God on Earth: Emperor Domitian

Dr. Aurora Raimondi Cominesi is project curator at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden. In 2019, she obtained her doctoral degree at Radboud University (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) with a dissertation titled The Past on the Wall. Anchoring Innovation in the Decoration and Architecture of the Imperial Residences on the Palatine. Her research focuses on mural paintings, domestic and public architecture, and includes studies on the Roman villas at Stabiae. She also has an interest in the digital challenges faced by museums today; she co-edited the guide (in Italian) Comunicare la cultura online: una guida pratica per i musei. Progettazione di siti web, content management, social media e analisi dei risultati. Dr. Nathalie de Haan is senior lecturer in Ancient History at Radboud University (Nijmegen, The Netherlands). She published on Roman baths and bathing culture, domestic architecture, archaeology in Fascist Italy, and contributed with various publications to the field of Reception Studies, such as the recent volume Framing Classical Reception Studies, Leiden 2020, co-edited with Maarten De Pourcq and David Rijser. She is the author of Römische Privatbäder. Entwicklung, Verbreitung, Struktur und sozialer Status, Frankfurt am Main 2010. With Kurt Wallat she conducted research and excavations in the Central Baths of Pompeii (monograph forthcoming). Her current research interests include the multifaceted role of archaeology, heritage and the Classics in Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries. Eric M. Moormann holds the chair of Classical Archaeology at Radboud University (Nijmegen, The Netherlands). Main research themes are urban studies of Rome, Herculaneum, and Pompeii, next to figural arts, especially mural painting. Furthermore, he has worked on Winckelmann and reception history. He is editor-in-chief of BABESCH. His publications include Divine Interiors. Mural Paintings in Greek and Roman Sanctuaries, Amsterdam 2011; with P.G.P. Meyboom Le decorazioni dipinte e marmoree della Domus Aurea di Nerone a Roma I-II, Leuven/Paris/Walpole 2013; Pompeii’s Ashes. The Reception of the Cities Buried by Vesuvius in Literature, Music, and Drama, Boston/Berlin/Munich 2015. Claire Stocks is Lecturer for Classics at Newcastle University (UK). Her research interests include Augustan and post Augustan epic, especially Flavian epic. She is the author of The Roman Hannibal: Remembering the Enemy in Silius Italicus’ Punica, Liverpool, 2014 and co-editor of Horace’s Epodes: Context, Intertexts, and Reception, Oxford, 2016, and Fides in Flavian Poetry, Toronto, 2019. She is currently working on a monograph on the representation of Space in Domitianic Rome.

Preface: Anchoring a New Emperor

André Lardinois, Ineke Sluiter

 

Introduction: Domitian, the Neglected Emperor Who Wished to Be God

Aurora Raimondi Cominesi, Nathalie de Haan, Eric M. Moormann & Claire Stocks

 

Part 1: Ruling the Empire

 

Emperorship and Emperors before the Flavians Came to Power

Olivier Hekster

 

Rome AD 69: the City at the Crossroads

Domenico Palombi

 

The Rise of the Flavians

Barbara Levick

 

Impact of Empire: Cremona, Bedriacum and Brescia

Francesca Morandini, Lilia Palmieri, Marina Volonté

 

Part 2: Building the Empire

 

Domitian’s Reshaping of Rome

Eric M. Moormann

 

The Arch of Titus in the Circus Maximus

Claudio Parisi Presicce

 

Material Culture in Britannia under Domitian; a Northern Focus

Barbara Birley, Frances McIntosh

 

Domitian and the Lower German Limes (The Netherlands)

Jasper de Bruin

 

Part 3: The Image of the Emperor

 

The Image of the Emperor: Seeing Domitian

Jane Fejfer

 

Historical Reliefs and Architecture

Paolo Liverani

 

The Image of the Emperor in Contemporary Epic Poetry

Claire Stocks

 

Imperial Women and the Dynamics of Power. Managing the Soft Power of Domitia Longina and Julia Titi

Lien Foubert

 

Part 4: The World of Domitian

 

Living Like the Emperor: A Portrayal of Domitian in his Villas and on the Palatine

Aurora Raimondi Cominesi and Claire Stocks

 

Between Magnificence and Misery: Living Conditions in Metropolitan Rome

Nathalie de Haan

 

Entertainment and Spectacle during Domitian’s Rule

Daniëlle Slootjes

 

Domitian and the Capitolia

Onno van Nijf, Robin van Vliet, Caroline van Toor

 

Archaeological Evidence from Domitian’s Palatine

Natascha Sojc

 

Albanum Domitiani, Domitian’s Villa in Castel Gandolfo

Claudia Valeri

 

Part 5: Man and God

Domitian and Religion

Frederick G. Naerebout

 

Master and God: Domitian’s Art and Architecture in Rome

Diane Atnally Conlin

 

Man and God: Literature

Antony Augoustakis, Emma Buckley

 

Anchoring Egypt. The Iseum Campense and Flavian Rome

Miguel John Versluys

 

Part 6: Fall and Afterlife Regime Change/Reputation in Antiquity

 

Portraiture and Memory Sanctions

Caroline Vout

 

Domitian and the Temples of Egypt

Olaf E. Kaper

 

Domitian’s Damned Memory in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries

Maria Paolo Del Moro

 

‘An Enemy of God’ on the Imperial Throne? The Reception of Domitian during the Middle Ages

Nine Miedema

 

Bibliography

Index of Names, Places, and Subjects