In the epitome of the sixty-eighth book of Cassius Dio (i. 2), we read that this measure of Nerva was one of general amnesty for the specific crime of “impiety,” or ἀσέβεια: “Nerva ordered the acquittal of those on trial for impiety, and recalled those exiled for that crime.... He permitted no one to bring charges of impiety or of Jewish method of living.”
Unfortunately this passage is extant only in the epitome made of this book by Xiphilinus, a Byzantine monk of the eleventh century. We have no means of knowing to what extent the epitomator is stating the impression he received from his reading, largely colored by his time and personality, and to what extent he is stating the actual substance of the book. If there really was in Rome an indictable offense which consisted in adopting Jewish customs as distinguished from the general charge of impiety, such an offense does not appear elsewhere in our records. We must remember that there is no indication that the men freed by Nerva had been suffering under the despotic caprice of Domitian, but on the contrary there is the specific statement that they were being duly prosecuted under recognized forms.
It is highly likely that the two accusations which Xiphilinus gives are really one: that Nerva discouraged prosecutions for impiety, and that among the instances of men acquitted, which Dio gave, were some who were converts to Judaism, or believed to be so. In one instance, a constantly cited one, that is precisely what is the case, and that is the condemnation, in the last year of Domitian’s reign, of Flavius Clemens and Flavia Domitilla, both of them kinsmen of the emperor.[363]
In the case of these, we hear that Clemens was executed for “atheism,” and that under this charge many others who had lapsed into the customs of the Jews were condemned, some of them to death, others to loss of their property, Domitilla to exile.
In Suetonius we have a wholly different version (Dom. 15). Flavius Clemens, we read, was a man _contemptissimae inertiae_, “of thoroughly contemptible weakness of character,” but enjoying till the very last year of Domitian’s life the latter’s especial favor. Clemens’ two children were even designated for the succession. The emperor was, during this year, a prey to insane suspicions, which amounted to a real _mania persecutoria_, and on a sudden fit had Clemens executed. The context and general tone of the passage suggest that the charge, real or trumped up, against Clemens was one of treason, not impiety.
