"Domitian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the elopement of Dearbhorgil[370] with Mac Murchad conducted the English to the slavery of Ireland that a personal pique between Maria Antoinette and the Duke of Orleans precipitated the first expulsion of the Bourbons—and, not to multiply instances of the teterrima causa, that Commodus, Domitian, and Caligula fell victims not to their public tyranny, but to private vengeance—and that an order to make Cromwell disembark from the ship in which he would have sailed to America destroyed both King and Commonwealth. After these instances, on the least reflection ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... a long time, in the reign of the 76 Emperor Domitian, the Goths, through fear of his avarrice, broke the truce they had long observed under other emperors. They laid waste the bank of the Danube, so long held by the Roman Empire, and slew the soldiers and their generals. Oppius Sabinus was then in command of that ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... decree: of persecution of the Christians, perhaps that under Domitian. The poet probably did not think of ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Elephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him, and the flute-player mocked the swinger of the censer; and, as Caligula, had caroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped in an ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, had wandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round with haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger that was to end his days, and sick with that ennui, that terrible taedium vitae, that comes on those to whom life denies nothing; and had peered through a clear ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... enchantment about them, which made the blade of the weapon, though of never so good metal, at every home push, lose its edge and grow feeble. The Roman Bear Garden was abundantly more magnificent than anything Greece could boast of; it flourished most under those delights of mankind, Nero and Domitian: at one time it is recorded, four hundred senators entered the list, and thought it an honour to be cudgelled and quarterstaffed.[318] I observe, the Lanistae were the people chiefly employed, which makes me imagine ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... the war, he was invited by Titus to sail with him to Rome, and how on his arrival there the Emperor Vespasian entertained him in his own palace, bestowed on him a pension, and conferred on him the honours of Roman citizenship. The Emperors Titus and Domitian treated this remarkable Jew ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... skulls in these urns, suspected a mixture of bones; in none we searched was there cause of such conjecture, though sometimes they declined not that practice.—The ashes of Domitian were mingled with those of Julia; of Achilles with those of Patroclus. All urns contained not single ashes; without confused burnings they affectionately com- pounded their bones; passionately endeavouring to continue their living unions. And ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... described by Zosimus, l.c. There is a coin of Domitian, who also celebrated Ludi saeculares, in which he appears seated and distributing the ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... obscurity of the house of David might protect them from the suspicions of a tyrant, the present greatness of his own family alarmed the pusillanimous temper of Domitian, which could only be appeased by the blood of those Romans whom he either feared, or hated, or esteemed. Of the two sons of his uncle Flavius Sabinus, the elder was soon convicted of treasonable intentions, and the younger, who bore the name of Flavius ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... all this in his head, when he maintained that the gods produced nothing that equalled wine in goodness. Philostratus is much of the same sentiment, who after having taken notice of the edict of the Emperor Domitian, who forbad men to be castrated, and vines to be planted, he adds, that this admirable emperor did not reflect that he made the earth in some sort an eunuch, at the same ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... was Consul A.D. 76 or 77, he would be 24 or 25. But it is by no means reconcilable with the time when he administered the several offices in the State. He tells us himself that he "began holding office under Vespasian, was promoted by Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian": "dignitatem nostram a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius provectam" (Hist. i. 1). To have "held office" under Vespasian he must have been quaestor; to have been "promoted" by Titus he must have been aedile; and as for his further advancement ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... had been attributed in some instances to insanity. But was not this the insanity of arbitrary power? Who ever read the facts recorded of Nero without suspecting he was mad? Who would not be apt to impute insanity to Caligula—or Domitian—or Caracalla—or Commodus—or Heliogabalus? Here were six Roman emperors, not connected in blood, nor by descent, who, each of them, possessing arbitrary power, had been so distinguished for cruelty, that nothing short of insanity ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... His intention was to write a history of the Principate from Augustus to Trajan. He began with his own times, and wrote in twelve or fourteen books a full account of the period from Nero's death in 68 A.D. to the death of Domitian in 96 A.D. These were published, probably in successive books, between 106 and 109 A.D. Only the first four and a half books survive to us. They deal with the