Roman History 02: An underrated Emperor of Rome

This is the second segment of Roman history. Last blog I touched on my personal choice of best emperor of Rome as well as a few others I believed was note worthy of holding the title Caesar. Now I missed a name from the three, I had mentioned (Trajan, Augustus, Hadrian) but the name Vespasian or at the time of his reign Titus Flavius Vespasian is an underrated emperor.

I believe this emperor is overlooked when the argument of top emperors come into play. Vespasian was a very well accomplished military leader both campaigning in Claudius's invasion of Britannia (42AD) and being put in Judea by Nero afterwards. He was a high respected general and when chaos arose during the year of the four emperors, Vespasian triumphed over them all.

Vespasian once accepted quite pleasantly by the senate got started cracking down on the taxes and stabilising Romes financial crisis. When that had been dealt with he wanted the mass to adore him therefore he used propaganda through coinage linking himself to gods. Vespasian rebuilt Rome and deterred conspiracies put up against him. The quality of Vespasian though that I admire is his adoption of Agricola as general of Britannia and settling the province after the civil war. The legions pushed upwards in order to eradicate the Brigantes in the north which was mostly a success. With such chaos prior his reign and being the only good emperor since arguably Claudius it was refreshing both for the senate and plebeians. Legitimate conquests and well not a teenager was all that the job description required at that time and Vespasian was the emperor to set the bar high again.

The dynasty that he set up however is why I believe the emperor misses out on being put up there with the likes of Augustus and Trajan. Titus was competent and 'did his job' as you could say but Domitian really put a bad taste in the Flavius Dynasty's reputation. This dynasty would sadly go on to rule in all for 27 Years.

Sorry Rome.