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actually the imperial private secretary rather than slave members of
that department cannot be ascertained. Late in the 90s, T.Flavius
Aug. lib. Abascantus81 was in office; he was possibly demoted, but
certainly replaced by the equestrian Titinius Capito,82 who retained
the post under Nerva and, for a time, under Trajan. Once again,
Statius is helpful. His poem of consolation (epikeidion) on the death
of Abascantus s wife Priscilla (Silvae 5.1.1 262) has survived. It is
the only substantial account we have of the duties of an ab epistulis,
and, though more idealized even than the consolatio to Claudius
Etruscus, is nonetheless an invaluable compendium of the varied
tasks that Statius could claim, with some degree of credibility, were
allocated to Domitian s secretary. In charge of petitions was the a
libellis, a role filled late in the reign by Entellus, who was to be one
of Domitian s assassins.83 Hermeros84 may well have held the post
before him, but the evidence is not at all convincing and no others
(unless we include Epaphroditus) are attested.85 Apart from these
officials, the only other senior administrative freedmen who may
have held posts in the period 81 to 96 were T.Flavius Aug. lib.
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Abascantus and Astectus Aug. lib., both described as a
cognitionibus;86 the equestrian Titinius Capito served both as ab
epistulis of Domitian and as a patrimonio,87 but no freedmen holders
of the latter office are known.
On Domitian s accession, Tiberius Claudius Aug. lib. Classicus88
was in charge of the imperial domestic budget (procurator castrensis)
and was promptly dismissed, with Bucolas (ILS 1567) as his probable
successor; no other incumbents are known. Classicus was also imperial
chamberlain or a cubiculo. We have no hint of his replacement in this
role, but, by the end of the reign, the post had been assigned to
Parthenius, with Siger(i)us89 as one of his assistants (cubicularius); both
were actively involved in Domitian s assassination.
The Historia Augusta s statement that it was Hadrian who first
used equestrians as a libellis and ab epistulis has long been
discredited. The innovation occurred far earlier, perhaps under
Claudius90 and certainly under Vitellius, for which there is both
literary (Hist. 1.58) and epigraphic (ILS 1447) evidence. But this
was a temporary expedient, decided on during the crisis of civil war.
Domitian went further. According to Suetonius, he  shared certain
of the chief officia between libertini and Roman Equites (7.2).91
The reference is not to the immediate creation of an entire equestrian
bureaucratic class, headed by equestrians with administrative
experience; rather that, in some instances, departmental heads were
not chosen from freedmen but were now  intellectuals from the Latin
world .92 Suetonius himself is as good an example as any of such an
appointment. His career was military in name only, as was that of
Domitian s last ab epistulis, the equestrian Titinius Capito. His
 military career stands in direct contrast with that of Vitellius s
equestrian a libellis, Sex. Caesius Propertianus, described as tr. mil.
IIII Macedonic., praef. coh. III His(pa)nor. (ILS 1447). Titinius
appears merely as praef. cohortis trib. milit. (ILS 1448); no units are
named, an unusual omission suggesting that the posts were assigned
to him honoris causa. He was an intellectual, a poet and a scholar,
and appointed for those very qualities.93 The innovation, as far as
can be determined from what Suetonius says, was a deliberate shift
in imperial policy and not a temporary expedient.
However, this may not have been so, given the circumstances of
Titinius s appointment quite late in the reign. In a recent
examination94 of Statius s Silvae 5.1, it has been argued that T.
Flavius Aug. lib. Abascantus was still ab epistulis near the end of 95
when Statius wrote the epikeidion for the death of his wife Priscilla
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COURT II
and that he was not dismissed but demoted to the post of a
cognitionibus. That idea had been rejected95 on the grounds that the
Abascantus described as a cognitionibus (ILS 1679) was married to
a Flavia Hesperis, whereas the ab epistulis s wife was Priscilla. But
Statius describes Abascantus as invenis (5.1.247), so it would not be
unreasonable to suggest that he remarried after Priscilla s death and
his own demotion.96 At all events, demoted or dismissed, he was
replaced at about the time when Domitian s relationship with his
senior freedmen had deteriorated  in order to convince his
domestici that no one should dare to kill a patron, even on good
grounds, he condemned to death the a libellis Epaphroditus (Dom.
14.4). Epaphroditus had served as a libellis to Nero, took part in
exposing the Pisonian conspiracy in 65 (Ann. 15.55), helped Nero
commit suicide (Dio 63.27.3; Nero 49.3) and was exiled by
Domitian, perhaps c. 93; the date of his death is fixed by Suetonius,
since, in the next section (15.1), he refers to the execution of Flavius
Clemens, ordinary consul in January 95. So Abascantus s demotion
or dismissal may have been part of a wider problem, the
dissatisfaction Domitian felt with his senior freedmen. It was in these
circumstances that he turned to an equestrian ab epistulis.
It would seem that senators and equestrians who had held
administrative posts in Titus s reign were, without exception,
confirmed in their appointments by Domitian. Not so the imperial
freedmen. Titus s domestici were promptly dismissed, as the evidence
indicates clearly; in particular, a much disputed passage of Dio
Cassius can be interpreted as supporting that view.97
Domitian quite outdid himself in visiting disgrace and ruin on
the friends [philoi] of his father and brother,& for he regarded
as his enemy anyone who had enjoyed his father s or his
brother s affection beyond the ordinary or had been
particularly influential. Accordingly, although he himself
entertained a passion for a eunuch named Earinus,
nevertheless, since Titus had also shown a great fondness for
eunuchs, in order to insult his memory, he ordered that no
person in the Roman empire should thereafter be castrated.
(67.2.1 3)
Of all the possible philoi, Dio selected neither a senator (possibly
Agricola98) nor an equestrian (possibly Casperius Aelianus99). He
looked not to amici in a narrow sense, but to a broader group,
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EMPEROR DOMITIAN
members of the imperial court, the domestici in particular, the
eunuchs. Dio, then, may well not have used the word philoi in the
sense of the Latin amici. Moreover, some hundred years before Dio
wrote, Suetonius had already argued that Titus s amici were employed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]