The Emperor Who Built a Palace of Mirrors

Nearly two thousand years ago, the emperor Domitian lined the corridors of his palace with polished stone, so that he could see who walked behind him. Astrologers had told him the day and the hour of his death. This is the story of that day. On the way: a king in Sicily who let nobody near his throat with a blade, and the dinner where he hung a sword over a guest on one hair. 0:00 The mirrors 1:34 A king in Sicily 3:21 The sword on one hair 4:37 Two ways to be safe 5:37 A kind word from the emperor 6:49 The astrologer and the dogs 7:40 The day 8:25 "It is the sixth hour" 9:59 Who they were 10:35 The old nurse What the video leaves out, and what is a picture and not a record: Almost everything here comes from one writer, Suetonius, who wrote after the emperor's death. The sayings of Domitian are his reports, in a plain modern form. They are not exact words. The story of the sword comes from Cicero, who wrote centuries after the king. Nobody can prove that the dinner happened. The old writers do not agree on how the king, Dionysius, died. The man who struck first, Stephanus, was the steward of the emperor's niece. The video does not name him or the other men. "The fifth hour" is a Roman hour. In September it is between about ten and eleven in the morning. The mirror wall in the video is a drawing of an idea. The source says that he lined the walls of the colonnades where he walked with a stone that showed what went on behind him. The figures are simple drawings. They are not likenesses of real people. Sources: Suetonius, "The Life of Domitian" (The Lives of the Twelve Caesars), translated by J. C. Rolfe, chapters 3, 11, 14 to 17 and 21 Cicero, "Tusculan Disputations", book 5, sections 57 to 62 Plutarch, "Life of Dion", chapter 9