Domitian

Domitian was born in October of AD 51, the younger son of Vespasian (Suetonius, Domitian 1), and succeeded his brother Titus in 81. The arch that commemorates Titus’s triumph over Judaea was built in his reign (Arch of Titus). Suetonius says that he exacted the tax on the Jews with great harshness and that he had himself styled “Our Master and our God” (Suetonius, Domitian 12) (Suetonius, Domitian 13).

Near the end of his reign he executed his cousin, the consul Flavius Clemens (Suetonius, Domitian 15). Cassius Dio, as preserved in a later abridgement, gives the charge as “atheism”, brought also against others who had drifted into Jewish ways, and says that Clemens’s wife Flavia Domitilla was banished (Cassius Dio, Roman History 67.14). Whether these were Christians is not said by either writer.

Christian memory made him a persecutor. Tertullian, about AD 197, says that Domitian tried what Nero had done but soon stopped and recalled those he had banished (Tertullian, Apology 5). Eusebius, in the early fourth century, calls him the second emperor to persecute the church (Eusebius, Church History 3.17). He reports that a Flavia Domitilla, whom he calls a niece of Clemens, was exiled for her witness to Christ, and gives it as something said that John was banished to Patmos in this reign (Eusebius, Church History 3.18). He also preserves a story from Hegesippus that Domitian questioned the grandsons of Jude, a brother of Jesus, and dismissed them as harmless (Eusebius, Church History 3.20). Irenaeus says that the Revelation was seen towards the end of his reign (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.30.3).

He was murdered in September 96 (Suetonius, Domitian 17). His successor Nerva recalled the exiles (Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.1).