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 VESPASIANO

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VESPASIANO

Antique Bust of Vespasian Villa Albani

sons of state demanded, or because no one else could be found who was not still more objectionable, Ves- pasian was appointed to conduct the war against the Jews — an appointment which proved the immediate cause of his elevation to the purple.

Brutal opi)ression by successive Roman governors, culminating in the atrocities of Gessius Florus, had stirred the Jews to an insurrection in which t he Roman garrison of Jerusalem was slaughtered. Many con- siderations obliged the Roman Court to take a serious view of this disturbance, not the least being the wide- spread beUef that a new power originating in Judea was destined to supplant Rome in the masterv of the world. Tak- ing with him his son Titus, Vespa- sian, in 66, in- vaded Judea, en- tering upon the last war in which the Jews were to take part as a nation. The siege of Jerusalem, in which more than half a million of t h e inhabitants perished, was con- ducted by Titus, and ended in the fall of the city (2 Sept., 70), and the final destruc- tion of the Tem- ple. In the meantime Nero's career had ended in suicide, his successor, Galba, had been killed by Otho, and Otho, in his turn dethroned by the partisans of Vitellius, had followed Nero's last example. While the Jewish war was still in progress, the soldiers in Egj^pt proclaimed Vespasian emperor (1 July, 69), and their comrades in Judea confirmed the choice. Ostensibly, at least, he had made no bid for the diadem, but his soldiers were sin- cerely attached to him, and the debauchee Vitellius, Nero's parasite and favourite, whom the legions in Germany had proclaimed, was as unpromising from a mihtary point of view as he was morally worthless. Vespasian remained at his post in Judea while his lieutenant, Antonius Primus, with the armies of Pan- nonia and the Balkan Peninsula, invaded Italy, routed the Vitellian forces near Cremona, and stormed Rome, which was defended by the Praetorian Guard and the populace (20 Dec, 69). It was not until the following summer that the new emperor left the eon- duct of affairs in Palestine to his son Titus and entered the city to receive confirmation at the hands of the Senate.

Vespasian's assumption of the imperial authority ended one of those spasms of civil war which had shaken Rome at intervals ever since the days of Ma- rias and Sulla. His reign was distinctly an era of re- form. Titus, who was to become one of the most beneficent pagan rulers in history, was associated as Ca'sar in his father's administration. The dignity of the Roman Senate was revived, largely by elimina- tion of the disreputable elements; the law of treason, an odious legal cloak for tyranny, was abrogated; the courts of law were reformed; military disripliiie was placed ujion a fairly secure basis. Vespasian, who was a master of financial adminislration, knew how to lavish his wealth in adding to the si)Icndour of the im- perial city, and it was in liis reign that the Colo.s.seum was begun, .\brnad, the final conquest of Judea was followed by the suppression of a serious rising in Gaul and the consohdation of Roman authority in ijrituin by

Cneius Agricola, who built the chain of forts between the Firths of Clyde and Forth. Still more important to the subsequent progress of civilization was the period of tranquilUty for the infant Church which began in this reigii. The official classes of Rome then regarded the Christians vaguely as a Jewish sect, and as such the latter were subject to the impost of half a shekel for rebuilding the Capitohne temple, which had been destroyed when Rome was stormed for Ves- pasian; but this tax does not seem to have been the occasion of any general harsh treatment. TertuUian (Apologia) and Eusebius (Hist, eccl.) agree in acquit- ting Vespasian of persecution. St. Linus, the pope whose death occurred during this period, cannot be proved to have suffered martjTdom, while St. Apol- linaris of Ravenna, though a martjT, may very well have suffered at the hands of a local mob.

The character of this emperor showed very little, if anything, of the pagan tyrant. Though himself a man of no literary culture, he became the protector of his prisoner of war, the Jewish historian Josephus, a worshipper of the One God, and even permitted him the use of his own family name (Flavins). While this generosity may have been in some degree prompted by Josephus's shrewd prophecy of Vespasian's eleva- tion to the purple, there are other instances of his dis- position to reward merit in those with whom he was by no means personally sympathetic. Vespasian has the distinction of being the first Roman Emperor to transmit the imperial purple to his ovm son; he is also noteworthy in Roman imperial history as having very nearly completed his seventieth year and died a natu- ral death: being in feeble health, he had withdrawn to benefit by the purer air of his native Reate, in the "dewy fields" {rosei campi) of the Sabine country. By his wife, Flavia Domitilla, he left two sons, Titus and Domitian, and a daughter, Domitilla, through whom the name of Vespasian's empress was passed on to a granddaughter who is revered as a confessor of the Faith.

Tacitus, History; Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Cwsars: Ve.ipasian; Josephus, De hello jud.: Tertullian, Apologia, V; Allard. Hist, des persecutions pendant les deux premiers siicles (Paris, 1892); Idem. Le Christianisme et VEmpire Romain (Paris, iSOS) : Merivale, Hist, of the Romans under the Empire (Ix)ndoD, 186 j) : Henderson, Civil War and Rebellion in the Roman Empire, A. D. 119-70.

E. Macpherson.

Vespasiano da Bisticci (or Fiorentino), Floren- tine humanist and librarian, b. in 1421; d. in 149S. He was chiefly a merchant of choice books, and had a share in the formation of all the great libraries of the time. When Co.simo de' Medici wished to create the Laurent ian Library of Florence, Vespasiano advised him and sent him by Tommaso Parentucelli (later Nicholas V) a systematic catalogue, which became the plan of the new collection. In 22 months Ves- pasiano had 200 volumes made for Cosinio by 25 copyists. Most of them were, under the circum- stances, books of theology and liturgical chant. He had performed important services for the diffusion of classical authors when Nicholas V, the true founder of tlic Vatican Library, became pope. He devoted fourteen years to collecting the library of the Duke of Urbino, organizing it in a quite modern manner; it contained the catalogues of the Vatican, of St. Mark's, Florence, of the Visconti Library at Pavia, and even that of Oxford. Vespasiano had only a mediocre knowledge of Latin, and he is one of the few writers of the time who acknowledged it. He left a collection of 3(X) biograi)hies, which is a source of the first rank for the history of fifteenth- century humanism: " Vite di uoniini illustri del secolo X\", pubhshed bv Mai. "Spiciligium Ronianum", I, Rome, 1S.30; by Frati, Bologna, 1S92. He is certainlv inferior to the great Italian historians, such as Macliiavelli and (iuicciardini, but he admirably depicts the atmosphere of the period. His accounts