Cato V, Part XIX: The Same Causes, contd.

The last of the Emperors which George Clinton made reference to in the cited text of Cato V was the aforementioned Domitian (51-96 AD), known before his ascension as Titus Flavius Domitianus. His father, Vespasian (9-79 AD), had been the last of the four Emperors to rule in 69 AD, and his older brother, Titus (39-81 AD), had immediately preceded him as sovereign of the Roman Empire. Despite these close family ties, however, there didn’t seem to be much in common between Domitian and his immediate predecessors. Vespasian had been an especially generous patron of writers and historians and had done much to rebuild Rome after the destruction wrought by the civil war in 69 AD. And Titus had completely abolished the use of treason trials, completed the amphitheater begun by his father – now commonly known as the Colosseum – and donated large sums from the imperial treasury to those affected by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (79 AD) and another disastrous fire in Rome (80 AD). Domitian, by comparison, was an inveterate micro-manager who dispensed with the authority of the Senate almost entirely, had numerous opponents executed, and promulgated a cult of personality whereby he was depicted as a divine autocrat from whom all political and moral authority flowed. There was more to the man than just his worst qualities, of course, as had been the case even with Caligula and Nero. But Domitian was in almost every way a much more effective ruler than his immediate predecessors, and this effectiveness found expression in his flaws as well as his virtues.

            Domitian’s relationship with the Roman Senate would seem to speak to this aspect of his character and rule. Though Vespasian and Titus could hardly have been considered anything less than the autocrats their authority entitled them to be, they did both at least attempt to cultivate reasonably harmonious relationships with what remained of the traditional Roman elite. Vespasian, for instance, though he did have the Senate memberships of certain of his enemies removed by manipulating the requisite property qualifications, nonetheless seemed generally uninterested in questioning or altering the accustomed role of the Senate in Roman government and culture. Indeed, he even went so far as to provide charitable relief to members of the Senate whose fortunes had suffered and whose personal circumstances no longer aligned with their social standing. His son Titus followed much the same pattern upon ascending the throne in 79 AD, going so far as to declare soon after his affirmation as Emperor that he had no intention of ever making use of the existing laws against libel and slander – laws which Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero had used to great effect – to silence what opponents to his reign may yet have arisen. “It is impossible for me to be insulted or abused in any way,” he accordingly explained, “For I do naught that deserves censure, and I care not for what is reported falsely. As for the emperors who are dead and gone, they will avenge themselves in case anyone does them a wrong, if in very truth they are demigods and possess any power.” Neither Titus nor his father made any effort to elevate the Senate above the decidedly secondary role which it had taken on following the triumph of Augustus and the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, of course. It simply would not have been in their interest to do so. But they did both at least seem to acknowledge that the Senate had some manner of role to play in Roman political and cultural life, and both of them arguably also behaved as though they thought it better than not that the Emperor and the Senate should peacefully coexist.

Domitian, as it happened, had very different ideas. Having assuredly come to understand the reduced importance of the Senate over the course of his father’s and brother’s reigns – during which time he often served as ordinary consul or suffect consul – and having seemingly little patience for useless artifice – as opposed to useful artifice, which he valued very much – he openly and completely concentrated almost all public authority in Rome in the office of Emperor and in the supporting imperial court. Not only did this result in the Senate losing almost all of its traditional authority – its powers transferred either to the Emperor himself or to one of a handful of trusted advisers – but the very nature of political authority was rearticulated as emanating directly from the person of the Emperor rather than from any institution, social order, or geographic locality. To that end, the city of Rome in many ways ceased to be the immovable capital of the Empire under Domitian as it had been under his predecessors and during the era of the Republic. Tiberius, it was true, had spent a significant amount of time away from the Eternal City – indeed, the last decade of his life and rule – but his absence never did much to change the practical reality that the Empire was governed by and from Rome. The fact that the Senate and the Praetorian Guard were able to amass as much power as they ultimately possessed at the time of Caligula’s ascension in 37 AD would seem proof enough of exactly this axiom. Domitian broke with this custom by first subsuming almost all political authority under his own personal auspices and then establishing successive residences at numerous locations across the Italian Peninsula. What this proved, in practice, was that it no longer mattered whether the Emperor was in Rome, or in Antium, or Circei, or Tusculum; the Empire and the man had become functionally synonymous.

