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.