VESPASIANO (Flavius Vespasianus Augustus), ROMAN EMPEROR. — Born on 17 November 9 A.D. at Falacrinae, near Rieti, died at Aquae Cutiliae on 24 June 79 A.D. (on the identification of the places, V. E. Evans, The Cults of the Sabine territory, in Amer. Academy in Rome, 1939, pp. 95, 89), into a family likewise originating in the Sabine territory.
A « Tribunus militum » under Tiberius, he pursued the career of public offices until Nero sent him as imperial legate to Syria with the task of suppressing the Jewish insurrection. During the first military operations, after the capture of Jotapata, he took prisoner one of the leaders of the revolt, Giuseppe, who, later pardoned, became the historian of the Jewish war. In the troubled period that followed the assassination of Galba, the legions of the East, later joined by those stationed in the Danubian region, proclaimed V. emperor; he overwhelmed the last resistance of his competitor Vitello in the course of an atrocious civil war, which also unfolded in the heart of Rome.
As soon as he assumed power, V. had to confront serious problems energetically, such as the sense of disorientation that had seized the Empire and the consequent decline in imperial prestige, economic hardship, and so forth. After suppressing the Batavian revolt and pacifying the Rhine region, and successfully bringing the Jewish war to an end through the efforts of his son Tito (v.), V. restored imperial dignity (he assumed the praenomen « imperator »), reformed the Senate, eliminating those who might overshadow him and introducing new senators drawn from the equestrian order and representatives of the Italian bourgeoisie. His prudent practical sense made the administration more efficient both in Italy and in the various provinces of the Empire. V. strengthened its « limes » and increased the number of legions, while excluding Italians from legionary recruitment and reserving for them only service in the praetorian and urban cohorts, in order to prevent the army from being contaminated by the urban proletariat. In literature, too, there was a return to the great models of the past with Pliny the Elder, Quintilian, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus. In the feverish building activity in Rome, V. monuments, including the « Forum Pacis » and the « Templum Sacrae Urbis », transformed into a church under the title of Saints Cosmas and Damian by Pope Felix IV. Under V., construction began on the Flavian Amphitheatre, later inaugurated by Tito in 80 and completed by Domitian.