Vespasian Titus Flavius Vespasianus
emperor · Roman Empire · 9–79
A soldier who ended the civil wars after Nero's death and became emperor. He refilled an empty treasury with taxes and began building the Colosseum. Suetonius writes that he went on joking even as death closed in.
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AD 79 · Rome made gods of its dead emperors. Suetonius writes that even in fear of death and in the face of danger he never stopped joking
At the very first attack of his illness he said, "Dear me, I think I am becoming a god."
prima quoque morbi accessione: "Vae," inquit, "puto, deus fio."Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, Vespasian 23
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