Earinus

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Earinus was a slave and freedman of the Roman emperor Domitian (* 51 AD; † after 96 AD; reigned 81–96 AD), whom he served as cupbearer and pleasure boy ( puer delicatus ). After his release by the emperor, he took - like all Roman freedmen - his gentile name : Flavius ​​Earinus.

Earinus (from Greek Έαρινός = belonging to spring) probably came from Pergamon in the province of Asia ( Publius Papinius Statius ). Since he must have been a teenager around AD 94/95, he cannot have been born before AD 75/76. He came as a slave to Domitian's court because of his extraordinary beauty. It was only in Italy that he was castrated (according to Statius), probably to preserve his beauty and youthfulness for as long as possible. He was probably only since 94/95 AD, d. H. only in service as cupbearer and favorite slave of the emperor in the last years of the emperor's reign. Domitian's relationship with Earinus was probably the background of a law of Domitian that forbade castration in the Roman Empire. The poets Martial (40 - 103/104 AD) and Statius (40 - 96 AD) each dedicated several panegyric and epigrammatic poems to him and his love affair with Domitian. Nothing is known about his further fate after Domitian's murder in September 96 AD.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The information about Earinus comes almost exclusively from the poems of Statius and Martial
  2. ↑ C. Suetonius Tranquillus, De vita Caesarum, Domitian 7
  3. ↑ Statius, Silvae, 3.4 Capilli Flavi Earini Martial, Epigrammata, IX, 11-17, 36

literature

  • C. Henriksén: Earinus: An Imperial Eunuch in the Light of the Poems of Martial and Statius. In: Mnemosyne, vol. 50, no. 3, 1997: pp. 281-294. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4432726. JSTOR Accessed Apr 20, 2020.
  • Sven Lorenz: Eroticism and Panegyric: Martial's epigrammatic emperors. [Classica Monacensia: Münchener Studien zur Klassischen Philologie, Vol. 23] ISSN  0941-4274 Gunter Narr Verlag 2002. P. 191 ISBN 3-8233-4882-5 , 9783823348825

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Earinus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Flavius ​​Earinus Earinus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION ancient slave to Emperor Domitian
DATE OF BIRTH after 75
DATE OF DEATH after 96