VESPASIAN

'Imperator Caesar Vespasianus Augustus' (born November 17, 9, died June 23, 79), known originally as 'Titus Flavius Vespasianus' and usually referred to in English as 'Vespasian', was emperor of Rome from 69 to 79. Vespasian was the founder of the short-lived, though influential, Flavian dynasty, being succeeded as emperor by his sons Titus and Domitian. He ascended the throne at the end of the tumultuous Year of the Four Emperors. Vespasian's reign is best known for his reforms following the demise of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, the campaign against Judaea, and for starting the construction of the Colosseum.

Contents

Family and early career

Invasion of Britannia

Continued political career

Great Jewish Revolt

Year of Four Emperors

Vespasian as emperor

Views on Vespasian

In later literature

Bibliography

Primary sources

Secondary mataterial

References

Family and early career

Vespasian was born in Falacrina, in the Sabine country near Reate. His father, Titus Flavius Sabinus, was an equestrian who worked as a customs official in Asia Province and a money-lender on a small scale in Aventicum, where Vespasian lived for some time. His mother, Vespasia Polla, was the sister of a Senator.
After prompting from his mother, Vespasian followed his older brother, also called Titus Flavius Sabinus, into public life. He served in the army as a military tribune in Thrace in 36. The following year he was elected quaestor and served in Crete and Cyrene. He rose through the ranks of Roman public office, being elected aedile on his second attempt in 39 and praetor on his first attempt in 40, taking the opportunity to ingratiate himself with the Emperor Caligula.
In the meantime, he married Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of an equestrian from Ferentium. They had two sons, Titus Flavius Vespasianus (b. 41) and Titus Flavius Domitianus (b. 51), and a daughter, Domitilla (b. 39). Flavia died before Vespasian became emperor. Thereafter his mistress, Caenis, was his wife in all but name until she died in 74.
Upon the accession of Claudius as emperor in 41, Vespasian was appointed legate of Legio II ''Augusta'', stationed in Germania, thanks to the influence of the Imperial freedman Narcissus.

Invasion of Britannia

In 43, Vespasian and the II ''Augusta'' participated in the Roman invasion of Britain, and he distinguished himself under the overall command of Aulus Plautius. After participating in crucial early battles on the rivers Medway and Thames, he was sent to reduce the southwest, penetrating through the modern counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall with the probable objectives of securing the south coast ports and harbours along with the tin mines of Cornwall and the silver and lead mines of Somerset. He fought thirty battles, captured twenty ''oppida'' (towns, or more probably hill forts, including Hod Hill and Maiden Castle in Dorset), subdued two powerful nations and reduced Vectis (the Isle of Wight), finally setting up a fortress and legionary headquarters at Isca Dumnoniorum. These successes earned him triumphal regalia (''ornamenta triumphalia'') on his return to Rome.

Continued political career

Vespasian was elected consul for the last two months of 51, after which he withdrew from public life. He came out of retirement in 63 when he was sent as governor to Africa Province. According to Tacitus (ii.97), his rule was "infamous and odious" but according to Suetonius (''Vesp.'' 4), he was "upright and, highly honourable". On one occasion he was pelted with turnips. Vespasian used his time in North Africa wisely. Usually governorships were seen by ex-consuls as opportunities to extort huge amounts of money to regain their wealth that they had spent on their previous political campaigns. Corruption was so rife, that it was almost expected that a governor would come back from these appointments with their pockets full. However, Vespasian used his time in North Africa making friends instead of money; something that would be far more valuable in the years to come. During his time in North Africa, he found himself in financial difficulties and was forced to mortgage his estates to his brother. To revive his fortunes he turned to the mule trade and gained the nickname ''mulio'' (mule-driver).
Returning from Africa, Vespasian toured Greece in Nero's retinue, but lost Imperial favour after paying insufficient attention (some sources suggest he fell asleep) during one of the Emperor's recitals on the lyre, and found himself in the political wilderness.

Great Jewish Revolt

However, in 66, Vespasian was appointed to conduct the war in Judaea, which was threatening unrest throughout the East. A revolt there had killed the previous governor and routed Licinius Mucianus, the governor of Syria, when he tried to restore order. Two legions, with eight cavalry squadrons and ten auxiliary cohorts, were therefore dispatched under the command of Vespasian to add to the one already there. His elder son, Titus, served on his staff. During this time he became the patron of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish resistance leader turned Roman agent who would go on to write his people's history in Greek. In the end, thousands of Jews were killed and many towns destroyed by the Romans, who successfully re-established control over Iudaea. Vespasian served for a time as procurator for Iudaea; he is remembered by Jews as a fair and humane official, in contrast to the notorious Herod the Great.

