converted into a statue of Apollo as the Sun-god, the protector of the Flavian house. It was after- wards removed by Hadrian, but the base is pre- served. Many pieces of public land in Rome, Italy, and the provinces which had been illegally taken possession of by private persons were taken back by the State. The boundary of Rome was also extended. Rutilius Gallicus (Statins, Siluce, I. iv. 83) collected taxes, re-imposed by Vespasian, in the province of Africa, the boundary line of which was at this time definitely fixed. About this period Vespasian seems to have given help to Vologajsus, kingof the Parthians, againstthe Alani, a northern tribe which invaded Parthia. It w as in this connexion probably that a road was built in Little Armenia. We hear also of important repairs to roads in the province Asia. In 76 the authorities mention re])airs to the Via Appia, and great works on the roads, etc., in Africa. In the same year Vologiesus adopted a hostile attitude to Rome, but was compelled to ask -for peace. In this war the father of^ the Emperor Trajan, as legate of Syria, took part. Sextus lulius Frontinus, as legate in Britain, gained a victory over the Silures. By a statute of the same year certain officers and men of the household troops were given the right to enter on legal marriage. In 77 Vespasian erected in Rome, south of the Teraplum Pacis, a building, which after successive alterations and restorations became the church of Saints Cosraas and Damian. In the same year important work was done on roads in Italj', Spain, and elsewhere. For 78 there are records of road-building in Dalmatia and Bithynia. In the same year there was a successful campaign, conducted by Rutilius Gallicus, against a German tribe, the Bructeri. One of their leading women, a prophetess Veleda, was brought captive to Rome. It was probably in the same year that Agricola's period as governor of Britain began ; before its end he had almost destroyed the Ordovices and recovered the island Mona (probably Anglesey) for the Romans.
The year 79 was the last of Vespasian's rule. There were great road- and bridge-building opera- tions carried out in Hispania Ba;tica (modern Andalucia). The rebel lulius Sabinus, of the Gaulish tribe of the Lingones, had for nine years been in hiding, but was in this year discovered, brought to Rome, and condemned, with his wife. In this year also there was a conspiracy against Vespasian, fomented by two men whom he had regarded as friends, Aulus Csecina Alienus and Titus Clodius Eprius Marcellus. Titus, Vespasian's son, had obtained knowledge of the guilt of the first, invited him to his table, and had him struck down, before Vespasian had an inkling of the plot. Eprius, after being tried and condemned by the senate, took his own life. While on a visit to Campania, Vespasian had a slight attack of fever. He returned to Rome, and from there went to his usual summer residence, Aquse Cutilioe, in the Sabine land, near Reate. There he fought the disease manfully, giving unbroken attention to business. Certain symptoms led to the report that Titus had given him poison. He died on 24th June in his sixty-ninth year, after a reign of almost ten years.
After his death he was, like most of the Emperors, deified by the senate. He had been a worthy Emperor, with the solid qualities charac- teristic of the best of the Italians. After the folly and waste of the Neronian period, such a rule as his was at once a necessity and a blessing to Italy. His chief services to the State were his care for finance and at the same time for the roads of the Empire, as the details enumerated above will have shown. He deliberately founded a dynasty, and, to secure it, made his sons Titus and Domitian
VESSEL
VI NK
G.'i'.i
joint-rulers with himself during his own lifetime. He was on the hest of terms with the senate, to which he showed -ireat res])eet. Tlie doctrin- aire Stoics, especially Helvidius I'riscns, consti- tuted an element hostile to the Kmperor. liy hahitually making one or other of his sons his colleague in the consulship, he retained the presi- dency of the senate in the hands of his family. The senate itself he strengthened liy the introduc- tion of worthy Italians and provincials, and he also made proniotu)ns of suitable persons to the eques- trian order. Knights an<l freednien found in this reign greater scope for their activities, in othcial positions under the Kmperor himself, lie took a very great interest in the provinces, a number of which he h.ad personally visited. -\s one who owed his elevation to the army, he busied himself with its organization. He lived simply and thriftily, and encouraged teachers of rhetoric, pouts, and artists, but banished philosophers and astrologers. Of his attitude to Christianity nothing is known for certain, but it has been plausibly ccmjectured that, since in Neros time Christians were con- demned only for crimes punishable in any case, while in Trajan's time it is clearly established that confession of Christianity was in itself a crime, the changed attitude is due to an administrative principle settled under Vespasian (W. M. Kamsay, The CImrch in the Eonian Empire before A.D. 170, pp. 242, 252-319).
LiTftRATURR. — The ancient authorities are ; Josephus, />■/, bks. iii.-vii., in the composition of which menioir.s of Vespasian himself were used; Tacitus, Histories, bits. i.-v. (reaching only to autumn 70) ; Dio Cassius, bk. Ixvi., existing now only in the aliridf.'nient of Xiphilinus ; Suetonius, yexpaxian, and later authorities ; the rich collection of inscriptions is put together by H. C. Newton, The Epi'jraphicat Etndeni'e J'nr the lifigns of Vetrpasian and Titus (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, xvi.), Ithaca, N.Y., 1001. Modern works are V. Duniy, Hi.ttory of Rome, Eng. tr., 6 vols., London, 18S;i-86 ; H. Schiller, Ge.ichivhte der romischen KaUcrzeit, i. [Ootha, 1883] .390-400, 40l>-.')18 ; J. B. Bury, A lUstory of the Roman Empire-, London, 1S90, pp. 368-381, etc. ; A. von Domaszewski, Geschichle der romiticheit Kaiser, ii. [Leipzig, 1909] 145-154 ; K. Weynand in Pauly-Wissowa, vi. 2623-2695 (an admirable detailed mono, graph). On Vespasian's conne.vion with Christianity, W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire be/i/re A.D. 170, London, 1893. A. SOUTER.