Vespasian | Page 5

direction (451) of some soothsayers, several
vessels of ancient workmanship were dug out of a consecrated place,
on which there was an effigy resembling Vespasian.
VIII. Returning now to Rome, under these auspices, and with a great
reputation, after enjoying a triumph for victories over the Jews, he

added eight consulships [749] to his former one. He likewise assumed
the censorship, and made it his principal concern, during the whole of
his government, first to restore order in the state, which had been
almost ruined, and was in a tottering condition, and then to improve it.
The soldiers, one part of them emboldened by victory, and the other
smarting with the disgrace of their defeat, had abandoned themselves to
every species of licentiousness and insolence. Nay, the provinces, too,
and free cities, and some kingdoms in alliance with Rome, were all in a
disturbed state. He, therefore, disbanded many of Vitellius's soldiers,
and punished others; and so far was he from granting any extraordinary
favours to the sharers of his success, that it was late before he paid the
gratuities due to them by law. That he might let slip no opportunity of
reforming the discipline of the army, upon a young man's coming much
perfumed to return him thanks (452) for having appointed him to
command a squadron of horse, he turned away his head in disgust, and,
giving him this sharp reprimand, "I had rather you had smelt of garlic,"
revoked his commission. When the men belonging to the fleet, who
travelled by turns from Ostia and Puteoli to Rome, petitioned for an
addition to their pay, under the name of shoe-money, thinking that it
would answer little purpose to send them away without a reply, he
ordered them for the future to run barefooted; and so they have done
ever since. He deprived of their liberties, Achaia, Lycia, Rhodes,
Byzantium, and Samos; and reduced them into the form of provinces;
Thrace, also, and Cilicia, as well as Comagene, which until that time
had been under the government of kings. He stationed some legions in
Cappadocia on account of the frequent inroads of the barbarians, and,
instead of a Roman knight, appointed as governor of it a man of
consular rank. The ruins of houses which had been burnt down long
before, being a great desight to the city, he gave leave to any one who
would, to take possession of the void ground and build upon it, if the
proprietors should hesitate to perform the work themselves. He
resolved upon rebuilding the Capitol, and was the foremost to put his
hand to clearing the ground of the rubbish, and removed some of it
upon his own shoulder. And he undertook, likewise, to restore the three
thousand tables of brass which had been destroyed in the fire which
consumed the Capitol; searching in all quarters for copies of those
curious and ancient records, in which were contained the decrees of the

senate, almost from the building of the city, as well as the acts of the
people, relative to alliances, treaties, and privileges granted to any
person.
IX. He likewise erected several new public buildings, namely, the
temple of Peace [750] near the Forum, that of Claudius on the (453)
Coelian mount, which had been begun by Agrippina, but almost
entirely demolished by Nero [751]; and an amphitheatre [752] in the
middle of the city, upon finding that Augustus had projected such a
work. He purified the senatorian and equestrian orders, which had been
much reduced by the havoc made amongst them at several times, and
was fallen into disrepute by neglect. Having expelled the most
unworthy, he chose in their room the most honourable persons in Italy
and the provinces. And to let it be known that those two orders differed
not so much in privileges as in dignity, he declared publicly, when
some altercation passed between a senator and a Roman knight, "that
senators ought not to be treated with scurrilous language, unless they
were the aggressors, and then it was fair and lawful to return it."
X. The business of the courts had prodigiously accumulated, partly
from old law-suits which, on account of the interruption that had been
given to the course of justice, still remained undecided, and partly from
the accession of new suits arising out of the disorder of the times. He,
therefore, chose commissioners by lot to provide for the restitution of
what had been seized by violence during the war, and others with
extraordinary jurisdiction to decide causes belonging to the centumviri,
and reduce them to as small a number as possible, for the dispatch of
which, otherwise, the lives of the litigants could scarcely allow
sufficient time.
XI. Lust and luxury, from the licence which had long prevailed, had
also grown to