Flavia Domitilla was a Roman noblewoman of the 1st century AD. She was a granddaughter of Emperor Vespasian and a niece of Emperors Titus and Domitian. She married her second cousin, the consul Titus Flavius Clemens, a grand-nephew of Vespasian through his father Titus Flavius Sabinus.
There is disagreement about whether the Flavia Domitilla mentioned in certain fourth-century and later Christian writings is the same person or another.
Biography Early life Flavia Domitilla was the daughter of Domitilla the Younger by an unknown father, perhaps Quintus Petillius Cerialis, with whom her mother had two sons.
Marriage and children A contemporary inscription indicates that Flavia Domitilla and her husband Titus Flavius Clemens had seven children,John Granger Cook, Roman Attitudes Toward the Christians: From Claudius to Hadrian (Mohr Siebeck 2011, pp. 128–129) who were thus grandnephews and grandnieces of Domitian. Suetonius, who was born in 69 and thus a contemporary, states that Domitian designated as the emperor's successors two very young sons of Flavius Clemens, and changed their names to Domitian and Vespasian.Suetonius, Life of Domitian, 15; English translation Quintilian (c. 35 – c. 100) mentions that Domitian had entrusted to him the tutelage of two grandsons of Domitian's sister, presumably the two boys designated by the emperor as his successors.Quintilian, "Institutio Oratoria", Book 4, Introduction, 2; English translation
Mommsen also claimed that she had a daughter also named Flavia Domitilla who married Titus Flavius OnesimusSee Mommsen's stema here but later retracted this theory.
Banishment Suetonius writes: "Finally he put to death his own cousin Flavius Clemens, suddenly and on a very slight suspicion, almost before the end of his consulship; and yet Flavius was a man of most contemptible laziness and Domitian had besides openly named his sons, who were then very young, as his successors, changing their former names and calling the one Vespasian and the other Domitian. And it was by this deed in particular that he hastened his own destruction." Cassius Dio (c. 155–235) reports in his Roman History: "Domitian slew, along with many others, Flavius Clemens the consul, although he was a cousin and married to Flavia Domitilla, who was also a relative of the emperor's. The charge brought against them both was that of sacrilege or godlessness (Ancient Greek ἀθεότης), a charge on which many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned. Some of these were put to death, and the rest were at least deprived of their property. Domitilla was merely banished to Pandateria."Epitome of Cassius Dio, Book 67, chapter 14; Original text
Suetonius says that one of those involved in the assassination of Domitian on 18 September 96 was Domitilla's steward Stephanus.
Religious traditions Jewish Some scholars connect Domitilla with a character in Jewish tradition, a Roman matron in the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 10b) and Deuteronomy Rabbah 2.25. When the emperor had decreed that in 30 days the Senate would confirm an edict to kill all Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire, the Roman matron convinced her husband to stand up for the Jews. In that tradition, Flavius Clemens converted to Judaism after having contact with the great sage Rabbi Akiva.
Christian
Both the Greek Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church celebrate a Flavia Domitilla as a saint.
The Greek Orthodox Church celebrates Saint Flavia Domitilla on 12 May and a publication of the Apostolic Service of the Church of Greece states that she lived in Rome in the first century, that she was the wife of the Roman official Titus Flavius Clemens and a daughter of Emperor Domitian's sister, and that she died a martyr for refusing to sacrifice to idols. Ἡ Ἁγία Δομιτίλλα ἡ Μάρτυς . 12 Μαΐου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ. This description identifies her with the Flavia Domitilla described above.
The identity of the saint honoured in the Catholic Church, whose feast is now on 7 May, is less clear.
Catholic
In his Church History, written at the end of 323 or 324, Eusebius, speaking of "writers who were far from our religion", says that "they recorded that in the fifteenth year of Domitian Flavia Domitilla, daughter of a sister of Flavius Clement, who at that time was one of the consuls of Rome, was exiled with many others to the island of Pontia in consequence of testimony borne to Christ."Eusebius, Church History, III, 18; English translation
In his Chronicon, which survives in a translation by Jerome (c. 340–420), Eusebius quotes an earlier writer who gives similar information. Under Year 16 of Domitian in the 218th Olympiad (96 AD, the year of Domitian's assassination), he states: "Brutius writes that there were very many Christian martyrs under Domitian, among whom were Flavia Domitilla, niece (on his sister's side) of Flavius Clemens the consul; she was exiled to the island of Pontia, because she bore witness that she was a Christian."Latin text; English version, which mistranslates ex sorore neptem as "granddaughter of the sister" instead of "niece on his sister's side", making this Flavia Domitilla a grandniece, not a niece of the consul.