Year of Four Emperors

After the death of Nero in 68, Rome saw a succession of short-lived emperors and a year of civil wars. Galba was murdered by Otho, who was defeated by Vitellius. Otho's supporters, looking for another candidate to support, settled on Vespasian.
According to Suetonius, a prophecy ubiquitous in the Eastern provinces claimed that from Judaea would come the future rulers of the world. Vespasian eventually believed that this prophecy applied to him, and found a number of omens, oracles, and portents that reinforced this belief.
He also found encouragement in Mucianus, the governor of Syria; and, although Vespasian was a strict disciplinarian and reformer of abuses, Vespasian's soldiers were thoroughly devoted to him. All eyes in the East were now upon him. Mucianus and the Syrian legions were eager to support him. While he was at Caesarea, he was proclaimed emperor (July 1, 69), first by the army in Egypt under Tiberius Julius Alexander, and then by his troops in Iudaea (July 11).
Nevertheless, Vitellius, the occupant of the throne, had Rome's best troops on his side — the veteran legions of Gaul and the Rhineland. But the feeling in Vespasian's favour quickly gathered strength, and the armies of Moesia, Pannonia, and Illyricum soon declared for him, and made him the ''de facto'' master of half of the Roman world.
While Vespasian himself was in Egypt securing its grain supply, his troops entered Italy from the northeast under the leadership of M. Antonius Primus. They defeated Vitellius's army (which had awaited him in Mevania) at Bedriacum (or Betriacum), sacked Cremona and advanced on Rome. They entered Rome after furious fighting. In the resulting confusion, the Capitol was destroyed by fire and Vespasian's brother Sabinus was killed by a mob.
On receiving the tidings of his rival's defeat and death at Alexandria, the new emperor at once forwarded supplies of urgently needed grain to Rome, along with an edict or a declaration of policy, in which he gave assurance of an entire reversal of the laws of Nero, especially those relating to treason. While in Egypt he visited the Temple of Serapis, where reportedly he experienced a vision. Later he was confronted by two labourers who were convinced that he possessed a divine power that could work miracles.

Vespasian as emperor

Leaving the war in Judaea to his son Titus, Vespasian arrived at Rome in 70. He at once devoted his energies to repairing the evils caused by civil war. He restored discipline in the army, which had become utterly demoralized under Vitellius. With the cooperation of the Senate, he put the government and its finances on a sound footing.
He renewed old taxes and instituted new ones, increased the tribute of the provinces, and kept a watchful eye upon the treasury officials. The Latin proverb "Pecunia non olet" ("Money does not smell") may have been created when he had introduced a urine tax on public toilets. By his own example of simplicity of life—he caused something of a scandal when it was made known he took his own boots off—he put to shame the luxury and extravagance of the Roman nobles and initiated a marked improvement in the general tone of society in many respects.
As censor, he reformed the Senatorial and Equestrian orders, removing unfit and unworthy members and promoting good and able men, among them Gnaeus Julius Agricola. At the same time, he made it more dependent upon the Emperor, by exercising an influence upon its composition. He altered the constitution of the Praetorian Guard, in which only Italians were enrolled into its nine cohorts.
In 70, a formidable rising in Gaul, headed by Gaius Julius Civilis, was suppressed by Vespasian's brother-in-law, Quintus Petillius Cerialis, and the German frontier made secure. The Jewish War was brought to a close by Titus's capture of Jerusalem. In the following year, the joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus, was memorable as the first occasion on which a father and his son were thus associated together in the Western world. The temple of Janus was closed (the signal that Rome was not at war) and the Roman world had peace for the remaining nine years of Vespasian's reign. "The peace of Vespasian" became a proverb.
In 78 Agricola went to Britain, and both extended and consolidated the Roman dominion in that province, pushing his way into what is now Scotland. In the following year Vespasian died, on June 23 of an intestinal inflammation which led to excessive diarrhea.

Views on Vespasian

The avarice with which both Tacitus and Suetonius stigmatize Vespasian seems really to have been an enlightened economy, which, in the disordered state of the Roman finances, was unnecessarily exaggerated. Rome needed a moneylender's son at this juncture who was as capable of operating a business as he was an Imperial administration.
Vespasian could be liberal to impoverished Senators and equestrians and to cities and towns desolated by natural calamity. He was especially generous to men of letters and rhetors, several of whom he pensioned with salaries of as much as 1,000 gold pieces a year. Quintilian is said to have been the first public teacher who enjoyed this imperial favor.
Pliny the Elder's work, the ''Natural History'', was written during Vespasian's reign, and dedicated to Vespasian's son Titus. Some of the philosophers who talked idly of the good times of the Republic, and thus indirectly encouraged conspiracy, provoked Vespasian into reviving the obsolete penal laws against this profession. However, only one, Helvidius Priscus, was put to death, and he had affronted the Emperor by studied insults. "I will not kill a dog that barks at me," were words expressing the temper of Vespasian. Vespasian was indeed noted for mildness. He was also noted for loyalty to the people, for example, much money was spent on public works and the restoration and beautification of Rome: a new forum, the Temple of Peace, the public baths and the Colosseum.
Interesting note on the fame of its avarice is that in modern Italian language (2000 years after), the urinals are called "vespasiano", probably in reference to a tax the emperor placed on urine collection (useful due to its ammoniac content, see Pay toilet)

In later literature

★ Marcus Didius Falco novels

★ The Course of Honour, a novel by Lindsey Davis

★ Edward Rutherfurd's historical fiction novel ''Sarum'' contains an account of one the protagonists' (a Celtic chief) meeting Vespasian during his campaign through southern Britiannia.

★ In Simon Scarrow's Cato Series Vespasian, as legate under Aulus Plautius, is a regular secondary character.

Bibliography

Primary sources

★ Tacitus, ''Histories'', English translation

★ ★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html Suetonius, ''The Lives of Twelve Caesars'', Life of Vespasian, Latin text with English translation

★ ★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html Cassius Dio, ''Roman History'', Books 64, ★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html 65 and ★ class=wikiexternal target=_blank>.html 66, Latin text with English translation

★ Flavius Josephus, ''The War of the Jews'', Books 2, 3 and 4, English translation

Secondary mataterial

★ Ivar Lissner, "Power and Folly: The Story of the Caesars". Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1958

★ Barbara Levick, ''Vespasian'' (Roman Imperial Biographies), Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-16618-7 (hbk). ISBN 0-415-33866-2 (pbk, 2005)

★ Biography on De Imperatoribus Romanis.

★ Vespasian entry in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith

References

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