Death of Titus; Accession of Domitian

Titus’ reign had been brief but loud—Vesuvius, a great fire, the opening of the amphitheater. In AD 81, he died, and the question the Flavians had posed since 69 returned: could dynasty defeat crisis by continuity? The answer arrived in hours. Domitian, the younger brother, took the purple with Senate recognition and Praetorian support. No barricades on the Forum. No running battles on the Capitoline [22].

The orderliness was not accidental. The magistracies granted in 69 had prepared Romans to see Flavian succession as a serial office, not a scramble. The Lex de imperio doctrine—powers as a listed toolkit—made it easier to seat a new craftsman at the bench. In the Curia, voices counted votes; on the Palatine, servants changed titulature on seals and standards [2][9].

Domitian’s first moves were continuities. He paid attention to frontiers, to coinage, to the city’s fabric. But observers, then and later, heard a new timbre—more centralizing, less collegial. Where Titus was generous in disasters, Domitian would be systematic in administration. The purple’s color did not change; the cut of the garment did.

Rome’s landmarks watched another transition without a battle. The Arch of Titus, soon to be finished near the Forum, would commemorate the brother now gone, even as the Colosseum received additions under Domitian’s hand. The Palatine’s building sites stirred; architect Rabirius would find in this emperor a patron for palatial geometry.

The immediate consequence was calm. The longer one would be policy. Domitian’s Germany and Dacia, his censorship for life, his crackdown on dissent—these were acts made possible by a succession that asked for no blood down the steps of the Temple of Jupiter. The city’s memory of 69 made 81 look like progress [22][15].