Chapter V: LI
I know the comic-to-comic story line is still wobbling a bit. But (as I keep saying hopefully) it’s coalescing.
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I know the comic-to-comic story line is still wobbling a bit. But (as I keep saying hopefully) it’s coalescing.
Hehehe. I think Domitian is a little vexed with Mus and Domitia.
Domitian and company are going to Rome, leaving Mus alone (except for a horde of minions) in Alba? Might not be a good idea.
Domitian will not leave his pet alone. He was leaving Mus with his wife. If his wife is going to Rome, Mus is going with them too.
From what we know of her (which isn’t much, really) Domitia was no slacker. Her family was fairly prominent in senatorial circles and Domitian seems to have valued her; he resisted his father’s push to match him up with Julia. Taking her along seems like a good idea if the issue is political (and with Flavians, what isn’t..?)
I have to wonder if we’re not coming up on the events of the great fire of 79, tho? Supposed to have followed fairly quickly on the eruption and was bad enough to have pretty fully occupied Titus up until his death. THAT would be a plot point…
I did learn a few new things about drawing conflagrations while burning Herculaneum. But, Rome, now, that’s the big leagues.
But how fair would it be to pluck our cast from one fire and drop them into another? (Hint: history is not fair…)
Agreed; I’m ridiculously fond of Felix and Iusta and Mus (and even the cat) given that they’re just ink on paper. It’d suck for them to being dropped out of the frying-volcano into the fire, so to speak.
I guess my hope is that the accounts of Cassius Dio were correct and than most of the damage of the 80AD fire was to public buildings; he says that many of the insulae were spared, unlike “Nero’s Fire” of 64.
Of course, Suetonius claims that plague ALSO erupted either because of, or around the time of, the fire…
No wonder the SPQR had the blues as often as not…
Holy Moly! I hadn’t given the least consideration of the Big Fire (one normally thinks of the Nero Fire as the one and only) You are one cruel creator!
I rather like the “domestic” scenes with Domitian interacting with Domitia, where he’s a little closer to normal and not showing as much of the crazed autocrat. And about Titus wanting Domitian to marry his daughter Julia… I understand about wanting an heir, but how would that work with Domitian already married to Domitia? Would he be pressured to divorce her? Did Roman law allow more than one wife? Would Julia, if legally married to Domitian, now be called Domitia, and if that happened, what would the current Domitia be called? Inquiring minds want to know.
If Titus wants to pair his daughter Julia and Domitian, Domitian will have to divorce the wife who’s currently in the way. In fact, Domitia had to divorce a husband to marry Domitian, when they were teens, so these would be familiar shenanigans to all of them.
Domitian’s fist wife was already a Domitia by birth–her parents were Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo (a renowned general who ran afoul of Nero) and Cassia Longina–before marrying our pal Titus Flavius Domitianus.
A married woman–in this case, if Julia Flavia married Domitian–could take on a form of her husband’s name or append “of the [husband’s family]”; or (especially seeing as Julia and Domitian are literally the same family) keep her own name plus add some honorifics from imperial rank. Domitia would remain Domitia Longina. But probably not very happy if she gets displaced for a younger, presumably more fertile model.
I should also add that there’s a precedent for an imperial uncle marrying a niece, set by the Emperor Claudius and his niece Agrippina the Younger (sister of Caligula and mother of Nero through her first husband, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was the grandson of Marcus Antonius…it’s all a convoluted web). That whole marrying-his-niece situation did not go well at all, though.