c. AD 120

Suet. Dom. 22

The Life of Domitian Chapter 22

Author
Suetonius
Translator
J. C. Rolfe

The Life of Domitian

Chapter 22

Suetonius

translated by J. C. Rolfe

22He was excessively lustful. His constant sexual intercourse he called bed-wrestling, as if it were a kind of exercise. It was reported that he depilated his concubines with his own hand and swam with common prostitutes. After persistently refusing his niece, who was offered him in marriage when she was still a maid, because he was entangled in an intrigue with Domitia, he seduced her shortly afterwards when she became the wife of another, and that too during the lifetime of Titus. Later, when she was bereft of father and husband, he loved her ardently and without disguise, and even became the cause of her death by compelling her to get rid of a child of his by abortion.