Vespasian Restores Order and Builds the Colosseum
Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in Egypt on 1 July 69 and ended the year of the four emperors. Nero's suicide in June 68 had exposed what Tacitus called the secret of empire — that an emperor could be made somewhere other than Rome. Galba was proclaimed in Spain and murdered by the guard; Otho bought the guard and killed himself after one defeat; Vitellius was raised by the Rhine legions and lasted eight months. Vespasian was commanding the war in Judaea, which had been running since 66. He was in his sixties, from a family of tax collectors and small-town equestrians in Sabine country, with no aristocratic connection at all — the first emperor whose ancestors had not been senators. His career had included the conquest of the Isle of Wight, a consulship, a governorship of Africa in which he made no money, and a period of disgrace after falling asleep during one of Nero's recitals. The eastern legions declared for him, and Mucianus took an army west while Vespasian held Egypt and the grain supply — cutting Rome's food rather than fighting for it. The Danube legions declared too and got there first, sacking Cremona and burning the Capitol in the fighting. He arrived in 70 and governed for ten years: the finances restored, the census taken, the army reorganised, and the Colosseum begun on the site of Nero's private lake. He taxed public urinals and told his son that money does not smell. He died in 79 saying he supposed he was becoming a god.
- Year: 69 CE
- Category: Political
