“In that case there is no hurry,” said Vespasian with relief. “Let us hope that the gods will allow me ten years or so to bear the burden of rule and put the State’s affairs into some kind of order. Then your son will have received his man-toga. Titus has his weaknesses and because of his connection with Berenice I am worried, but usually a man grows with responsibility. In ten years’ time Titus will be over forty and a mature man. In my view he has every right to the Imperial throne if he does not marry Berenice. That would be disastrous. We could not have a Jewess as the Imperial consort, even if she were of the Herodes family. If Titus behaves sensibly, presumably you will permit him to rule his time out, so that your son in the same way will have time to mature and acquire experience in office. My other son Domitian would never do as Emperor and the very thought of such a thing appalls me. In fact I have always regretted that I conceived him by mistake in a drunken moment on a visit to Rome. Ten years had passed since Titus’ birth and I did not think my marriage bed would again prove fertile. The thought of Domitian makes me feel ill. I cannot even consider celebrating a triumph, for I should be forced to take him with me.”

“Naturally you must celebrate a triumph for capturing Jerusalem,” I said uneasily. “You would offend the legions bitterly if you didn’t, and they have suffered great losses in the war against the Jews.”

Vespasian sighed heavily.

“I have not thought so far ahead as yet,” he said. “I am much too old to crawl up the Capitoline steps. The rheumatism I contracted in Britain pains my knees more and more.”

“But I could support you on one side and Titus on the other,” I said encouragingly. “It’s not as difficult as it looks.”

Vespasian looked at me and smiled.

“What would the people think of that?” he said. “But, by Hercules, better you than Domitian on one side, the immoral, crooked liar.”

This  he  said  long  before  we  knew  anything  about  the  victory  at Cremona, the siege of the Capitoline and Domitian’s cowardly behavior. Vespasian had to allow Domitian to ride behind Titus in the triumphal procession for the sake of his grandmother’s memory, but Domitian had to ride on a mule and the people understood the implication. , When we had considered the succession to the throne from all points of view, like reasonable men who are friends, I was glad to agree to Vespasian’s suggestion that Titus should rule after him and before you, even if I did not value Titus as highly as his father did. His ability to forge handwritings made me doubt his inner qualities. But fathers are blind.

529

When Vespasian had had his powers confirmed in Rome, Titus conquered Jerusalem on his orders. Its destruction was as terrible as the description in Flavius Josephus’ work. But the spoils were to come and I was not defrauded of my security. Titus had not wished to destroy the temple, and he had sworn this to Berenice in bed. But during the fighting it was impossible to stop the spread of the fire. The starving Jews fought from house to house and from cellar to cellar, so the legions suffered heavy losses, although they had thought that only the occupation of the city remained.

Anyone will soon be able to see my portrait in the reliefs on the triumphal arch we have decided to erect in the forum. But to be honest, Vespasian was not entirely in agreement at first that I too deserved a triumph insignia, as I had striven for so eagerly for your sake. I had to point out to him several times that .during the siege I had been the next highest in rank under his command and that I had fearlessly exposed myself to the Jews’ arrows and stones to the extent of being wounded in the foot in my rush for the walls.

Not until Titus magnanimously put in a word for me did Vespasian award me a triumph insignia. He had never come to regard me as a warrior in the true sense, so I had deserved that much from my part in the siege and conquest of Jerusalem. We in the Senate who have triumph insignia are now so few that we can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and among us are a few who have received insignia without any service merit of their own, if I am to be absolutely accurate.

After crawling up the Capitoline steps, Vespasian filled a basket with stones from the temple ruins and carried it on his shoulder down into the valley that was to be filled in, in order to show the people his goodness, his humility, and first and foremost to set a good example. He expressed a wish that we should all share the cost of rebuilding the temple of Jupiter.

Vespasian has also collected copies of old laws and regulations, decrees and special rights dating right back from the foundation of the city from all the corners of the world. He has gathered nearly three thousand such bronze tablets hitherto, and they are kept in the newly built State archives in place of those which melted during the great fire.

As far as I know he has not gained anything from them, although he would have had an excellent opportunity to trace his descent all the way back to Vulcan if he so wished. But he is still content with his grandmother’s buckled old silver goblet. As I write this he has ruled as Emperor for ten years and we are preparing to celebrate his seventieth birthday. I myself have two years to go before I am fifty and feel surprisingly young thanks to the cures I have been taking and one other circumstance, for which reason I have not hurried to leave here, but prefer to stay and write my memoirs, as you have perhaps noticed.

530

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