Emperor of [the] Romans, brother of Titus, whose successor he became. He emulated not his father's or his brother's habit of good government, but, on the contrary, the appetite for iniquity of Tiberius and Nero. He canvassed every form of evil, and having had his fill of murder, woman-craziness and even man-craziness he, though godless, finally made himself into a god. Then that wretched man, having proved himself to be hateful to all, and despised on account of his murderous nature and the beastliness of his polluted mind, quite appropriately brought upon himself the rewards of his own malevolence, and brought an end to his depraved and obscene life with the most shameful of fates.[1]
This man, under the influence of some demonic bewitchment, grew spiteful of his brother and did away with him by poison, out of his passion for power. And although the affairs of the Romans were in a wretched state, he did not curtail any of his forms or pursuits of savagery, greed, murderous activity or anything else, along with his lack of self control and discipline as regards matters of the body. He also exiled Nerva on the charge that he was plotting to obtain the principate, and he arrested Apollonius of Tyana as a friend of Nerva and had him shorn and brought into court in fetters. And when the philosopher did not relent in his ridicule of the things that had happened on account of him and in his criticism of the things that had been done, out of shame he ordered him taken away. It was then, they say, that Apollonius uttered that famous remark -- "You will not kill me, since, I assure you, I am not mortal" -- and thereupon immediately disappeared.[2]
This man banished even the philosophers and the mathematicians from Rome. In his reign also John the Evangelist was exiled to Patmos. And he ordered those from the family of David to be executed, and many Christians were martyred under him. Nerva released John the Theologian from exile. Hadrian, who was a restorer in many respects, also installed a king over the Lazoi or Kolchoi.[3] But it was ill-advised when he withdrew from Mesopotamia (which had been annexed by the Romans under Trajan) at the request of the Persians, making the Euphrates the border of the empire.[4]
This man [Domitian], being universally hated on account of his murderousness and beastliness, was assassinated at the hands of members of his household who had conspired against him. They arranged to send in Stephanos the freedman with a dagger; and he fell upon Domitian while he was sleeping in the middle of the day and struck him, not, in fact, at the right time, but when he had already leapt up from bed.[5]