The practical extent of Domitian’s concomitant assumption of governing authority was, given the sheer size of the empire which he had determined to administer, exceptionally vast. Being, as aforementioned, a micromanager by temperament, he accordingly took almost complete responsibility for managing Rome’s finances, revaluing and devaluing the Roman currency as he saw fit, supervising continued reconstruction efforts left over from the Great Fire of 64 AD, the civil war of 69 AD, and the additional fire that had occurred during his brother’s reign in 80 AD, overseeing the construction of new theatres and stadiums, and even endeavoring to raise the material and artistic quality of the coinage which bore his name and image. In his role as supreme commander of the Roman military, he spent as much as three years in the field with the legions – more than any Emperor since Augustus – raised soldier’s pay by one-third, personally oversaw the defense of Roman Dacia – modern Romania and Moldova – between 85 and 88 AD, and celebrated numerous triumphs in recognition of the successes of his armies in Germania and Britannia. And as Pontifex Maximus – essentially the high priest of the state religion – he emphasized associations between the office of Emperor and the cult of Jupiter – building or renovating several temples to that effect – revived the practice of deifying the imperial family, and made himself the personal arbiter of Roman morals by taking up the office of censor on a permanent basis in 85 AD. This latter endeavor particularly suited Domitian’s fastidious administrative style, and under its auspices he had people expelled from Senate for immoral behavior – i.e. acting, dancing, divorce, etc. – prosecuted corruption and conflicts of interest, regulated the content that could be shown in Roman theatres, and harshly punished a number of Vestal Virgins – the priestesses of the hearth goddess Vesta – who were found to have broken their oaths of chastity in 86 AD by having them buried alive.

Notwithstanding the ruthlessness with which Domitian often conducted himself, it would nevertheless seem to bear emphasizing once again than he was – by the standards of his era – an exceptionally effective administrator. He was highly competent, rigorous, and decisive, suspicious of threats to his leadership, swift in the use of state power to stifle dissent, and very wise in the attention he paid and the resources he allocated to the army and to the masses. He kept the value of Rome’s currency high, raised the pay of the legions, kept the people satiated with games and festivals, built splendid temples, completely sidelined the Senate, and vested his trust almost exclusively in a small number of confidantes and advisers within the imperial household. It might accordingly be said, then, that whereas Caligula made far too many enemies in far too short a time, and Nero indulged his ego too freely and too often, Domitian simply ruled. Indeed, during the whole of his reign – excluding the events that led immediately to his death – he faced only one serious revolt. This came at the hands of one Lucius Antonius Saturnius (??-89 AD), Governor of Germania Superior. Quite possibly dissatisfied with Domitian’s handling of Rome’s external security arrangements – his tendency to defend rather than attack, his retreat from Britannia, his appeasing attitude towards the Dacians, etc. – Saturnius, with the aid of the two legions under his command and an alliance with the Germanic Chatti people, declared himself in revolt against the Emperor in January, 89 AD and quickly secured the frontier military stronghold of Mogontiacum. Fortunately for Domitian – and standing in stark opposition to the events that had led to the downfall of Nero – the discontent which had prompted the rising to begin with did not ultimately spread beyond the German frontier. Not only were legions from Germania Inferior, Rhaetia, and Hispania successfully summoned to put down the revolt, but the Emperor himself led the Praetorian Guard from Rome to attend to the matter in person. The rebellion was crushed in less than a month, thanks in part to an unexpected thaw of the previously frozen Rhine River which prevented the Chatti from dispatching reinforcements. Saturnius and his cohorts were executed, their heads brought to Rome for public display, while the rebellion legions were dispatched to a less stable region of the Roman frontier where frequent attacks by tribal peoples from across the Danube would serve to thin out their ranks.

While the revolt of Saturnius did ultimately end in failure, its aftermath may well have set in motion Domitian’s eventual downfall. His treatment of the Senate, to be fair, had always been exceptionally callous, to the point where he dismissed the very idea of an aristocracy and treated the members of the Senatorial class as being no better or worse than any other of his subjects. But after the rebellion of Saturnius in 89 AD, the Emperor turned more aggressively than ever towards the use of the treason laws that his brother had publicly shunned to make clear his dissatisfaction with the pretensions and the prejudices of the traditional Roman elite. According to the aforementioned historians Tacitus and Suetonius, as many as twenty people identified by Domitian as enemies of his rule were subsequently tried and executed during this period. Certain of those killed were members of Domitian’s own family – cousins Titus Flavius Clemens and Titus Flavius Sabinus, for example – and certain of the charges laid were exceptionally petty and trifling. That Domitian believed such actions were within his right as Emperor was arguably a testament to the success he had thus far enjoyed. Under his rule, the Empire was stable, prosperous, and peaceful, while the most serious threat to his leadership up to that point – the aforementioned revolt of Saturnius – had been contained to the province from which it originated and was swiftly put down by the combined forces under his command. True though this may have been, however, what Domitian had failed to account for despite his fastidious attention to almost every aspect of the administration of his empire was the degree to which his aggressive alienation of the Senatorial elite was bound to produce an equally violent reaction.

