the
					day, instead of five o'clock. which was the hour he dreaded, they purposely told
					him it was six. Overjoyed at this information, as if all danger were now passed,
					and hastening to the bath, Parthenius, his chamberlain, stopped him, by saying
					that there was a person come to wait upon him about a matter of great
					importance, which would admit of no delay. Upon this, ordering all persons to
					withdraw, he retired into his chamber, and was there slain.

Concerning the contrivance and mode of his death, the common account is this. The
					conspirators being in some doubt when and where they should attack him, whether
					while he was in the bath, or at supper, Stephanus, a steward of
						Domitilla's, then under prosecution for defrauding his mistress,
					offered them his advice and assistance; and wrapping up his left arm, as if it
					was hurt, in wool and bandages for some days, to prevent suspicion, at the hour
					appointed, he secreted a dagger in them. Pretending then to make a discovery of
					a conspiracy, and being for that reason admitted, he presented to the emperor a
					memorial, and while he was reading it in great astonishment, stabbed him in the
					groin. But Domitian, though wounded, making resistance, Clodianus, one of his
					guards, Maximus, a freedman of Parthenius's, Saturius, his principal
					chamberlain, with some gladiators, fell upon him, and stabbed him in seven
					places. A boy who had the charge of the Lares in his bed-chamber, and was then
					in attendance as usual, gave these further particulars: that he was ordered by
					Domitian, upon receiving his first wound, to reach him a dagger which lay under
					his pillow, and call in his domestics; but that he found nothing at the head of
					the bed, excepting the hilt of a poniard, and that all the doors were fastened:
					that the emperor in the mean time got hold of Stephanus, and throwing him upon
					the ground, struggled a long time with him; one while endeavouring to wrench the
					dagger from him, another while, though his fingers were miserably mangled, to
					tear out his eyes. He was slain upon the fourteenth of the calends of October
					[18th Sept.], in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the fifteenth of his
					reign. His corpse was carried out
					upon a common bier by the public bearers, and buried by his nurse Phyllis, at
					his suburban villa on the Latin Way. But she afterwards privfately conveyed his
					remains to the temple of the Flavian family, and mingled them with the ashes of Julia, the daughter of Titus, whom
					she had also nursed.

He was tall in stature, his face modest, and very ruddy; he had large eyes, but
					was dim-sighted; naturally graceful in his person, particularly in his youth,
					excepting only that his toes were bent somewhat inward, he was at last
					disfigured by baldness, corpulence, and the slenderness of his legs, which were
					reduced by a long illness. He was so sensible how much the modesty of his
					countenance recommended him, that he once made this boast to the senate, "Thus
					far you have approved both of my disposition and my countenance." His baldness
					so much annoyed him, that he considered it an affront to himself, if any other
					person was reproached with it, either in jest or in earnest; though in a small
					tract he published, addressed to a friend, "concerning the preservation -of the
					hair," he uses for their mutual consolation the words following: οὐκ ὡράασ οἷοσ κἀγὼ κάλοσ τε μέγας 
					 Seest thou my graceful mien, my stately
						form? "and yet the fate of my hair awaits me; however. I bear
					with fortitude this loss of my hair while I am still young. Remember that
					nothing is more fascinating than beauty, but nothing of shorter duration."

He so shrunk from undergoing fatigue, that he scarcely ever walked through the
					city on foot. In his expeditions and on a march, he seldom rode on horseback,
					but was generally carried in a litter. He had no inclination for the exercise of
					arms, but was very expert in the use of the bow. Many persons have seen him
					often kill a hundred wild animals, of various kinds, at his Alban retreat, and
					fix his arrows in their heads with such dexterity, that he could, in two shots,
					plant them, like a pair of horns, in each. He would sometimes direct his arrows
					against the hand of a boy standing at a distance, and expanded as a mark, with
					such precision, that they all passed between the boy's fingers, without hurting
					him.

In the beginning of his reign, he gave up the study of the liberal sciences,
					though he took care to restore, at a vast expense, the libraries which had been
					burnt down; collecting manuscripts from all parts, and sending scribes to
						Alexandria, either to
					copy or correct them. Yet he never gave himself the trouble of reading history
					or poetry, or of employing his pen even for his private purposes. He perused
					nothing but the Commentaries and Acts of Tiberius Caesar. His letters, speeches,
					and edicts, were all drawn up for him by others; though he could converse with
					elegance, and sometimes expressed himself in memorable sentiments. "I could
					wish," said he once, "that I was but as handsome as Metius fancies himself to
					be." And of the head of some one whose hair was partly reddish, and partly grey,
					he said "that it was snow sprinkled with mead."

"The lot of princes," he remarked, "was very miserable, for no one-believed them
					when they discovered a conspiracy, until they were murdered." When he had
					leisure, he amused himself with dice, even on days that were not festivals, and
					in the morning. He went to the bath early, and made a plentiful dinner, insomuch
					that he seldom ate more at supper than a .Martian apple, to which he added a draught of wine, out
					of a small flask. He gave frequent and splendid entertainments, but they were
					soon over, for he never prolonged them after sunset, and indulged in no revel
					after. For, till bed-time, he did nothing else but walk by himself in
					private.

He was insatiable in his lusts, calling frequent commerce with women, as if it
					was a sort of exercise, κλινοπάλην ,
						 bed-wrestling , and it was reported that he swam about in
					company with the lowest prostitutes. His brother's daughter was offered him in marriage when she
					was a virgin; but being at that time enamoured of Domitia, he obstinately
					refused her. Yet not long afterwards, when she was given to another, he was
					ready enough to debauch her, and that even while Titus was living. But after she
					had lost both her father and her husband, he loved her most passionately, and
					without disguise; insomuch that he was the occasion of her death, by obliging
					her to procure a miscarriage when she was with child by him.

The people shewed little concern at his death, but the soldiers were roused by it
					to great indignation, and immediately endeavoured to have him ranked among the
					gods. They were also ready to avenge his loss, if there had been any to take the
					lead. However, they soon after effected it, by resolutely demanding the
					punishment of all those who had been concerned in his assassination. On the
					other hand, the senate was so overjoyed, that they met in all haste, and in a
					full assembly reviled his memory in the most bitter terms; ordering ladders to
					be brought in, and his shields and images to be pulled down before their eyes,
					and dashed in pieces upon the floor of the senate-house; passing at the same
					time a decree to obliterate his titles every where, and abolish all memory of
					him. A few months before he was slain, a raven on the Capitol uttered these
					words: "All will be well." Some person gave the following interpretation of this
					prodigy: Nuper Tarpeio, quae sedit culmine cornix. 
						 "Est bene," non potuit dicere; dixit, "Erit." 
					 Late croaked a raven from-Tarpeia's height, 
						 "All is not yet, but shortly will be, right." They say
					likewise that Domitian dreamed that a golden hump grew out of the back of his
					neck, which he considered as a certain sign of happy days for the empire after
					him. Such an auspicious change indeed shortly afterwards took place, through the
					justice and moderation of the succeeding emperors.