Vespasian
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| Vespasian | ||
|---|---|---|
| Emperor of the Roman Empire | ||
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| Bust of Vespasian | ||
| Reign | 1 July 69–23 June 79 | |
| Full name | Caesar Vespasianus Augustus | |
| Born | 17 November 9 | |
| Falacrina | ||
| Died | 23 June 79 | |
| Rome | ||
| Buried | Rome | |
| Predecessor | Vitellius | |
| Successor | Titus | |
| Wife/wives | Domitilla (died pre. 69) | |
| Caenis (mistress and de facto wife c. 65–74) | ||
| Issue | Titus, Domitian, Domitilla | |
| Dynasty | Flavian | |
| Father | Titus Flavius Sabinus I | |
| Mother | Vespasia Polla | |
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Imperator Caesar Vespasianus Augustus (November 17, 9–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 and for the campaign against Judaea and also for starting the construction of the Colosseum.
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[edit] Family and early career
He was born in Falacrina, in the Sabine country near Reate. His father, Titus Flavius Sabinus I, 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 II, 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.
[edit] 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, one of them being Maiden Castle in Dorset), subdued two powerful nations and reduced Vectis (the Isle of Wight), finally setting up a fortress and legionary HQ at Isca Dumnoniorum. These successes earned him triumphal regalia (ornamenta triumphalia) on his return to Rome.
[edit] 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. At this time 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 to the Emperor's recitals on the lyre, and found himself in the political wilderness.
[edit] Great Jewish Revolt
However, in 66, Vespasian was appointed to conduct the war in Iudaea, 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, governor of Galilee and later "King of the Jews."[citation needed]
[edit] 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, 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.
[edit] Vespasian as emperor
Leaving the war in Iudaea 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 saying "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 diarrhoea.
[edit] 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.[neutrality disputed]
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 great 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 old 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 honestly expressing the temper of Vespasian. Vespasian was indeed noted for mildness and a healthy sense of justice. For example, he helped the daughter of his late adversary Vitellius find a suitable husband and even provided her with the dowry. Much money was spent on public works and the restoration and beautification of Rome: a new forum, the splendid Temple of Peace, the public baths and the vast Colosseum.
To the last, Vespasian was a plain, blunt soldier, with a demonstrated strength of character and ability, and with a steady purpose to establish good order and secure the prosperity and welfare of his subjects. In his habits he was punctual and regular, transacting his business early in the morning, and enjoying a siesta in the afternoon.
He did not quite have the distinguished bearing looked for in an emperor. He was free in his conversation, and his humour, of which he had a good deal, was apt to take the form of rather coarse jokes. To one young man who wore too much perfume for the old soldier's nose's comfort he gibed, "I'd sooner you stank of garlic." He could jest even in his last moments: Vae puto, deus fio—"Alas, I think I'm becoming a god," he allegedly whispered to those around him. There is something very characteristic in the exclamation he is said to have uttered in his last illness, "An emperor ought to die standing."
Vespasian ultimately did much good for Rome, and ranks somewhere with its greatest emperors — Augustus, Trajan and Septimus Severus.
[edit] In later literature
- Marcus Didius Falco novels
- 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.
[edit] Sources
- Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars
- Tacitus, Histories
- Dio Cassius, Roman History
- Ivar Lissner, "Power and Folly: The Story of the Caesars". Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1958
[edit] Further reading
- Barbara Levick, Vespasian (Roman Imperial Biographies), Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-16618-7 (hbk). ISBN 0-415-33866-2 (pbk, 2005)
[edit] External links
Media on Vespasian in the Wikicommons.- Life of Vespasian (Suetonius; English translation and Latin original)
- Biography on De Impertoribus Romanis.
This entry was based on the entry from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
| Preceded by — |
Flavian Dynasty 69–96 |
Succeeded by Titus |
| Preceded by Vitellius |
Roman Emperor 69–79 |
Succeeded by Titus |
| Preceded by Vitellius |
Year of Four Emperors 68–69 |
Succeeded by — |
| Preceded by Fabius Valens and Arrius Antoninus |
Consul of the Roman Empire 70–72 |
Succeeded by Domitian and Lucius Valerius Catullus Messallinus |
| Preceded by Domitian and Lucius Valerius Catullus Messallinus |
Consul of the Roman Empire together with Titus 74–77 |
Succeeded by Decimus Iunius Novius Priscus Rufus and Lucius Ceionius Commodus |
| Preceded by Decimus Iunius Novius Priscus Rufus and Lucius Ceionius Commodus |
Consul of the Roman Empire together with Titus 79 |
Succeeded by Titus and Domitian |
| Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars, or de vita Caesarum |
|---|
| Julius Caesar - Augustus - Tiberius - Caligula - Claudius - Nero - Galba - Otho - Vitellius - Vespasian - Titus - Domitian |