Though the exact details of the resulting conspiracy remained a subject of scholarly debate – i.e. who was involved, what they intended, etc. – the immediate circumstances of its culmination were scrupulously recorded by the chronicler Suetonius. Evidently, having received a number of omens which appeared to foretell of his imminent demise during the summer of 96 AD – one of which even went so far as to decree that he would die at midday – Domitian had become increasingly agitated and took to repeatedly asking his servants and stewards to tell him the time of day. At length, on September 18, when the Emperor accordingly asked of a servant named Stephanus whether it was midday or not, the trap that had been set was finally sprung. Stephanus, as it turned out, had been enlisted by a group of conspirators intent on ending Domitian’s reign. Upon telling Domitian (wrongly) that it was in fact much later in the day, he accordingly waited until his target grew suitably relaxed, drew a dagger he had been concealing in his sleeve, and stabbed him repeatedly. While Stephanus himself was killed in the ensuing struggle – an event which came to include a number of former slaves and bondsmen who loyalty to the Emperor had been subverted – Domitian was successfully dispatched, his body spirited form the imperial palace, and his remains unceremoniously cremated. Upon receiving word of the Emperor’s demise, the Senate understandably rejoiced, pronounced Domitian’s ally Marcus Cocceius Nerva (30-98 AD) as his successor, and proclaimed a damnatio memoriae – i.e. a condemnation of memory – on all aspects of Domitian’s reign. Across Italy, statues were destroyed, coins melted down, triumph arches erected in his honor taken apart, and all public mention of his name erased. While this order was largely disregarded in the provinces, it was not out of love for the late ruler of the empire. Though they may not have rejoiced, the masses reportedly met news of Domitian’s death with indifference. Indeed, it was only the army that seemed particularly aggrieved – their pay having increased substantially under his rule. But while the legions initially called for Domitian’s immediate deification by the Senate, and even revolted in some regions, they also eventually gave way to the general consensus of opinion that his death was not a cause to mourn.

At the time that George Clinton set himself to penning the text of Cato V, of course, the United States of America had never seen anything even close to a Domitian, a Nero, a Caligula, or even a Caesar at the head of its government. The nearest it had yet to come – as previously discussed – was George Washington, and in truth this wasn’t very near at all. Washington arguably could have made himself into the Caesar of America, to be sure. He was popular, he commanded the loyalty of countless soldiers, and he was an exceptionally shrewd judge of character and talent. But his personality – as much as the intensely private Washington made himself known to other people – was simply not that of a wannabe tyrant. He was too humble, too retiring, too eager to live quietly and unobtrusively while others jousted for influence. His countrymen accordingly had nothing to fear in what he might do with whatever authority he was given and little reason to believe that the great hero of the Revolution would inaugurate a reign of terror on par with the worst of the emperors of ancient Rome. As Clinton seemed intent on pointing out, however, and as the preceding examination has hopefully made manifest, such thinking was rather at odds with the facts of history. Caesar did not rise to the pinnacle of power over ancient Rome solely as a result of his own initiative and efforts, and nor did the period which he inaugurated immediately devolve into one of absolute autocracy. The truth – as is almost invariably the case – was far more complicated.

Caesar was a man of initiative, to be sure. He took whatever advantage he could, pushed every envelope, bent every rule until he had what he wanted. But he was aided in these efforts – all of them – by soldiers, senators, sailors, magistrates, and even the common people of Rome. Caesar rose, yes, but he was also raised. Roman civilization was remade by Caesar according to his ambitions, but it also made him what he ultimately became by either tolerating or encouraging these same personal impulses. Notwithstanding their supposed moral superiority, the author of Cato V seemed intent on communicating to the American people that this exact dynamic was hardly beyond them. If tyranny ever came to America, it need not have been at the behest of some external force. The Continental Congress and its allies and supporters may well have succeeded in casting off the authority of the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, but there was no reason to believe that this should have inoculated the American people for all time against the more seductive aspects of authoritarian government. The people of ancient Rome cast off the rule of their Etruscan kings in 509 BC, establishing in their wake a republic which would go on to weather any number of crises for the better part of the next five centuries. Did this mean that they were forevermore immune from inaugurating a similarly tyrannical government of their own making and on their own initiative? Of course not. At length, and in response to a sequence of events stretching out over decades, the people of the ancient Roman Republic gave their tacit approval to what was essentially a homegrown revival of the monarchy whose abolition still represented one of their proudest moments as a culture.