years 69 and 70, and are known as The ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... technical flaw. The emperor Vespasian attempted to reclaim for the state small oddments of land (subseciva) which were held by neighbouring owners to whom they had never been definitely assigned. The attempt met with violent opposition, and though resumed by Titus, was finally crushed by Domitian, who issued an edict recognizing all oddments of land thus held to be ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Emilius Flaccus that March morning. He and his fellow senator, Caius Balbus, had passed the night in one of those gloomy drinking bouts to which the Emperor Domitian summoned his chosen friends at the high palace on the Palatine. Now, having reached the portals of the house of Flaccus, they stood together under the pomegranate-fringed portico which fronted the peristyle and, confident in ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Domitian A. viij. A bilingual Chronicle, Latin and Saxon, which, by internal evidence, is assigned to Christ Church, Canterbury. The abrupt ending at 1058 is no indication of the book's date: it was written late in ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... of Tacitus, who conquered Great Britain in 80, recalled by the Emperor Domitian in 87, and retired into private ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... onward with our one feeble light, along the dark mouldering walls and roof, which absorbed every straggling ray that reached them, and over the dingy floor, ropy and damp, the place called to recollection that hall in Roman story, hung and carpeted with black, into which Domitian once thrust his senate, in a frolic, to read their own names on the coffin-lids placed against the wall. The darkness seemed to press upon us from every side, as if it were a dense jetty fluid, out of which our light had scooped a pailful or ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... formal abolition of its existence or abrogation of its powers. In practice it was just what the sovereign, whether called Emperor or King, allowed it to be. A self-willed and arbitrary monarch, like Caligula or Domitian, would reduce its functions to a nullity. A wise and moderate Emperor, like Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, would consult it on all important state-affairs, and, while reserving to himself both the power of initiation and that of final control, would make of it a real Council ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... is preserved by Dalrymple: it is an indorsement in the handwriting of Secretary Winwood, respecting the examination of Peacham—a record whose graduated horrors might have charmed the speculative cruelty of a Domitian or a Nero. "Upon these interrogatories, Peacham this day was examined before torture, in torture, between torture, and after torture; notwithstanding, nothing could be drawn from him, he persisting still in his obstinate and insensible denials and former answer."—Dalrymple's "Memoirs and Letters ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Hist. of Somerset, vol. i, Roman Bath), the first being a fragmentary inscription of A.D. 76. At Caerwent the evidence is confined to coins and fibulae, none of which seem earlier than Vespasian or Domitian: for the coins see Clifton Antiq. Club's ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... with himself his son Titus in the government, and died, after a reign of ten years, exhausted by the cares of empire; and Titus quietly succeeded him, but reigned only for two years and a quarter, and was succeeded by his brother, Domitian, a man of some ability, but cruel, like Nero. He was ten years younger than Titus, and was thirty years of age when proclaimed emperor by the praetorians, and accepted by the Senate, A.D. 81. At first he was a reformer, but soon was stained ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... certain points in order to make it perfectly dark they added. How? By force. Purely and simply. By decree. Sic jubeo. The decree of the 17th of February was a masterpiece. This decree completed the proscription of the person, by the proscription of the name. Domitian could not have done better. Human conscience was bewildered; Right, Equity, Reason felt that the master had over them the authority that a thief has over a purse. No reply. Obey. Nothing resembles those ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... tow'ring in the sky, In an expansion no less large than high; Then, in that compass, sailing here and there, And with circumgyration everywhere; Following with love and active heat thy game, And then at last to truss the epigram; I must confess, distinction none I see Between Domitian's Martial then, and thee. But this I know, should Jupiter again Descend from heaven to reconverse with men; The Roman language full, and superfine, If Jove would speak, he would ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... of pen and ink. He quotes a long passage from Ovid's Tristia, to prove that, though exiled to the Isle of Pontus for his wanton books of love, pen and ink were not denied him to compose new poems; that St. John, banished to the Isle of Patmos by the persecuting Domitian, still was allowed pen and ink, for there he wrote the Revelation—and he proceeds with similar facts. Prynne's books abound with uncommon facts on common topics, for he had no discernment; and he seems to have written to convince himself, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... favor under Titus and Domitian, who in turn succeeded their father in the purple. Domitian indeed, though he persecuted the Jews, and laid new fiscal burdens upon them, punished the accusers of Josephus, and made his estate in ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... lighted