Epaphroditus was certainly of “Caesar’s household.” As the Roman historian Suetonius recounts, he was Nero’s powerful “Secretary of Letters.” While he may have already been working for the emperor previously, Epaphroditus might have won his exalted position by exposing to Nero the famous “Piso Conspiracy,” as Tacitus reports. (91) This was the same conspiracy prosecution that led to Seneca’s demise. What connections Epaphroditus may have had to Seneca and his circle, perhaps allowing him to become an effective informer against them, is unknown.
Nero
Suetonius informs us that Epaphroditus had a heavy hand in history, indeed. According to Suetonius (92), Epaphroditus helped Nero stab himself in the throat following the outbreak of the Vindex Revolt in Gaul. The ancient historian Cassius Dio echoes this, (93) telling us that Epaphroditus accompanied Nero in his final flight from rebels and that it was he who delivered the fatal blow to Nero’s neck during Nero’s prolonged and reluctant suicide.
The historian Cassius tells us this about the end of Epaphroditus’s own life, many years later:
As a consequence of his cruelty the emperor [Domitian] was suspicious of all mankind, and from now on ceased to repose hopes of safety in either the freedmen or yet the prefects, whom he usually caused to be brought to trial during their very term of office. He had first banished and now slew Epaphroditus, Nero's freedman, accusing him of having failed to defend Nero; for he wished by the vengeance that he took on Nero's behalf to terrify his own freedmen long in advance, so that they should venture no similar deed. (94)
This opens the possibility that Epaphroditus himself may have somehow been involved with the anti-Nero conspirators, although we cannot be completely certain.
Suetonius plainly reports that Domitian executed Epaphroditus because he had helped Nero kill himself. (95) This is interesting because the official Flavian position on Nero was quite negative as the Flavians sought to reassure Rome that they were a new breed of emperor following Nero’s calamitous reign—and also because Domitian’s own enemies accused him of being a “new Nero,” in contrast to his father Vespasian and his much-beloved brother, Titus.
The Flavian emperors who employed Epaphroditus in the same position of “Secretary of Letters” that he had enjoyed under Nero had long known about his role in Nero’s death without it ever being a concern until the latter years of Domitian’s reign. Even if Suetonius correctly reported Domitian’s stated motive, therefore, the charge was a remarkable change in the Flavians’ previous policy.
Suetonius tells us about Epaphroditus’s execution immediately after describing the execution of Titus Flavius Clemens. The two events seem to be connected, chronologically at least, and they suggest that Domitian’s real motive may have been the purging of the “Jewish” elements within the Flavian court that he had inherited from his father and brother.
Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus (Domitian)
This man named Epaphroditus is thus connected to Christians in yet another way. As we have already seen, the “Clemens” who was executed at about the same time with Epaphroditus was the 1st Century pope, St. Clement of Rome, the cousin of Titus and Domitian.
St. Clement of Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican
And Epaphroditus had yet another imperial and “Jewish” connection to the Flavians. In a sort of dedication at the start of his monumental work, Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus praises “Epaphroditus” as his beloved patron who encouraged him to undertake the task of recording the heritage of the Hebrew people.
Josephus describes this “Epaphroditus” as a lover of all kinds of learning with a special love for history, and someone who participated in the “great affairs” of their time. Josephus notes that Epaphroditus experienced different “turns of fortune” as a result of his participation in these great affairs. (96)
Josephus also dedicates his own autobiography to Epaphroditus. (97) And Josephus addresses to Epaphroditus his later work, Against Apion, in which the historian defends the Jewish religion from the slander of the Greek writer Apion. Josephus ends that work with yet another dedication to “Epaphroditus.” (98)
That the Epaphroditus referred to by Paul, Suetonius and Josephus is the same person is a controversial proposition—but there is no credible reason to doubt it and every reason to believe it.
According to Suetonius, the same Epaphroditus must have served emperors from Nero to Domitian. The charge of participating in killing an emperor that he reports as the reason for Epaphroditus’s execution would make utterly no sense if Nero and Domitian had not been served by the same “Epaphroditus.”
Since we know that both Josephus and the Epaphroditus mentioned by Suetonius worked for the Flavian emperors, it is highly probable that Josephus’s Epaphroditus is the same man. In the unlikely event that there had been two men named “Epaphroditus” connected to the same Flavian court, we would expect our sources to distinguish them for us. Furthermore, Josephus mentions that his Epaphroditus had participated in the great events of his time. This can only be the same man who exposed an important conspiracy to Nero and who “helped” that emperor commit suicide, precipitating a tumultuous civil war that was finally pacified by the Flavians.
From Nero to Domitian, this is the one Epaphroditus prominent in public affairs who is remembered in history—the only one mentioned, for example, by the historians Suetonius and Dio to have existed during this period—a prominent Secretary of Letters who served four emperors.
That Paul’s Epaphroditus is the same man Suetonius mentions is suggested by the fact that he was in a unique position to offer Paul assistance in Rome, help of a type that the Philippians apparently could not provide, and help that somehow risked Epaphroditus’s own life. Such help, which arrived after Paul appealed his case to Nero Caesar himself, might uniquely come from the emperor’s own Secretary of Letters. Such an imperial position also explains the otherwise inexplicable references in the same letter to members of “Caesar’s household,” and Paul’s access to the emperor’s own Praetorian Guard.
That Josephus’s Epaphroditus is the same man Paul refers to is suggested by the avid interest in Jewish history Josephus ascribes to him. Paul’s lengthy historical exegeses are not as voluminous as Josephus’s histories, but they are strikingly similar in their pride in Jewish history and their simultaneously pro-Roman outlook. Paul’s focus is theology as revealed in history; Josephus’s focus is history proper. But, in their “moderate” Jewish positions and their interest in Jewish religion and heritage, the work of both Paul and Josephus would have the same appeal to the same man for the same reasons.
Moreover, the life and influence of the Epaphroditus mentioned by Suetonius spans the entire gap between Paul and Josephus, and, indeed, between Nero and the last of the Flavians before he was executed by Domitian.
To be sure, “Epaphroditus” was not an uncommon name in the classical world. We know of multiple individuals named Epaphroditus. Augustus had a servant of this name. We have a famous inscription from the reign of Trajan in the early 2nd Century with the name “Epaphroditus.” We also know of a grammarian from Alexandria named “Mettius Epaphroditus.”
Predictably, scholars once thought that the Epaphroditus mentioned by Paul could not be the same one that is mentioned by Josephus. Their reason is that in both Against Apion and his autobiography, Josephus addresses Epaphroditus as a person still living, while in his autobiography Josephus also mentions the death of the Herodian king, Agrippa II. Since the 9th Century Byzantine writer Photius of Constantinople places the death of Agrippa II in the “third year of Trajan,” or 100 CE, for a long time scholars believed Josephus’s later works could not have been composed until around 100 CE. From this they reasoned that the “Epaphroditus” Josephus mentions could not be the same Epaphroditus executed by the Emperor Domitian in the year 95 CE as reported by Suetonius.