The American people certainly had as much to be proud of in their own recent history, between successfully securing their independence and writing viable constitutions for themselves without any practical experience. But if, for a moment, these same people allowed their pride to blind them to the possibility that their accomplishments might prove to have all been for naught – that they might someday develop a taste for tyranny themselves – then the entire revolutionary project was basically pointless. Liberty, in perpetuity, can only be purchased at the price of ceaseless vigilance. The Roman people lost their vigilance, became complacent in their shared understanding of their values and their history, and in doing so opened the door for someone like Caesar to vault to power. Was it beyond the realm of possibility that the people of the United States of America might suffer a similar fate? Were they not as proud of themselves as the ancient Romans had been? “But wait,” they might say. “Vigilance is one thing. We see the need to guard against the rise of strongmen and demagogues as clearly as anyone. We erected constitutions in all the states, didn’t we? And explicitly enumerated the rights we felt it most essential to protect? How, then, can anyone claim that America might give rise to a tyrant on the order of Caligula, Nero, or Domitian? How could we, as a people, possibly change so much as to permit the rise of such odious personalities to positions of unchecked authority?” The simplest answer to this query would surely have been the same one which George Clinton appeared so eager to get across to his readers: a great many things which seem impossible in a given moment can, and often do, become possible in time.

Consider, by way of example, the aforementioned histories of the four cited rulers of ancient Rome. While there can be no argument that at the height of his powers Caesar was the undisputed lord and master of the Roman Republic, the regime which he erected bore only a partial resemblance to that which was inherited by the likes of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. Indeed, had Caesar attempted to rule in the fashion of a Nero or a Domitian, it seems likely that his assassination would have come all the more swiftly. For that matter, it seems likely that neither Caligula nor Nero could have ruled in the manner of Domitian. All of these men were autocrats, to be sure, and were accordingly possessed of far more personal authority than any individual in the history of the Roman civilization since the abolition of the monarchy. But each of them also existed within a distinct window of what it was possible for a Roman imperator to achieve. Caesar had the army, a portion of the Senate, and the masses on his side, but he was also pushing against centuries of tradition. And while he could, and did, change a great deal about the manner in which the Roman state functioned, he was still forced to acknowledge, account for, and to some extent even obey the existing strictures of Roman culture and Roman politics. He did not claim the mantle of king because monarchy was still considered anathema; he did not wholly dispense with the Senate because the Senate still remained quite powerful. He ruled, most certainly, but not solely on his own terms.

Caligula, by comparison, enjoyed a much freer hand. His predecessor Augustus had succeeded in formalizing and enhancing the ad hoc position which his adoptive father Caesar had crafted for himself, creating a power base and an administrative framework which Caligula benefited from tremendously. The Senate was still a force to be reckoned with, the army still needed to be kept in good spirits, and now the Praetorian Guard had emerged as a major player in Roman politics, to be sure. But decades of autocratic rule by Augustus and then Tiberius had served to recondition the political expectations of the Roman people. Where once they had abhorred the very idea of anything like an indigenous Roman monarchy, now they merely expected their acknowledged ruler to adhere to a pseudo-republican standard of behavior while exercising more power than any public figure since the creation of the Roman Republic. Caligula failed to fulfill this trust, of course, which ultimately led to his downfall. All the same, his behavior did arguably set an important precedent for those who followed in his wake.

