ABSTRACT
In the tenth year of his reign, at the age of 69, Vespasian developed a fever, attributable at first to the spring weather or to the climate of Campania. He returned to Rome and then went on to his native Reate, which he preferred to the watering places on the Bay of Naples, and at Aquae Cutiliae, between Cittaducale and Antrodoco, he took the cure. The stomach was affected, whether the trouble was organic or due to an infection, and the waters, specified for digestive problems and believed to help those who sat in them, did no good. Vespasian went on working, receiving deputations even on his death-bed. Like Tiberius, who knew that illness weakened political effectiveness and refused to be examined, Vespasian disguised his condition. Rumour made headway, and allegedly he had to dismiss ill omens: the doors of Augustus’ Mausoleum opened of their own accord, as they were said to have done before the death of Nero. This was kindly reported to the Emperor, who noted its appositeness: Junia Calvina, like Nero a greatgrandchild of Augustus, had just passed away (it was a year of pestilence). Another omen, the appearance of a comet-‘hairy star’—he deflected as marking the death of one with more hair than himself, the King of Parthia. Both stories put the dying Emperor within the ambit of the dynasty that
preceded him, pareil of Nero and his opponent Vologaeses; he was now its true successor.2