The identity and religion of this Brutius or Bruttius are uncertain.T.J. Cornell, The Fragments of the Roman Historians, Oxford University Press 2013, vol. 1, pp. 593–595
George Syncellus, who died after 810, repeats the statement by Eusebius in his Chronicon and adds that Flavius Clemens died for Christ. He is the first to speak of this first-century Roman consul as a Christian.Peter Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (A&C Black 2006, p. 200 ) In quoting Eusebius, Syncellus describes Domitilla as Clement's ἐξαδελφή (exadelphe), a term that can mean "cousin" and not only, as Jerome understood it, "niece".John Granger Cook, Roman Attitudes Toward the Christians: From Claudius to Hadrian (Mohr Siebeck 2011, p. 130 )
Writing of the death in 404 of Saint Paula, Jerome says that on her way to the Holy Land, "the vessel touched at the island of Pontia ennobled long since as the place of exile of the illustrious lady Flavia Domitilla who under the Emperor Domitian was banished because she confessed herself a Christian; and Paula, when she saw the cells in which this lady passed the period of her long martyrdom, taking to herself the wings of faith, more than ever desired to see Jerusalem and the holy places".Jerome, Letter 108, 7; English translation
One person or two? The information that Eusebius attributes to Brutius about Flavia Domitilla does not agree with what Cassius Dio says of the Flavia Domitilla exiled by Domitian. The Domitilla of Cassius Dio was the wife of Flavius Clemens and was exiled to the island of Pandateria in the context of persons who "drifted into Jewish ways". The Domitilla of Eusebius was the niece of Flavius Clemens and was banished to the island of Pontia for declaring herself a Christian.
The Acts of Saints Nereus and Achilleus, a legend of no historical value composed in the fifth or sixth century, begins by stating that Domitilla was Domitian's niece,Edition by Surius but then goes on the speak of her as the consul's niece.Edition by Achelis of the Greek text, p. 8, l. 12 – p. 9, l. 18 Furthermore, it presents Domitilla, not as a wife and mother of seven children but as a formally consecrated Christian virgin, a description absent also from the writings of Eusebius and Jerome.
Some modern scholars posit the existence of two distinct victims of Domitian, each called Flavia Domitilla, both belonging to the same senatorial family.Andrew Cain, Jerome's Epitaph on Paula: A Commentary on the Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae with an Introduction, Text, and Translation (Oxford University Press 2013, p. 196 ) The first to propound this view was Caesar Baronius:John Granger Cook, Roman Attitudes Toward the Christians: From Claudius to Hadrian (Mohr Siebeck 2011, p. 129 )Brian Jones, The Emperor Domitian (Routledge 2002, p. 116 ) no ancient author speaks of two and Suetonius was able to speak of Stephanus, the assassin of Domitian, simply as "the steward of Domitilla" without having to indicate which Domitilla he served.Leo H. Canfield, The Early Persecutions of the Christians (reprint: The Lawbook Exchange 2005 ), pp. 82–83]
Others consider it more likely that Domitian banished only one Flavia Domitilla and that there are errors in the texts of either Cassius Dio or Eusebius or of both.John Granger Cook, Roman Attitudes Toward the Christians: From Claudius to Hadrian (Mohr Siebeck 2011, p. 130 )Cilliers Breytenbach, Laurence L. Welborn, Encounters with Hellenism (BRILL 2004, p. 208 ) They instance the possibility of confusion between the geographically close islands of Pontia and Pandateria.Stephen Spence, The Parting of the Ways: The Roman Church as a Case Study (Peeters 2004, p. 167 )Peter Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (A&C Black 2006, p. 200 )
Liturgy Flavia Domitilla is for the first time included in a list of saints in the ninth-century martyrology of Florus of Lyon, in which there is in her regard a long entry based on the Acts of Nobles Nereus and Achilleus and which puts her feast on 7 May, perhaps because the Martyrologium Hieronymianum had on that date a mention of a Saint Flavius.Jean Éracle, Une grande dame de l'ancienne Rome: Flavia Domitilla, petite fille de Vespasien in Échos de Saint-Maurice, 1964, vol. 62, p. 130 The same martyrology mentions her also on 12 May, the feast of Saints Nereus and Achilleus, saying (again on the basis of these Acts) that these were her eunuchs.Quentin (1908), p. 362 The martyrology of Ado of Vienne, in the same century, did the same, but more briefly.Martyrologe d'Adon, 18 verso e 19 recto The ninth-century Martyrology of Usuard copied that of Ado and was in turn copied by the Roman Martyrology of Caesar Baronius, who gave credence to the legendary Acts of Saints Nereus and AchilleusTina Saji, Christian Social Reformers (Mittal 2005, p. 41 ) and in 1595 succeeded in having Domitilla's name added in the General Roman Calendar to those of Nereus and Achilleus on their feast, 12 May.
Until the Roman Martyrology was completely revised in 2001, it had the following entry under 7 May: "At Terracina, in Campania, the birthday of blessed Flavia Domitilla, virgin and martyr, niece of the Consul Flavius Clemens. She received the religious veil at the hands of St Clement, and in the persecution of Domitian was exiled with many others to the island of Pontia, where she endured a long martyrdom for Christ. Taken afterwards to Terracina, she converted many to the faith of Christ by her teaching and miracles. The judge ordered the chamber in which she was, with the virgins Euphrosina and Theodora, to be set on fire, and she thus consummated her glorious martyrdom. She is also mentioned with the holy martyrs Nereus and Achilleus, on the 12th of this month."Martyrologium Romanum 1585, p. 192; English translation, Baltimore 1916, pp. 130–131