The great eruption of Vesuvius, in which Pliny the naturalist lost his life, (see PLINY,) happened in Ti tus's reign ; and about the same time a fire raged in Rome for three days, and was followed by a pestilence which carried off 10,000 men in one day. This dis aster, which the emperor did all in his power to re pair, was followed by the victories of Agricola in Bri tain, which we have already detailed in that article.
In consequence of a violent attack of fever near Rome, Titus was carried off in the forty-first year of his age, and the third of his reign. He was succeed ed by his brother Domitian, who was suspected of having administered poison.
Domitian began his reign with the character of a liberal, just, and humane prince. He refused legacies that had been left him because the testator had chil dren of his own. He sat whole days in revising the sentences of the ordinary judges; and he detested cru elty so much that he forbade the sacrifice of oxen. He furnished the libraries which were burnt with new books, and even sent persons to Alexandria to trans cribe MSS. that had been lost. These fair promises, however, were soon blighted. his mind became en grossed with the pursuits of archery and gaming, and his principal ambition was in entertaining the public with extensive exhibitions, and presiding in- ostenta tious pomp, for the purpose of distributing rewards. His solitary hours were spent in killing flies, and stab bing them with a bodkin; and when one of his ser vants, Vibius, was asked if the emperor was disen gaged, he is said to have replied, that he was not even occupied with a fly. His next passion seems to have been for a military reputation, which led him to envy the glory of his generals. The success of Agricola in Britain in overcoming Galgacus, and determining the insular nature of the country, and in discovering and subjugating the Orkneys, particularly called forth his envy. He recalled him to Italy, under the pretence of appointing him to the government of Syria ; but upon his return, he was received with coolness, and having sometime afterwards been taken ill in retire ment, where he died, Domitian was suspected of hav ing hastened his death. In order to make himself a great general, the emperor marched into Gaul on a pretended expedition against the Catti, but though he never saw an enemy, he took to himself the honour of a triumph, and entered the capital at the head of a number of slaves whom he had decked in the habili ments of Germans.
In this condition of the empire, the Sarmatians, aided by several Asiatic tribes, made a formidable irruption into it, and cut off a Roman legion with its general. The Dacians, under the guidance of their king Decebalus, were even more successful and defeat ed the Romans in many engagements. The energies of the state were at last roused, and the barbarians driven back. Domitian, elated with the result, enter ed Rome in triumph a second time, and assumed the name of Germanicus, from having subdued a people whom he never met in the field.
Satiated with military renown, he began now to glut himself with cruelties.* He persecuted the Jews and Christians with unrelenting severity; and his pro fusion and avarice led him to seize the estates of every person against whom he could fabricate the most tri vial charge. A conspiracy was soon formed against him, and he was assassinated, after considerable resis tance, by Stephanus the comptroller of his household, who was himself slain on the spot by some of the offi cers of the guard.
As Domitian, who was the last of the Canars, left no heir to the throne, the senate, dreading the influ ence of the army which had been attached to the late emperor, appointed Coeceius Nerva his successor, on the very day on which Domitian was slain.
Coceeius Nerva was descended of an illustrious fa mily, and was by birth a Spaniard. He obtained the empire at the advanced age of sixty-five years, and having been chosen by the senate solely from their ex perience of his talents and his virtues, no doubt was entertained of his doing honour to his imperial eleva tion. The horrors of the preceding reign induced Nerva to rule his subjects with an excess of clemency and indulgence. When he accepted of the throne, he swore that no Roman senator should be put to death during his reign. He was liberal in his gifts to his friends, and he sold all his gold and silver plate to en able him to continue his generosities. He took off a severe tax upon carriages; he removed the imposts which had been laid on by Vespasian, and he restored the properties which had been seized by Domitian.— Besides making many good laws, he united more than any other sovereign, a system of retrenchment and economy, with acts of well-judged liberality. He al lowed no statues to be erected to himself. He sold all those which had been raised to Domitian, and con verted into money the gaudy robes and luxurious fur niture of the palace.