Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus) Biography

emperor AD 69–79, was born on 9 November, AD 9, at Sabine Reate. His father, Flavius Sabinus (names also borne by Vespasian's elder brother), was a tax-gatherer; his mother also was of equestrian family, but her brother entered the senate, reaching the praetorship. Vespasian was military tribune in 27, serving in Thrace, quaestor in Crete in the mid-30s, aedile (at the second attempt) in 38, and praetor in 40. Claudius' freedman Narcissus now advanced his undistinguished career, and he became legate of legio II Augusta at Argentorate, commanding it in the invasion of Britain in 43 and subduing the south-west as far as Exeter (43–7); for this he won triumphal ornaments and two priesthoods. He was suffect consul in November–December 51 and is next heard of as an unpopular proconsul of Africa (c.62; any unemployment may be due to the deaths of Narcissus and Vitellius and the eclipse of other supporters during the ascendancy of Agrippina the Younger. In 66 he accompanied Nero to Greece and allegedly offended him by falling asleep at one of his recitals, but at the end of the year he was entrusted with suppressing the rebellion in Judaea. By mid-68 he had largely subdued Judaea apart from Jerusalem itself but conducted no further large-scale campaigns.

Vespasian now settled his differences with the governor of Syria, Gaius Licinius Mucianus. They successively recognized Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, but the idea of using the eastern legions to attain power became a plan in the spring of 69. On 1 July the two Egyptian legions under Tiberius Julius Alexander proclaimed Vespasian; those in Judaea did so on 3 July, and the Syrian legions a little later. Mucianus set out with a task-force against Italy while Vespasian was to hold up the grain ships at Alexandria and probably Carthage. However, the Danubian legions declared for Vespasian, and the legionary legate Marcus Antonius Primus invaded Italy. After his crushing victory at Cremona the city was brutally sacked. Primus fell from favour in 70 and took the blame. It was alleged that Primus' invasion was against orders (certainly Mucianus would have opposed his action), but victory could never have been bloodless. Primus pressed on, entering Rome on 21 December, the day after Vitellius' death. The senate immediately conferred all the usual powers on Vespasian, though he dated his tribunician years from 1 July, negating the acts of senate and people and treating his legions as an electoral college.

A fragment of an enabling law has survived (ILS 244 = EJ 364, trans. D. Braund, Augustus to Nero no. 293) conferring powers, privileges, and exemptions, most with Julio-Claudian precedents. It is disputed whether this was part of the original tralatician grant of powers, surviving only in Vespasian's case, or of a supplementary grant, due to difficulties with the senate, conferring by law the right to perform acts never questioned in a Julio-Claudian but which from Vespasian might be challenged. It sanctioned all he had done up to the passing of the law and empowered him to act in whatever way he deemed advantageous to the Roman people. Vespasian's standing was lower than that of any of his predecessors and the law took the place of the auctoritas (prestige, influence) he lacked. Vespasian was careful to publicize a number of divine omens which portended his accession; he frequently took the consulship, however briefly, and accumulated imperatorial salutations. Vespasian insisted that the succession would devolve on his son (Suet. Div. Vesp. 25; sons, Dio Cass. 65. 12). Controversy over the dynastic principle, part of a wider controversy over the role of the senate in government, may have caused his quarrel with doctrinaire senators like Helvidius Priscus, who was exiled and later executed.

Vespasian returned to Italy in the late summer of 70. While at Alexandria he had been concerned with raising money, and his sales of imperial estates and new taxes caused discontent there. He claimed that forty thousand million sesterces (so Suet. Div. Vesp. 16. 3) were needed to support the state. He increased, sometimes doubled, provincial taxation and revoked imperial immunities. Such measures were essential after the costs incurred by Nero and the devastation of the civil wars; contemporaries inevitably charged Vespasian with ‘avarice’. He was able to restore the Capitol, burnt in December 69, to build his forum and temple of Peace, and to begin the Colosseum. An attempt by senators in 70 to diminish expenditure by the state treasury, so promoting senatorial independence, was promptly vetoed.

It may have been in part for financial reasons that in 73–4 he held the censorship with Titus. But both as censor and previously, he recruited many new members, Italian and provincial, to the senate, and conferred rights on communities abroad, notably a grant of Latin rights to all native communities in Spain.

Vespasian restored discipline to the armies after the events of 68–9. Before his return Mucianus had reduced the praetorian guard, enlarged by Vitellius, to approximately its old size, and they were entrusted to Titus on his return. The legions were regrouped so that Vitellian troops would not occupy dangerous positions. In the east Vespasian by the end of his reign had substituted three armies (six legions) in Syria, Cappadocia, and Judaea for the single army (until Nero's time only four legions) in Syria. After the Jewish and Rhineland rebellions (see TITUS) had been suppressed, Vespasian continued imperial expansion with the annexation of northern England, the pacification of Wales, and an advance into Scotland (see AGRICOLA), as well as in south-west Germany between Rhine and Danube.

On his death on 23 June 79 he was accorded deification, though Titus did not act at once (he had been Vespasian's colleague since 71 and the ceremony, last held on Claudius' death in 54, may have seemed discredited). Unassuming behaviour had partially conciliated the aristocracy, although some of his friends were informers or otherwise disreputable; Tacitus, Hist. 1. 50, claims that he was the first man to improve after becoming emperor, and the reign seems to have been tranquil after conflicts with the senate had been won. The years after 75 were marred (as far as is known) only by Titus' execution of Aulus Caecina Alienus and his forcing Marcellus to suicide.

Vespasian was industrious, and his simple life a model for contemporaries. Matching his rugged features he cultivated a bluff manner, parading humble origins and ridiculing a man who corrected his accent. His initial appointments show astuteness in building a powerful party of which the core was his own family. To have ended the wars was an achievement, and Pax (‘Peace’) was a principal motif on his coinage. His proclaimed purposes were the restoration and enhancement of the state, and he made no great break with tradition. In style of government, however, and in the composition of the governing class, the reign paved the way for the 2nd cent.

Nothing is known of Vespasian's education (he was no orator, but could quote Homer), but his sons were cultivated, and he attended to the needs of Rome and the empire by founding chairs of rhetoric and philosophy and by granting fiscal privileges to teachers and doctors.

Vespasian's wife Flavia Domitilla was alleged to be only of Latin status until her father Liberalis proved her Roman citizenship. Besides his two sons she bore a daughter also named Flavia Domitilla; wife and daughter died before Vespasian's accession. He then lived with an earlier mistress, Caenis, a freedwoman of Antonia.

Guy Edward Farquhar Chilver; Barbara M. Levick