his father enjoyed together the honors of a triumph, which is commemorated by the Arch of Titus, still extant in Rome.

Among the events of this reign are the victories of Agricola in Britain, by which most of that island was brought under Roman government. This period has been pronounced by Merivale "the apogee of Rome's military renown." Under Vespasian's rule the empire enjoyed prosperity such as it had not known since the reign of Augustus. Prudent attention was given to replenishing the treasury, which had been exhausted by the prodigal and wasteful acts of Nero and Vitellius, and the revenues of the empire were settled on a stable basis. General tranquillity promoted the prosperity of the people.

Vespasian, though not himself learned, patronized learning and the arts, founded a library in the Forum, and instituted a class of salaried teachers. He is said to have been the foremost of all the Roman princes in the encouragement of a liberal education. Quintilian was the first public instructor who received from the imperial treasury a regular salary. An alliance was henceforth maintained between the teachers of learning and morals, and the guardians of the public peace. Pliny the Elder was a friend and favored officer of the Emperor.

Vespasian was consul for the third time in 71, and in the same year the temple of Janus was closed as a signal that the war was ended. The Roman world had peace for the remaining nine years of his reign. Vespasian rebuilt the Capitol or Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which had been burned in the Civil War by the partisans of Vitellius, and he adorned the city with many other public buildings of great splendor. The people were gratified by the demolition of Nero's golden house, on the site of which were constructed magnificent baths called the Baths of Titus. The greatest of his works was called the Colosseum or Flavian amphitheatre, a large part of which is still existing. Among his other buildings were a magnificent Temple of Peace, and a new Forum, which added to the convenience as well as the splendor of the capital. As censor, Vespasian raised the character of the

Senate by removing unworthy members and promoting good and wise men, including the eminent Agricola.

About 73 A.D., Achaia, Lycia, Rhodes, Byzantium and Cilicia, which previously were considered free states, or were governed by kings, were subjected to Roman governors. Titus, having been admitted to a share of the imperial power, relieved his father from many cares, labors and responsibilities. Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Vespasian, had died before he became emperor.

Throughout his whole career Vespasian maintained the frugal simplicity and homely virtues of the early Romans. He revived the obsolete enactments of the republic which had prosecuted philosophers for the corrupt tendency ascribed to their doctrines, and he banished many pedantic philosophers, who were charged with having intrigued against the government. Public opinion no doubt fully supported him when he resolved to sweep from the city the whole sect of the Stoics as well as of the Cynics. Helvidius Priscus, a Stoic philosopher, was put to death by his order. This is one of the few faults or crimes of which Vespasian is accused. His example is said to have reformed the morals of Rome more than all the laws ever enacted. He died in 79 A.D., and was succeeded by his son Titus.

THE EMPIRE PASSES FROM VITELLIUS TO VESPASIAN.

At the moment that the Syrian legions were proclaiming Vespasian, Vitellius was making his entry as emperor into Rome. His behaviour in the Senate, the Forum, and the theatre is described as modest and becoming. He was assiduous in attending the discussions of the Fathers, and suffered himself to be opposed and contradicted in debate, even when obliged to demand the protection of the tribunes. But this outward moderation was set down to weak compliance. left the affairs of state to be actually managed by Valens and Cæcina with the grossest oppression and extortion, while he surrendered himself wholly to the grossest debauchery. Within the few months of his power he spent nine hundred millions of sesterces ($35,000,000) in vulgar and brutal sensuality.

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Meanwhile the prætorians were disbanded, the police of the city was neglected. The legionaries chose their own quarters at will, inflicting the greatest hardship upon the citizens, till they were found to suffer from intemperance. A portion of them were drafted into the prætorian camp; the rest complained of this preference, and demanded fresh indulgences. The reign of freedmen recommenced. The degradation of Rome was complete; and never yet perhaps had she sunk so low in luxury and licentiousness as in the few months which followed the death of Otho.

Three legions of Vespasian had crossed the Italian Alps under Antonius Primus, who led the van of the whole army of Mucianus. Vitellius, harassed by the revolt of more than one of his divisions, had sent forward both Valens and Cæcina, with all the troops they could muster, to meet him. But Valens lingered behind under the plea of illness; Cæcina covertly meditated defection. Their forces were indeed formidable in numbers, but Primus might rely upon the influences he could employ against them when the armies encountered in the lower districts of the Cisalpine. He boldly challenged them to the combat, refusing to halt even at the instance of his own chief, and his confidence was rewarded by a hard-won victory on the plain of Bedriacum. Cremona fell into his hands, a place of great strength, in which, no doubt, the treasures of the harassed neighborhood had been deposited, and, whether by mistake or of set purpose, it was given over to plunder and burning, as in the worst days of Marius and Sulla.

