Incitatus Dio (155-235 AD) indicated that the horse was attended to by servants and was fed oats mixed with gold flake, and that Caligula made the horse a priest. The accuracy of the received history is generally questioned. Historians such as Anthony A. Barrett suggest that later Roman chroniclers such as Suetonius and Dio Cassius were influenced by the political situation of their own times, when it may have been useful to the current emperors to discredit the earlier Julio-Claudian emperors. Also, the lurid nature of the story added spice to their narratives, winning them additional readers. One suggestion is that
Roman Emperor (Principate) A relatively short-lived dynasty of 30 years, the Flavians confirmed the use of "Caesar" to confirm the hereditary nature of the Imperial dignity (Vespasian gave both his sons this rank, and is said to have informed the Senate that one of his sons would succeed him or no one would). Domitian made himself extremely unpopular by his autocratic manner, which was a departure from the traditional fiction that the Emperor was merely first among equals ("primus inter pares"). Vespasian's wife Flavia Domitilla bore him a daughter (Flavia Domitilla) and two sons (Titus and Domitian). The Nervan-Antonine dynasty was a largely