The inner secret of that sombre reign will probably remain for ever a mystery. There is the same question about Domitian as there is about Tiberius. Was he bad from the beginning, or was he gradually corrupted by the consciousness of immense power,(308) and the fear of the great order who might challenge it? Our authorities do not furnish a satisfying answer. We know Domitian only from the narrative of men steeped in senatorial traditions and prejudices,(309) and, some of them, intoxicated by the vision of a reconciliation of the principate with the republican ideals. The dream was a noble one, and it was about to be partially realised for three generations, under a succession of good emperors. But the men inspired with such an ideal were not likely to be impartial judges of an emperor like Domitian. And even from their narrative of his reign, we can see that he was not, at least in the early years of his reign,(310) the utter monster he has been painted. Even severe judges in modern days admit that he was an able and strenuous man, with a clear, cold, cynical intellect,(311) which recognised some of the great problems of the time, and strove to solve them. He was indefatigable in judicial work.(312) In spite of the sneers at his mock triumphs,(313) his military and provincial administration was probably guided by a sound conception of the resources and the dangers of the Empire. His recall of Agricola, after a seven years’ command in Britain, was attributed to jealousy and fear.(314) It is more probable that it was dictated by a wish to stop a campaign which was diverting large sums to the conquest of barren mountains. Domitian was an orator and verse writer of some merit, and he gave his patronage, although not in a very liberal way, to men like Quintilian, Statius, and Martial.(315) Like Nero, he felt the force of the new Hellenist movement, and, under forms sanctioned by Roman antiquarians, he established a quinquennial festival in which literary genius was pompously rewarded.(316) He had the public libraries, which had been devastated by fires in the previous reigns, liberally restocked with fresh stores of MSS. from Alexandria.(317) He gave close attention, whatever we may think of his science, to the economic problems of the Empire. And his discouragement of the vine, in favour of a greater acreage of corn, would find sympathy in our own time, as it was applauded by Apollonius of Tyana.(318) The man who decimated the Roman aristocracy towards the end of his reign, advanced to high positions some of those who were destined to be his bitterest defamers. Pliny and Tacitus and Trajan’s father rose to high office in the earlier part of Domitian’s reign.(319) He designated to the consulship such men as Nerva, Trajan, Verginius Rufus, Agricola, and the grandfather of Antoninus Pius.(320) This strange character was also a moral reformer of the antiquarian type. He punished erring Vestals, _more majorum_.