family memorial, or
mausoleum, after the death of his father and brother. Here were
buried, besides Vespasian and Titus, Flavius Sabinus, Julia, daughter
of Titus, and ultimately Domitian himself.

The story of his death is as follows: After murdering his cousin
Flavius Clemens, the Christian prince whose fate I have described in
chapter i., his life became an intolerable burden to him. The fear
that some one would suddenly rise to revenge the innocent blood into
which he had dipped his hands made him tremble every moment for his
life; so much so that he caused the porticos of the imperial palace to
be encrusted with Phengite marble, in the brilliant surface of which
he could see the reflection of his followers and attendants, and could
watch their proceedings even if they were at quite a distance behind
him. For several weeks he was frightened by thunderbolts. Once the
Capitol was struck, next the family tomb on the Quirinal, which he had
officially styled Templum Flaviae Gentis; and another time the imperial
palace and even his own bedroom. He was heard to mutter to himself in
despair, "Let them strike: who cares?" On another occasion a furious
cyclone wrenched the dedicatory tablet from the pedestal of his
equestrian statue in the Forum. He also dreamed that Minerva, the
protecting divinity of his happier days, had suddenly disappeared from
his private chapel. What frightened him most, however, was the fate of
Askletarion the fortune-teller. Having asked what sort of death
Askletarion expected, the answer was: "I shall very soon be torn to
pieces by dogs." To persuade himself and his friends that these
predictions deserved no credit, Domitian, who had just received a very
sad warning from the oracle of the Fortuna Praenestina, caused the
necromancer to be killed at once, and his remains to be enclosed in a
well-guarded tomb. But while the cremation was in progress, a
hurricane swept the _ustrinum_, and frightened away the attendants, so
that the half-charred remains did fall a prey to the dogs. The story
was related to the emperor that very evening while he was at supper.

The details of the assassination, which took place a few days later,
on September 18, A. D. 96, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the
fifteenth of his reign, are not well known, because, with the
exception of the four murderers, the deed was witnessed only by a
little boy, to whom Domitian had given the care of the images of the
gods in the