TITUS (T. Flavius Vespasianus Augustus), Roman Emperor. - Son of Vespasian, born in Rome on 30 December 39 A.D., died at Aquae Cutiliae (today Cotilia, near Rieti) on 13 September 81 A.D.
He completed his military apprenticeship as "tribunus militum" in Germany, Britain and finally in the East as "legatus" of the XV legion "Apollinaris" (Suetonius, Vesp., 4; Josephus, Bell. Iud., III, 4 ff.) together with his father, who was engaged in the war in Judaea. When Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by the legions, T. remained as lieutenant to finish the military operations against the Jews (Tacitus, Hist., V, 1; Suetonius, Tit., 5). The Jewish historian Josephus, in books V and VI of his Jewish War, has left the dramatic account of the final defence of Jerusalem by the defenders who, though tormented by hunger, resisted strenuously during the siege and at the final assault of the legions. The Roman soldiers had to struggle to force a passage through the last resistance of the citadel. The Temple had been set on fire even against the will of T. himself, who was acclaimed "imperator" on its ruins (Josephus, VI, 6). Sulpicius Severus, on the other hand, relates (Chron., II, 30, 6) that the destruction took place on T.'s advice, out of hatred for the two religions, Jewish and Christian, because, since Christians derived from the Jews: radice sublata stirpem facile perituram. Great was the booty and the number of prisoners sold or deported. From that moment the Jewish diaspora began. Once the war had thus ended, T. celebrated its triumph, which was immortalized in the arch of the same name completed by his brother Domitian. The decorative panels of the archway recall precisely the objects of worship carried off from the temple as trophies: the table for the sacred loaves, the silver trumpets and the seven-branched candelabrum (v. Ch. Huelsen, Das Forum Romanum, 2nd ed., Rome 1905, p. 222 ff.). This last object, in the medieval period, curiously gave its name to the arch that was known under the name of arcus septem lucernarum.
Later associated by his father with the Empire, T. passed through the highest offices of the State and succeeded him on 24 June 79. Severe and almost ruthless in repressing crimes of lese-majesty when he was his father's colleague, once he assumed the imperial purple he showed himself mild and tolerant, wishing as it were to soften the somewhat absolutist regime established by Vespasian and continued by Domitian. His brief reign was afflicted by the eruption of Vesuvius which buried Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae and by a ruinous fire that burned Rome for three days; but he knew how to confront these disasters with promptness. He also had a relationship - received with suspicion by the people, who remembered the evil arts of oriental queens (Cassius Dio, LXVI, 15, 4) -
with Queen Berenice, daughter of Agrippa I, Jewish sovereign (v. Wilcken, in Pauly-Wissowa, III, 1, cols. 287-89). The bond later came to an end, whether for reasons of State or also because of the greater age that the queen had, in comparison with him.
Bibliography3 works
Lanfranco Fiore