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Vitellius (Latin: Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus; 24 September AD
15 – 22 December AD 69) was Roman Emperor for eight months, from 16 April
to 22 December AD 69. Vitellius was proclaimed emperor following
the quick succession of the previous emperors Galba and Otho, in a year
of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
Vitellius was the first to add the honorific cognomen Germanicus to his
name instead of Caesar upon his accession; the latter name had fallen into
disrepute in many quarters because of the actions of Nero.
His claim to the throne was soon challenged by legions stationed in the
eastern provinces, who proclaimed their commander Vespasian emperor instead.
War ensued, leading to a crushing defeat for Vitellius at the Second Battle
of Bedriacum in northern Italy. Once he realised his support was
wavering, Vitellius prepared to abdicate in favor of Vespasian but was
executed in Rome by Vespasian's soldiers on 22 December 69.
Family:
He was the son of Lucius Vitellius Veteris and his wife Sextilia, and had
one brother, Lucius Vitellius the Younger. Suetonius recorded two
different accounts of the origins of the Vitellia (gens), one making them
descendants of past rulers of Latium, the other describing their origins
as lowly. Suetonius makes the sensible remark that both accounts
might have been made by either flatterers or enemies of Vitellius — except
that both were in circulation before Vitellius became emperor. Suetonius
also recorded that when Vitellius was born his horoscope so horrified his
parents that his father tried to prevent Aulus from becoming a consul.
He married firstly before the year 40 a woman named Petronia, daughter
of Publius Petronius or Gaius Petronius Pontius Nigrinus, by whom he had
a son Aulus Vitellius Petronianus, the universal heir of his mother and
grandfather, whom Vitellius had killed in 69 in order to inherit his fortune.
He married secondly, around the year 50, a woman named Galeria Fundana,
perhaps the granddaughter of Gaius Galerius, Prefect of Egypt in 23.
They had two children, a son called Aulus Vitellius Germanicus or Novis,
the Younger, and a daughter, Vitellia, who married the Legatus Decimus
Valerius Asiaticus.
Political and military career:
He was Consul in 48, and assumed Proconsul of Africa in either 60 or 61,
in which capacity he is said to have acquitted himself with credit.
At the end of 68, Galba, to the general astonishment, selected him to command
the army of Germania Inferior, and here Vitellius made himself popular
with his subalterns and with the soldiers by outrageous prodigality and
excessive good nature, which soon proved fatal to order and discipline.
Bid for power:
He owed his elevation to the throne to Caecina and Fabius Valens, commanders
of two legions on the Rhine. Through these two men a military revolution
was speedily accomplished; they refused to renew their vows of allegiance
to Emperor Galba on 1 January 69, and early in 69 Vitellius was proclaimed
emperor at Cologne. More accurately, he was proclaimed Emperor of
the armies of Germania Inferior and Superior. The armies of Gaul,
Brittania and Raetia sided with them shortly afterwards. By the time
that they marched on Rome, however, it was Otho, and not Galba, whom they
had to confront.
In fact, he was never acknowledged as Emperor by the entire Roman world,
though at Rome the Senate accepted him and decreed to him the usual Imperial
honours. He advanced into Italy at the head of a licentious and rough soldiery,
and Rome became the scene of riot and massacre, gladiatorial shows and
extravagant feasting. To reward his victorious legionaries, Vitellius disbanded
the existing Praetorian Guard and installed his own men instead.
Emperor
Administration:
Suetonius, whose father had fought for Otho at Bedriacum, gives an unfavourable
account of Vitellius' brief administration: he describes him as unambitious
and notes that Vitellius showed indications of a desire to govern wisely,
but that Valens and Caecina encouraged him in a course of vicious excesses
which threw his better qualities into the background. Vitellius is
described as lazy and self-indulgent, fond of eating and drinking, and
an obese glutton, eating banquets four times a day and feasting on rare
foods he would send the Roman navy to procure.
For these banquets, he had himself invited over to a different noble's
house for each one. He is even reported to have starved his own mother
to death — to fulfill a prophecy that he would rule longer if his mother
died first; alternatively there is a report that his mother asked for poison
to commit suicide - a request he granted. Other writers, namely Tacitus
and Cassius Dio, disagree with some of Suetonius' assertions, even though
their own accounts of Vitellius are scarcely positive ones.
Despite his short reign he made two important contributions to Roman government
which outlasted him. Tacitus describes them both in his Histories:
"Vitellius ended
the practice of Centurions selling furloughs and exemptions of duty to
their men, a change Tacitus describes as being adopted by 'all good emperors'."
"He also expanded
the offices of the Imperial Administration beyond the imperial pool of
Freedmen allowing those of the Equites to take up positions in the Imperial
Civil Service."
Vitellius also banned astrologers from Rome and Italy on 1 October, 69.
Some astrologers responded to his decree by anonymously publishing a decree
of their own: "Decreed by all astrologers in blessing on our State Vitellius
will be no more on the appointed date." In response, Vitellius executed
any astrologers he came across.
Challenges:
In July 69, Vitellius learned that the armies of the eastern provinces
had proclaimed a rival emperor; their commander, Titus Flavius Vespasianus.
As soon as it was known that the armies of the East, Dalmatia, and Illyricum
had declared for Vespasianus, Vitellius, deserted by many of his adherents,
would have resigned the title of emperor.
Resignation and death:
Tacitus' Histories state that Vitellius awaited Vespasian's army at Mevania.
The terms of resignation had actually been agreed upon with Marcus Antonius
Primus, the commander of the sixth legion serving in Pannonia and one of
Vespasian’s chief supporters. The Praetorian Guard refused to allow
him to carry out the agreement, and forced him to return to the palace,
when he was on his way to deposit the insignia of empire in the Temple
of Concord.
On the entrance of Vespasian's troops into Rome he was dragged out of a
hiding-place (according to Tacitus a door-keeper's lodge), driven to the
fatal Gemonian stairs, and there struck down. "Yet I was once your
emperor," were his last words. His body was thrown into the Tiber
according to Suetonius; Cassius Dio's account is that Vitellius was beheaded
and his head paraded around Rome, and his wife attended to his burial.
His brother and son were also killed.
Suetonius, in writing of Vitellius' execution, offers his physical description:
"...He was in fact abnormally tall, with a face usually flushed from hard
drinking, a huge belly, and one thigh crippled from being struck once by
a four-horse chariot, when he was in attendance on Gaius as he was driving..."
Years before there was a prediction that he would fall into the power of
a man from Gaul; the man who slew him was Antonius Primus of Tolosa and
whose surname was Becco which means "Rooster's beak" {Gallus means both
"a cock" and "a Gaul"}.
Information was taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
at this URL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitellius
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