In the year 830 from the founding of the City, Domitian, the brother of Titus and the ninth from Augustus, succeeded his brother in the rule. Over fifteen years he grew, little by little, through every step of crime, until he dared to try to tear up the Church of Christ, by now most firmly established throughout the world, issuing edicts everywhere for a most cruel persecution.
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCXXX Domitianus Titi frater, ab Augusto nonus, fratri successit in regnum. qui per annos XV ad hoc paulatim per omnes scelerum gradus creuit, ut confirmatissimam toto orbe Christi Ecclesiam datis ubique crudelissimae persecutionis edictis conuellere auderet.
He sank into such pride that he ordered himself to be called, written of and worshipped as lord and god. Of the noblest members of the senate, out of envy and for plunder alike, he killed some openly and thrust others into exile, where he ordered them to be slaughtered. In the intemperance of his lust he did whatever can be imagined. He erected a great many buildings in the City after ruining the fortunes of the Roman people.
2 is in tantam superbiam prolapsus fuit, ut dominum sese ac deum uocari scribi colique iusserit. nobilissimos e senatu inuidiae simul ac praedae causa alios palam interfecit, alios in exilium trusit ibique trucidari imperauit. libidinis intemperantia quidquid cogitari potest, fecit. plurimas urbis aedes destructis populi Romani rebus extruxit.
He waged war against the Germans and the Dacians through his legates, with equal ruin to the commonwealth, since in the City he himself was tearing apart the senate and people, while abroad the enemy wore down the badly led army with continual slaughter.
3 bellum aduersum Germanos et Dacos per legatos gessit pari reipublicae pernicie, cum et in urbe ipse senatum populumque laniaret et foris male circumactum exercitum adsidua hostes caede conficerent.
For how great were the battles of Diurpaneus, king of the Dacians, with the general Fuscus, and how great the disasters of the Romans, I would unfold in a long narrative, had not Cornelius Tacitus, who wove this history together most carefully, said that Sallustius Crispus and very many other authors had laid it down that the number of the slain should be passed over in silence, and that he himself had chosen above all to do the same. Domitian, however, puffed up with the most perverse boastfulness, celebrated a triumph over the legions that had been destroyed, under the name of enemies overcome.1
4 nam quanta fuerint Diurpanei Dacorum regis cum Fusco duce proelia quantaeque Romanorum clades, longo textu euoluerem, nisi Cornelius Tacitus, qui hanc historiam diligentissime contexuit, de reticendo interfectorum numero et Sallustium Crispum et alios auctores quamplurimos sanxisse et se ipsum idem potissimum elegisse dixisset. Domitianus tamen prauissima elatus iactantia, sub nomine superatorum hostium de extinctis legionibus triumphauit.
1Diurpaneus (Dorpaneus in Jordanes) is probably the Dacian king whom Cassius Dio calls Duras, who gave up the throne to Decebalus. Cornelius Fuscus, Domitian’s praetorian prefect, fell in Dacia in AD 86.
And he, grown savage with the pride by which he wished to be worshipped as a god, ordered a persecution to be carried out against the Christians — the second from Nero. At this time the most blessed apostle John too was banished to the island of Patmos.2
5 idemque efferatus superbia, qua se deum coli uellet, persecutionem in Christianos agi secundus a Nerone imperauit. quo tempore etiam beatissimus Iohannes apostolus in Patmum insulam relegatus fuit.
2Orosius numbers the persecutions counting Nero’s as the first, so “the second from Nero” is the second in all; his tenth is Diocletian’s (7.25.13).
Among the Jews as well, it was commanded that the race of David be sought out by bitter tortures and the most bloody inquisition and put to death, since the holy prophets were both envied and believed, as though there were still to come from the seed of David one who could obtain the kingdom.
6 inter Iudaeos quoque acerbitate tormentorum et cruentissimae quaestionis exquiri genus Dauid atque interfici praeceptum est, dum prophetis sanctis et inuidetur et creditur, quasi adhuc futurus esset ex semine Dauid, qui regnum possit adipisci.
Soon afterwards, however, Domitian was cruelly killed in the Palace by his own men: his corpse was carried out by the common bearers on a pauper’s bier and buried most ignominiously.
7 continuo tamen Domitianus crudeliter in Palatio a suis interfectus est: cuius cadauer populari sandapila per uespillones exportatum atque ignominiosissime sepultum est.