Vitellius was still at Rome groveling in his beastly indulgences, refusing to credit the account of his disasters; but wreaking his fears and jealousies upon the best of the nobles within his reach. The Flavian generals sent him back their prisoners, that he might learn the truth from their mouths. Vitellius saw, interrogated, and straightway slaughtered them. A brave centurion extorted his leave to visit the scene of warfare and ascertain the state of affairs; but, spurned on his return by his infuriated chief, he threw himself indignantly on his sword. This self-deception could not long continue. Vitellius at last quitted the city at the head of the prætorians,

but he was assailed by fresh disasters on all sides. Primus crossed the Apennines to encounter him, while the populations of Central Italy-the Marsians, Pelignians, and Samnites

-rose against him; and the Campanians were hardly held in check by the bands of gladiators at Capua. The two armies confronted one another in the valley of the Nar. Valens, who had been captured, was now slain, and the sight of his head so terrified the Vitellians that they yielded without a blow. Primus deigned to offer terms to Vitellius, which were confirmed by Mucianus. It is difficult to account for this indulgence, which the defenceless emperor greedily accepted, preferring to retire quietly into private life. But he too easily yielded to the instances of some of his adherents in the city, who regarded with horror the approach of the legions which had sacked Cremona. He made his escape back to Rome, and allowed himself to be put at the head of a desperate faction, who drove the favorers of Vespasian, under his brother Sabinus, into the Capitol. The Vitellians could do no more than watch the outlets during the day; at night Sabinus found means of communicating with the Flavian guards beyond the walls. Next day the Vitellians made a disorderly attack upon the place of refuge, which retained the name of a fortress, but was without any regular means of defence. They mounted the ascent from the Forum and reached the gate on the Clivus. The Flavians strove to repel them by flinging stones from the roof above. The Vitellians, in their turn, threw burning missiles into the colonnades and houses above them, and thus drove the defenders from point to point, but still could not effect an entrance. Climbing to the tops of the houses, they flung blazing torches into the Sacred Temple itself, and the august sanctuary of the Roman people was consumed in the raging conflagration.

The assault, the defence, the conflagration were watched by Vitellius from the palace opposite, by the people from the Forum and Velabrum beneath, as well as from the summit of every hill. The citizens were keenly reminded of the sack of Rome by the Gauls, for the soldiers of Vitellius came from Gaul, and were mostly of Gaulish extraction. But the Gauls under Brennus had burned the city only; it was reserved for

these later barbarians to destroy the temple of the Roman divinities. The fugitives within the precincts were dismayed. Sabinus lost all presence of mind, and made no further attempt at defence. The Gauls and Germans burst in with yells of triumph, and put to the sword all that could not escape. Domitian, the younger son of Vespasian, who had taken refuge in the holy precincts, contrived to slip away in disguise. Sabinus was seized, and Vitellius dared not protect him. Lucius, brother of Vitellius, who commanded some troops for him in the neighborhood, might now have marched boldly to Rome and taken possession of it. But he lost the critical moment, while Primus was advancing slowly but surely, in constant communication with Mucianus, who was also moving to his support. The Flavian legions, as they approached the walls, advanced in three divisions, and attacked three gates of the city. The Vitellians went forth to meet them at all points, soldiers and rabble mingled together, without plan or order. At one point they held the assailants at bay; but in the centre and on the right the Flavians carried everything before them, and drove their opponents from the Campus Martius into the city. The victors entered pell-mell with the vanquished, for the gates of Rome now stood, it seems, always open; and the combat was renewed from street to street, the populace looking gayly on, applauding or hooting as in the theatre, and helping to drag the fugitives from the shops and taverns for slaughter. The rabble of the city threw themselves into the defenceless houses, and snatched their plunder even from the hands of the soldiers. Rome had witnessed the conflicts of armed men in the streets under Sulla and Cinna, but never before such a hideous mixture of levity and ferocity.

Through all these horrors the Flavians forced their way, and drove the Vitellians to their last stronghold, the camp of the prætorians. The lines of this enclosure, formed by a solid wall, were strenuously attacked and desperately defended. The assailants had brought with them the engines requisite for a siege, and now set themselves to their task with determination. They cleared the battlements with catapults, raised mounds to the level of the ramparts, or applied torches to the gates. Then, bursting into the camp, they put every man still