Domitian, Minerva, and Morality

The frieze encircling the forum.

The worship of Minerva is prominent in the Forum of Domitian (read more). As Eve d’Ambra explains, Minerva was Domitian’s favorite deity; Domitian’s rule followed that of two other Flavians, and he needed a strong claim to a dynastic right to rule.¹ The patronage of Minerva provided that claim, with her role as part of the Capitoline triad², the origin of her cult in the Sabine region³, and her association with the palladium⁴.⁵

The advantages of Minerva’s favor are heavily stressed on what survives of the forum's frieze, which projects over the Colonacce. The frieze depicts women performing female household tasks such as spinning and weaving associated with the goddess, including the climax of the myth of Arachne.⁶ The choice in subject matter was unusual; Adriano la Regina notes that iconography of matronly virtues was normally reserved for private spheres⁷, and d’Ambra mentions that the fora of Julius Caesar, Trajan, and Augustus tend towards imagery of military triumph and imperial dominion. However, the choice reflects Domitian’s programs of moral and religious reform, which stressed Augustan themes of piety, marriage legislation, cultural renewal, and the mores maiorum⁸. Martial himself names Domitian as the reason Rome is chaste⁹. And the downfall of Arachne serves as an exemplum impietatis, an example of impiety, of the dangers of arrogance against the gods.

1. His father Vespasian (69-79 CE), and his brother Titus (79-81 CE).

2. Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the three gods worshipped at the Temple of Jupiter in the Capitoline Hill.

3. A region in Italy that was home to the Flavians, Domitian’s family line.

4. In Roman lore, a wooden image of Minerva that the hero Aeneas took from the burning Troy and brought with him to Italy to found Rome. It became a symbol associated with the transmission of power and the eternity of Rome.

5. d'Ambra, Eve. Private Lives, Imperial Virtues. Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 1993.

6. Arachne was a mortal woman who boasted that she could out-weave even Minerva, goddess of weaving. Minerva challenged her to a contest, in which Minerva wove the twelve Olympians in splendor and the outcome of the conflict between Minerva and Neptune for control of Athens, while Arachne depicted the gods undergoing transformation to deceive the lovers they pursued. Enraged by Arachne’s skill and her irreverent subject, Minerva turned her into a spider.

7. La Regina, Adriano, ed. Roman Forum, Palatine, Capitol and the Capitoline Museums, Imperial Forums, Coliseum, Domus Aurea. Vol. I of Archaeological Guide to Rome. Milan, Italy: Ministero per i Beni le Attivita Culturali Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma, 2004.

8. customs of the ancestors; traditions

9. Mart. Epig. 6.4.1