Customer Reviews

The Emperor Domitian

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When it was published in 1992 this book was the first significant scholarly biography of the emperor Domitian (ruled AD 81-96) since 1894. The author is an Associate Professor and a leading specialist in Flavian political and prosopographical history, and has produced a very reliable, readable work that is a critical and valuable interpretive synthesis of the considerable modern scholarship relating to Domitian. The study is organized thematically and with a very solid prosopographical approach. The first chapter examines the social and political rise of Domitian's family, his early life and role under his father Vespasian and brother Titus (both emperors). The next two chapters provide a detailed examination of Domitian's court and his relationship with his courtiers. These are then followed by two chapters on Domitian's financial, administrative and provincial policies. Chapters 6 and 7 examine the major wars of Domitian's reign and his military and foreign policies.! After these there are two chapters on the senatorial and equestrian aristocracy during Domitian's reign, and his relationship with them and other policies and problems. The conclusion completes the study with detailed end-notes and an exhaustive bibliography. The three indices (on persons, ancient authors and general subjects) at the end of the book are very useful and effective. For serious scholars of this period this biography is an indispensable work. A more recent biography of Domitian with a psychological approach ('Domitian: Tragic tyrant') is in many ways simply based upon the present study.

The Emperor Domitian presided over a period in which many of the later New Testament texts were written, such as Revelation and the Gospel of John. Close study of the reign of Domitian provides enormous insight into these biblical texts and the situations they addressed for their own readers. Jones' biography of Domitian should be standard reading for anyone seeking to understand the world that generated such claims for Jesus as "savior of the world" (John 4) and "Lord and God" (John 20), both attributed to Domitian. One of the great strengths of Jones' book is its placing of Seutonius' own "Twelve Caesars" in historical context. Many previous interpretations of the lives of the caesars took Suetonius as a reporter, rather than as the imperial propagandist for his patron that he was.

Very readable and highly recommended.