Denarius - Domitian IMP XXII COS XVI CENS P P P, Minerva

Domitian held the office of censor perpetuus — censor in perpetuity — from 85 AD onward, an appointment with no republican precedent that effectively allowed him to control senatorial membership indefinitely. The COS XVI and IMP XXII dating places this issue within his final years of rule, a period when Suetonius and Pliny the Younger both record an atmosphere of intense suspicion at court. He was assassinated in September 96 AD. The Senate's damnatio memoriae that followed was thorough enough that his name was chiseled from public inscriptions across the empire.