Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/1080

Rh suite to Greece, and in 66 was appointed to conduct the war in Judaea, which was threatening general commotion throughout the East, owing to a widely spread notion in those parts that from Judaea were to come the future rulers of the world. Vespasian, who had a strong vein of superstition, was made to believe that he was himself to fulfil this expectation, and all manner of omens and oracles and portents were applied to him. He also found encouragement in Mucianus, the governor of Syria; and although a strict disciplinarian and reformer of abuses, he had a soldiery thoroughly devoted to him. All eyes in the East were now upon him; Mucianus and the Syrian legions were eager to support him; and on the 1st of July 69, while he was at Caesarea, he was proclaimed emperor, first by the army in Egypt, and then by his troops in Judaea. The legions of the East at once took the customary oath of allegiance. Nevertheless, Vitellius, the occupant of the throne, had on his side the veteran legions of Gaul and Germany, Rome's best troops. But the feeling in Vespasian's favour quickly gathered strength, and the armies of Moesia, Pannonia and Illyricum soon declared for him, and made him in fact master of half of the Roman world. They entered Italy on the north-east under the leadership of Antonius Primus, defeated the army of Vitellius at Bedriacum (or Betriacum), sacked Cremona and advanced on Rome, which they entered after furious fighting and a frightful confusion, in which the Capitol was destroyed by fire. The new emperor received the tidings of his rival's defeat and death at Alexandria, whence he at once forwarded supplies of corn to Rome, which were urgently needed, along with an edict or a declaration of policy, in which he gave assurance of an entire reversal of the laws of Nero, especially those relating to treason. While in Egypt he became more and more imbued with superstition, consulting astrologers and allowing himself to be flattered into a belief that he possessed a divine power which could work miracles. Leaving the war in Judaea to his son Titus, he arrived at Rome in 70. He at once devoted his energies to repairing the evils caused by civil war. He restored discipline in the army, which under Vitellius had become utterly demoralized, and, with the co-operation of the senate, put the government and the finances on a sound footing. He renewed old taxes and instituted new, increased the tribute of the provinces, and kept a watchful eye upon the treasury officials. By his own example of simplicity of life, he put to shame the luxury and extravagance of the Roman nobles and initiated in many respects a marked improvement in the general tone of society. As censor he raised the character of the senate, removing unfit and unworthy members and promoting good and able men, among them the excellent Julius Agricola. At the same time he made it more dependent upon the emperor, by exercising an influence upon its composition. He altered the constitution of the praetorian guard, in which only Italians, formed into nine cohorts, were enrolled. In 70 a formidable rising in Gaul, headed by Claudius Civilis, was suppressed and the German frontier made secure; the Jewish War was brought to a close by Titus's capture of Jerusalem, and in the following year, after the joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus, memorable as the first occasion on which a father and his son were thus associated together, the temple of ]anus was closed, and the Roman world had rest for the remaining nine years of Vespasian's reign. The peace of Vespasian passed into a proverb. In 78 Agricola went to Britain, and both extended and consolidated the Roman dominion in that province, pushing his arms into North Wales and the Isle of Anglesey. In the following year Vespasian died, on the 23rd of June.

The avarice with which both Tacitus and Suetonius stigmatize Vespasian seems really to have been an enlightened economy, which, in the disordered state of the Roman finances, was an absolute necessity. Vespasian could be liberal to impoverished senators and knights, to cities and towns desolated by natural calamity, and especially to men of letters and of the professor class, several of whom he pensioned with salaries of as much as £800 a year. Quintilian is said to have been the first public teacher who enjoyed this imperial favour. Pliny's great work,

the Natural History, was written during Vespasian's reign, and dedicated to his son Titus. Some of the philosophers who talked idly of the good old times of the republic, and thus indirectly encouraged conspiracy, provoked him into reviving the obsolete penal laws against this class, but only one, Helvidius Priscus, was put to death, and he had affronted the emperor by studied insults. “I will not kill a dog that barks at me,” were words honestly expressing the temper of Vespasian. Much money was spent on public works and the restoration and beautifying of Rome—a new forum, the splendid temple of Peace, the public baths and the vast Colosseum being begun under Vespasian. The roads and aqueducts were repaired, and the limits of the pomerium extended.

To the last Vespasian was a plain, blunt soldier, with decided strength of character and ability, and with a steady purpose to establish good order and secure the prosperity and welfare of his subjects. In his habits he was punctual and regular, transacting his business early in the morning, and enjoying his siesta after a drive. He had not quite the distinguished bearing looked for in an emperor. He was free in his conversation, and his humour, of which he had a good deal, was apt to take the form of rather coarse jokes. He could jest, it was said, even in his last moments. “Methinks I am becoming a god,” he whispered to those around him. There is something very characteristic in the exclamation he is said to have uttered in his last illness, “An emperor ought to die standing.”

VESPERS (officium vespertinum), in the Roman Catholic liturgy, that part of the daily office which follows none (nona) and precedes compline (completorium). In it the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Deus in Adjutorium, &c., are followed by five psalms and five antiphons, after which come the "little chapter," the hymn and the verse, which vary according to the season, the Magnificat and its antiphon, and the appropriate collect. In the general features the use of this office can be traced back to a very early date both in the Eastern Church and in Western. Vespers may be said or sung at any time after midday, and in some circumstances even before it. (See 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Breviary.)

VESPERS, SICILIAN, the revolution of the Sicilians against the Angevin domination, so called because it broke out at the hour of Vespers on Easter Tuesday 1282. Charles I. of Anjou had encountered more resistance in conquering Sicily than on the mainland, as the people were more independent and more strongly attached to the house of Hohenstaufen; and consequently his government was more oppressive and cruel. The officials and the insolent French nobility whom he established in the island rode rough-shod over the privileges of the native aristocracy and the customs of the people, and the natives were ground down by heavy taxes and degrading personal services. The debased currency ruined trade, and the government treated the Sicilians with the utmost contempt. “The outrage of personal service,” wrote Amari (Guerra del Vespro, ch. iv.), “exceeded the limits of feudalism as well as of the strangest and most brutal caprices. Noble and worthy men were forced to carry viands and wine on their shoulders to the tables of the foreigner, and many young nobles were constrained to turn the spit in his kitchens like scullions or slaves.” The administration was more regular, and therefore more unyielding and heartless, than that of the Hohenstaufens, and also more foreign. Hatred of Angevin rule grew day by day, until the people were driven to revolt. According to tradition, the leader of the rising was Giovanni da Procida, a Salernitan noble with Sicilian connexions, who had been in the service of Hohenstaufens, but, having lost position and property after the fall of Conradin, he had taken refuge at the court of Peter III., king of Aragon, and induced him to try to make good his claims on Sicily, which were based on the rights of his queen, Costanza, daughter of Manfred. But as a matter of fact the actual outbreak was a purely