Undamning Domitian? Reassessing the Last Flavian princeps: Introduction

Abstract

Abstract This introductory chapter contextualizes the contributions of the various articles and their interdiscursive approach in combining material culture and literary evidence. It offers an overview of the difficulties of parsing a hostile historiographical tradition on the emperor Domitian, and the ideological as well as chronological fault-lines created by authors who very often straddled the Flavian and post-Flavian periods, turning from enthusiastic support of the emperor to damning critique; the particular challenges to the material evidence posed by Domitian’s damnatio, and the physical as well as literary forms of oblivion that “erased” the last Flavian emperor; the gaps, absences, revisions, and overwritings that complicate accurate understanding of Domitian’s character, achievements, and historical record.