Caligula, as aforementioned, had been erratic, unpredictable, and vain; his apparent lack of morals shocked the Roman people, and his pretensions of godhood offended their religious and cultural sensibilities. But while this might seem to amount to a somewhat dubious legacy, his successors Claudius and Nero arguably benefited from Caligula’s evident instability in that it made their own deficiencies appear relatively minor by comparison. Claudius, though widely viewed as weak and indecisive upon his ascension, could at least boast of being stable emotionally. He badly manhandled the Senate but was a very capable administrator; he could be temperamental and quick to anger but he also built many roads, canals, and aqueducts. Possessed of a similar mixture of vices and virtues, his step-son and successor Nero developed a similar reputation. He had his mother killed, reacted exceptionally harshly to any evidence of conspiracy, and spent excessively on construction projects whose principle object was blatantly self-serving. At the same time, however, he was well-liked in the east for his championing of Greek culture and art, he was by and large a very competent administrator, and his leadership of the official recovery efforts following the Great Fire of Rome (64 AD) was both thorough and thoughtful. Granted, he met a very similar end to the widely reviled Caligula, the political elite having turned against him following repeated abuses of power. All the same, it is worth noting that Caligula’s assassination came at the conclusion of only three years of rule. Nero, whose personal extravagances were only slightly less galling, was forced to take his own life at the conclusion of a full thirteen years on the throne. Clearly, the Roman people were learning to adjust their expectations. By the time Domitian assumed the imperial dignity in 81 AD they had adjusted them even more.

In fairness, a great deal had happened between the death of Nero in 68 AD and the ascension of Domitian some thirteen years later. The demise of Nero in the midst of a major revolt in the Roman provinces led to a brief but destructive period of instability since known – for obvious reasons – as the Year of Four Emperors. Over the course of the year 69 AD, four men in succession ascended the imperial throne, none of whom but the last – the aforementioned Vespasian – held on to power for more than a few months. The first, Galba – who had led the initial revolt against Nero in 68 AD – was acclaimed by the Senate upon Nero’s demise and very proceeded very quickly to completely ruin his own prospects. Not only did he grossly offend the provincial population by either destroying or severely taxing any town that refused to acknowledge his authority as he made his way to Rome, but he turned the Senate against him almost immediately by casting about with accusations of conspiracy and having a number of Senators executed without trial. When another revolt in Germania Inferior resulted in a second man – Aulus Vitellius (15-69 AD) – claiming the imperial dignity, Galba panicked, tried to stabilize the situation by naming a popular young Senator as his heir, and ended up offending another Senator possessed of wealth and ambition enough to do something about it. Evidently seeing the problem at hand in fairly uncomplicated terms, Marcus Salvius Otho (32-69 AD) opted simply to pay the Praetorian Guard to side with him against Galba. While this ploy did ultimately succeed – Galba was left completely isolated and faced execution shortly thereafter – Otho’s reign proved even shorter than his predecessor’s.

Vitellius, of course, was still actively claiming the imperial throne upon Otho’s ascension in January, 69 AD. Displacing Galba may have gained the new Emperor the support of the Senate and control of what legions remained loyal, but complete and unquestioned legitimacy remained elusive in the meantime. Seeking to remedy this, Otho accordingly departed for the provinces once it became clear that Vitellius was in no mood to negotiate. The resulting civil war was brief but bloody. After a handful of minor victories in Gaul and Italy, Otho’s forces were decisively defeated at Bedriacum in April, 69 AD. Some forty thousand men were killed, and Otho – supposedly fearful of the bloodshed he believed would follow if he continued to resist – chose to take his own life. Vitellius swiftly marched on Rome and was acclaimed by the Senate as the sole and unchallenged Emperor. The result, unfortunately, was far from a return to peace and stability. While Vitellius initially seemed intent on winning the favor of the Roman people by holding a series of increasingly lavish banquets and parades, the resulting drain on the imperial treasury swiftly brought to bear the less generous aspects of his personality. Money lenders who sought repayment were arrested, tortured, and killed, potential rivals were invited to the imperial palace and executed, and the Emperor took on an especial vendetta against astrologers after his attempt to ban them from practicing in Italy resulted in public ridicule. Distressed by this behavior, and doubtless still smarting from their recent defeat, the former supporters of Otho subsequently cast about for another prominent figure who might successfully seize the imperial throne. Such a figure ultimately emerged in the person of Titus Flavius Vespasianus (9-79 AD).

   

Vespasian, who had been tasked by Nero to put down a revolt that had broken out in Judea in 66 AD, was evidently encouraged by various oracles and omens seeming to indicate his likely success to ultimately accept the acclamation of his men as Emperor. With the aid of various local provincial governors, he then proceeded to occupy Roman Egypt – thus securing the Empire’s principle grain supply – dispatched troops to Italy, and secured the loyalty of the legions stationed on the Danube frontier. Suddenly and completely surrounded, Vitellius first attempted negotiation, then tried to flee, and was then seized and executed when Vespasian’s men entered Rome. As Galba, Otho, and Vitellius had been before him, Vespasian was swiftly proclaimed Emperor by the Senate, at which point he authorized the much-needed grain shipments that he had been holding in Egypt and proclaimed an end to the cruelty and barbarism that had characterized the last several months. While the thirteen years that followed – between Vespasian’s ten-year reign and the three years of his son and successor, Titus – were indeed both stable and prosperous, the restraint exercised by the first two members of the Flavian dynasty arguably masked the extent to which Rome’s political institutions and norms had been almost completely undermined.

