Very Dry
There aren't very many biographies of the emperor Domitian (reigned 81-96), so you have to take what can get. The good: This is reasonably up-to-date (the author mentions that the last previous biography had been published almost a hundred years ago) and informative. The bad: But it's very, very dry. It focuses narrowly on the textual evidence concerning the politics of Domitian's reign, and there's nothing on the social/artistic/literary context. So Martial, Statius, Pliny, and other Silver Age authors are only mentioned in passing for whatever biographical snippets they can provide.
I can't recommend reading this for pleasure: you have to be really interested in the details of Roman history to appreciate this. I'm wondering if I should have read Pat Southern's "Domitian: Tragic Tyrant," one of the few other recent biographies, instead.
