ἱστορίαι Historiai
Suet. Dom. 17 Domitian, Suetonius; served verbatim
Concerning the nature of the plot and the manner of his death, this is about all that became known. As the conspirators were deliberating when and how to attack him, whether at the bath,or at dinner, Stephanus, Domitilla’s% steward, at the time under accusation for embezzlement, offered his aid and counsel. To avoid suspicion, he wrapped up his left arm in woollen bandages for some days, pretending that he had injured it, and concealed in them a dagger. Then pretending to betray a conspiracy and for that reason being given an audience, he stabbed the emperor in the groin as he was reading a paper which the assassin handed him, and stood in a state of amazement. As the wounded prince attempted to resist, he was slain with seven wounds by Clodianus, a subaltern, Maximus, a freedman of Parthenius, Satur, decurion of the chamber- Jains, and a gladiator from the imperial school. A boy who was engaged in his usual duty of attending to the Lares in the bedroom,’ and so was a witness of the murder, gave this additional information. He was bidden by Domitian, immediately after he was dealt the first blow, to hand him the dagger hidden under his pillow and to call the servants ;but he found nothing at the head of the bed save the hilt, and besides all the doors were closed. Meanwhile the emperor grappled with Stephanus and bore him to the ground, where they struggled for a long time, Domitian trying now to wrest the dagger from his assailant’s hands and now to gouge out his eyes with his lacerated fingers. He was slain on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of October in the forty-fifth year of his age and the fifteenth of his reign. His corpse was carried out on a common bier by those who bury the poor, and his nurse Phyllis cremated it at her suburban estate on the Via Latina; but his ashes she secretly carried to the temple of the Flavian family and mingled them with those of Julia, daughter of Titus, whom she had also reared.

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

← Suet. Dom. 16 contents Suet. Dom. 18 →

Filed here — the addresses this episode attests; counted by the house’s first pass
Domitian — a candidate entry Domitilla — a candidate entry Julia — a candidate entry

Domitian, Suetonius — translated by J. C. Rolfe, 1913
Apparatus shelf — Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars (J. C. Rolfe translation; Dover republication) · J. C. Rolfe, 1913 (preface dated Philadelphia, April 1913); Dover Publications republication, 2018
license: public-domain (US: the served text is Rolfe's 1913 translation, pre-1930 — verified from the scan's own copyright and preface pages; Dover-era apparatus [2018 arrangement, introductions, endnotes, index, the Lives of Illustrious Men part] is not extracted and not served)