Having already been weakened at the hands of Caligula and Nero, the Roman Senate – a body which had remained a formidable check on imperial power even during the reign of Augustus – had arguably lost what remained of its legitimacy by repeatedly recognizing military strongmen as Emperor who then proceeded to drain the imperial treasury and enact round after round of public executions. While Domitian could most definitely be said to have undertaken a tremendous seizure of power when he subsequently chose to sideline the Senate upon his ascension in 81 AD, this act should be viewed as the culmination of an existing trend rather than an isolated occurrence. Indeed, one might reasonably argue that Domitian was really only guilty of formalizing something that was already true in practice. The Senate no longer mattered as it had under previous rulers. Augustus had acknowledged its necessary role in Roman political life, Tiberius had ceded to it almost total authority when he retreated to Capri, and Caligula, though he showed little respect for its prerogatives, had never been able to ignore it altogether. Even Nero, whose death was celebrated by the Senate, had been unable to dispense with its authority completely. As a matter of fact, it was the purported news that the Senate had declared him an enemy of the people and were preparing to have him arrested that prompted Nero to flee the city of Rome and ultimately take his own life. Clearly, though he most assuredly would have preferred it otherwise, the Senate could still resist Nero in a way that he felt he had no choice but to respect.

The events that transpired during the Year of Four Emperors fundamentally changed this. By the time Vespasian entered the city of Rome to take up the imperial throne in the waning months of 69 AD, the Senate had fully shown its weakness. Whereas acclamation by the senatorial class had once arguably preceded legitimacy, the rapid succession of Emperors from Nero, to Galba, to Otho, to Vitellius, to Vespasian made it abundantly clear that the Senate had been reduced to following events rather than leading them. The mere rumor that the Senate had turned against him may have been enough to spur Nero to suicide, but Galba’s concomitant ascension was a fact attributable to military rather than political considerations. The latter’s recognition, therefore, was more a fait accompli than an essential ingredient to his rule. The same could be said for Otho, whose decision to simply buy the loyalty of the Praetorian Guard appeared to seal his ascension in and of itself. And for Vitellius, who marched into Rome at the head of some of the strongest legions in the Empire. And for Vespasian, who cut off Rome’s grain supply and secured the loyalty of large swaths of the Roman army. Far from actively seeking the Senate’s approval before they could take power, these men each captured the throne on their own initiative and gained the Senate’s acclamation by default. And though Vespasian and Titus were more considerate of the Senate than their immediate predecessors had been, their consideration did nothing to restore that selfsame body to its accustomed constitutional role.

     

In consequence, while the membership of the Senate and their allies among the Roman elite were understandably affronted by the blatant subversion of Rome’s political and institutional culture represented by Domitian’s assumption of almost total civic authority, the damage which they were actively lamenting had already been done. The Senate had become an accessory rather than an essential aspect of political authority in Rome. Its continued existence was an admission to custom. Control of the military was what really mattered, and of the Praetorian Guard, and of the food supply. The fact that Domitian was such an effective ruler perhaps made this reality a little easier to bear. He may have been an egotist, and a paranoiac, and a micromanager, and a tyrant, but he was also intelligent, and efficient, and thorough. He punished corruption, pursued sound fiscal policies, built stadiums and theatres, and paid homage to the Gods. True, he held more power in his hands than any man had since the end of the Roman monarchy some six centuries prior. But he wasn’t a Caligula, at least, or a Nero, or a Vitellius. He never demanded to be worshiped, built monuments to his own grandeur, or had people murdered when they requested their loans be reimbursed. Avoiding these missteps may not have preserved his rule indefinitely, but it bought Domitian more time on the throne than any of his predecessors since the absentee Tiberius. For fifteen years he was the lord and master of the greatest empire the world had ever known. And while he most definitely owed his ascension to the political reformation that Julius Caesar had set in motion, the manner of his rule was such that Caesar could only have dreamed. A great deal had changed in less than one hundred and fifty years. The impossible had become manifest. The Republic had become an empire.