the Capitoline Temple, and the celebration of public
festivals, forced him to augment the taxes and this produced discontent in
the provinces. In Rome, particularly after the revolt of Saturninus, his
relations with the Senate became more and more strained. Many prominent
senators were executed on charges of treason; the teachers of philosophy
were again banished from Italy; and notable converts to Judaism or
Christianity were prosecuted, the latter on the ground of atheism. The
general feeling of insecurity produced the inevitable result; a plot in
which the praetorian prefects and his wife Domitia were concerned was
formed against his life; he was assassinated, 18 September, 96 A. D. His
memory was cursed by the Senate and his name erased from public monuments.
It was the oppression of the last years of Domitian's rule that so
strongly biased the attitude of Tacitus towards the principate and its
founder.

CHAPTER XVIII

FROM NERVA TO DIOCLETIAN: 96-285 A. D.

I. NERVA AND TRAJAN, 96-117 A. D.

*Nerva and the Senate.* Before assassinating Domitian, the conspirators
had secured a successor who would be supported by the Senate and not prove
inacceptable to the pretorians. Their choice was the elderly senator
Marcus Cocceius Nerva, one of a family distinguished for its juristic
attainments. He took an oath never to put a senator to death, recalled the
philosophers and political exiles, and permitted the prosecution of
informers. But he was lacking in force and did not feel his position
sufficiently secure to refuse the demands of the praetorian guard for
vengeance upon the murderers of Domitian. Therefore to strengthen his
authority he adopted a tried soldier, Marcus Ulpius Traianus, the legate
of Upper Germany. Trajan received the tribunician authority and
proconsular _imperium_ (97 A. D.).

*The alimenta.* Nerva's administration benefitted Italy in particular. Not
only were the taxes and other obligations of the Italians lessened, but
the so-called alimentary system was devised in the interests of poor
farmers and the children of poor parents. Under this system of state
charity, sums of money were lent to poor landholders at low rates of
interest on the security of their land. The interest from these loans was
paid over to their respective municipalities and expended by them in
supporting the pauper children. The scheme was perfected