What a relief to meet a man of sense, ability, and honor! Vespasian, busy directing the war against Judea, took his time in coming to occupy the dangerous eminence that his soldiers had won for him, and which the Senate hurriedly confirmed. When he arrived (October, 70), he set himself with inspiring energy to restore order to a society disturbed in every aspect of its life. Perceiving that he would have to repeat the labors of Augustus, he modeled his behavior and policy upon those of that prince. He made his peace with the Senate and re-established constitutional government; he freed or recalled those who had been convicted of lèse-majesté under Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius; he reorganized the army, limited the number and power of the Praetorian Guard, appointed competent generals to suppress revolts in the provinces, and was soon able to close the Temple of Janus as a sign and pledge of peace.
He was sixty, but in the unimpaired vigor of his powerful frame. He was built foursquare in body and character, with a broad, bald, and massive head, coarse but commanding features, and small sharp eyes that pierced every sham. He had none of the stigmata of genius; he was merely a man of firm will and practical intelligence. He had been born in a Sabine village near Reate, of purely plebeian stock. His accession was a fourfold revolution: a commoner had reached the throne, a provincial army had overcome the Praetorians and crowned its candidate, the Flavians had succeeded the Julio-Claudians, and the simple habits and virtues of the Italian bourgeois replaced, at the court of the emperor, the epicurean wastefulness of the city-bred descendants of Augustus and Livia. Vespasian never forgot, or sought to conceal, his modest ancestry. When expectant genealogists traced his family back to a companion of Hercules he laughed them into silence. Periodically he returned to the home of his birth to enjoy its rustic ways and fare, and he would not allow anything there to be changed. He scorned luxury and laziness, ate the food of peasants, fasted one day in each month, and declared war upon extravagance. When a Roman whom he had nominated for office came to him smelling of perfume, he said, “I would rather you smelled of garlic,” and withdrew the nomination. He made himself easily accessible, talked and lived on a footing of equality with the people, enjoyed jokes at his own expense, and allowed everyone great freedom in criticizing his conduct and his character. Having discovered a conspiracy against him he forgave the plotters, saying that they were fools not to realize what a burden of cares a ruler wore. He lost his good temper in one case only. Helvidius Priscus, restored to the Senate from the exile into which Nero had sent him, demanded the restoration of the Republic, and reviled Vespasian without concealment or restraint. Vespasian asked him not to attend the Senate if he proposed to continue such abuse; Helvidius refused. Vespasian banished him and tarnished an excellent reign by ordering him put to death. He regretted the action later, and for the rest, says Suetonius, showed “the greatest patience under the frank language of his friends . . . and the impudence of philosophers.”95 These latter were not so much Stoics as Cynics, philosophical anarchists who felt that all government was an imposition and attacked every emperor.
To get fresh blood into a Senate depleted by family limitation and civil war, Vespasian secured appointment as censor, brought to Rome a thousand distinguished families from Italy and the western provinces, enrolled them in the patrician or equestrian orders, and over many bitter protests filled out the Senate from their ranks. The new aristocracy, under the stimulus of his example, improved Roman morals and society. It was not spoiled yet by idle wealth, nor yet so removed from labor and the soil as to disdain the routine tasks of life and administration; and it had something of the Emperor’s order and decency of life. Out of it came those rulers who, after Domitian, gave Rome good government for a century. Conscious of the evils that had flowed from the use of freedmen as imperial executives, Vespasian replaced most of them with men from this provincial infiltration and from Rome’s expanding business class. With their help he accomplished in nine years a miracle of rehabilitation.
He calculated that 40,000,000,000 sesterces were needed to transform bankruptcy into solvency.96 VII To raise this sum he taxed almost everything, raised the provincial tribute, reimposed it upon Greece, recaptured and let public lands, sold royal palaces and estates, and insisted upon such economy that the citizens denounced him as a miserly peasant. A tax was placed even upon the use of the public urinals that adorned ancient like modern Rome; his son Titus protested against such undignified revenue, but the old Emperor held some coins of it to the youth’s nose and said, “See, my child, if they smell.”97 Suetonious accuses him of adding to the imperial income by selling offices, and by promoting the most rapacious of his provincial appointees so that they might be swollen with spoils when he suddenly summoned them, examined their transactions, and confiscated their gains. The crafty financier, however, used none of the proceeds for himself, but poured them all into the economic recovery, architectural adornment, and cultural advancement of Rome.
It remained for this blunt soldier to establish the first system of state education in classical antiquity. He ordered that certain qualified teachers of Latin and Greek literature and rhetoric should thereafter be paid out of public funds and should receive a pension after twenty years of service. Perhaps the old skeptic felt that teachers had some share in forming public opinion and would speak better of a government that paid their way. Probably for like reasons he restored many of the ancient temples, even in rural districts. He rebuilt the Temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, which had been burned down by the Vitellians over his soldiers’ heads; raised a majestic shrine to Pax, the goddess of peace; and began the most renowned of Roman buildings, the Colosseum. The upper classes mourned as they saw their fortunes taxed to provide public works for the state and wages for prolétaires; and the workers were not particularly grateful. He roused the people to an energetic campaign for clearing away the debris left by the recent war, and he himself carried the first load. When an inventor showed him plans for a hoisting machine that would greatly reduce the need for human labor in these enterprises of removal and construction, he refused to use it, saying, “I must feed my poor.”98 In this moratorium on invention Vespasian recognized the problem of technological unemployment, and decided against an industrial revolution.
The provinces prospered as never before. Their wealth was now twice as great—at least in monetary terms—as under Augustus, and they bore the increased tribute without injury. Vespasian sent the able Agricola to govern Britain, and delegated to Titus the task of ending the revolt of the Jews. Titus captured Jerusalem and returned to Rome with all the honors that usually crown superior killing. A spectacular triumph led a long procession of captives and spoils through the streets, and a famous arch was raised to commemorate the victory. Vespasian was proud of his son’s success but disturbed by the fact that Titus had brought home a pretty Jewish princess, Berenice, as his mistress, and wished to marry her; again capta ferum victorem cepit. The Emperor could not see why one should marry a mistress; he himself, after the death of his wife, lived with a freedwoman without troubling to wed her; and when this Caenis died he distributed his love among several concubines.99 He was convinced that the succession to his power must be settled before his death, as the alternative to anarchy. The Senate agreed, but demanded that he should name and adopt “the best of the best”—presumably a senator; Vespasian answered that he reckoned that Titus was the best. To ease the situation the young conqueror dismissed Berenice, and sought consolation in promiscuity.100 The Emperor thereupon associated Titus with himself on the throne and delegated to him an increasing share in the government.
In 79 Vespasian again visited Reate. While in the Sabine country he drank copiously the purgative waters of Lake Cutilia and was seized with severe diarrhea. Though confined to his bed he continued to receive embassies and perform the other duties of his office. Feeling the hand of death upon him he nevertheless kept his bluff humor. Vae! puto deus fio, he remarked—“Alas, I think I am becoming a god.”101 Almost fainting, he struggled to his feet with the help of attendants, saying, “An emperor should die standing.” With these words he concluded a full life of sixty-nine years and a beneficent reign of ten.