with fire, and sent to run aflame with the hatred of Christianity. Through the crowd of sufferers a gentleman, who was ultra-liberal as the orator, drove about, fantastically attired as a charioteer, and the people were wild with delight. Domitian had the same ideas, and severe were his persecutions of the new heresy. This was the day on which infidelity was so full of the love of freedom that it cried: ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... that it was in Nero's reign that the place began to be of importance, and that its great temple was built. But the numismatic stores of the fortress taken by itself tell quite another story. There, not a coin has been found earlier than Domitian, nor one later than Aurelian, saving a chance find of two Carolingian pieces of Charles the Bald and a modern French piece of Charles the Sixth. Again, though coins are found from Domitian onwards, it is only with Valerian and ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... Dacians were strong enough we know to exact a yearly tribute from Domitian: it was for this insult that Trajan marched upon Dacia, defeating Decebalus at Klausenburg, in the heart of Transylvania, which was at the time their greatest strong-hold. It was after this that the Dacian king retreated upon Sarmisegethusa, and there Trajan came down upon them through ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... free breathe, forraging for prey, 160 And grow so grosse that mastifes, curs, and mungrils Have spirit to cow them: so our soft French Nobles Chain'd up in ease and numbd securitie (Their spirits shrunke up like their covetous fists, And never opened but Domitian-like, 165 And all his base, obsequious minions When they were catching though it were but flyes), Besotted with their pezzants love of gaine, Rusting at home, and on each other preying, Are for their greatnesse ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... all events, even granting that Buonaparte himself could not be too highly rewarded, or too largely trusted, why commit the fortunes of posterity to chance? Why forget that Vespasian was the father of Domitian, Germanicus of Caligula, Marcus Aurelius of Commodus?" In effect Carnot, colleague as he had been of Robespierre, and stained as he was with the blood of Louis XVI., was a sincere republican; and, after his own fashion, a sincere patriot. He was alone in the Tribunate—the rest ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... Under Domitian, in 88, Tacitus was appointed one of fifteen commissioners to preside at the celebration of the secular games. In the same year he held the office of praetor, and was a member of one of the most select of the old priestly colleges, in which a pre-requisite of membership ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... reproached for having played at dice on the day of his sister's funeral; and Domitian was blamed for gaming from morning to night, and without excepting the festivals of the Roman calendar; but it seems ridiculous to note such improprieties in comparison with their habitual and ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... intimate communication with the gods. Cicero himself has gone so far as to assert that Hercules had a prodigious esteem for him; and Apollonius[1] of Thyana, a Pythagorean philosopher, said in an oration he delivered before the tyrant Domitian, that "Sophocles, the Athenian, could tie up the winds, and stop ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... to be a popular one with some of the greatest tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it, and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren, "Ancient Greece," ch. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the bitter lines in which he had attacked the great Caecilian family. The genius and spirit of the Roman satirists survived the liberty of their country, and were not extinguished by the cruel despotism of the Julian and Flavian Emperors. The great poet who told the story of Domitian's turbot was the legitimate successor of those forgotten minstrels whose songs animated the ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the Romans was the Phrygian slave Epictetus, who was born about fifty years after the birth of Jesus Christ, and taught in the time of the Emperor Domitian. Though he did not leave any written treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down by his disciple Arrian, who had for him the reverence that Plato had for Socrates. The loftiness of his recorded views ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... instances in which this capacity for affairs is dwelt on, as when Agricola, the general in command in Britain, shows such confidence in his wife as a business woman that he makes her co-heir with his daughter and the Emperor Domitian. Women were allowed to plead for themselves in the courts of law. The satirists, like Juvenal, declare that there were hardly any cases in which a woman would not ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... him by Pliny. [29] All these Augustus wisely refused to publish; but there remain two excellent epigrams, one on Terence, already alluded to, which is undoubtedly genuine, [30] the other probably so, though others ascribe it to Germanicus or Domitian. [31] But the rhythm, purity of language, and continuous structure of the couplets seem to point indisputably to an earlier ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... molem Iulius Frontinus, vir magnus, quantum licebat, validamque et pugnacem Siturum gentem armis subegit: 'Julius Frontinus was equal to the burden, agreat man as far as greatness was then possible (i.e. under the jealous rule of Domitian), who subdued by his arms the powerful and warlike tribe ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce |
