The Gemonian Stairs — AD 69 II: The Capitol in Flames
Vitellius sends Vestal Virgins to Primus with a letter. He asks for a one-day truce. The answer: after the killing of Sabinus and the burning of the Capitol there is nothing to discuss. The philosopher Musonius Rufus walks among the soldiers telling them about the blessings of peace. He barely escapes unharmed. (Tac. 3.81)
On the Gemonian Stairs, where the day before the body of Sabinus had been thrown, they kill him. The crowd abuses the dead man just as it had flattered him alive. (Tac. 3.85; Dio 65.21)
He was fifty-four if you count from his birth date and follow Cassius Dio. Tacitus and Suetonius speak of his fifty-seventh year. He ruled nearly a year, counting from his proclamation on the Rhine. Counting from his recognition in Rome — eight months. (Dio 65.22; Tac. 3.86; Suet. Vit. 3.2, 18; Jewish War 4.11.4)
His wife, Galeria, buried him. His brother Lucius surrendered at Bovillae and was executed. His little son did not long outlive his father. Vespasian would later marry Vitellius’s daughter off splendidly, with a dowry and a trousseau. (Dio 65.22; Tac. 4.2; Suet. Vesp. 14)
In the evening Domitian comes out of hiding. The soldiers greet him as Caesar and, weapons in hand, escort him to his father’s house. When the fear passes, the Senate convenes. It votes Vespasian all the powers customarily granted to emperors. Primus receives the insignia of a consul. It also resolves to rebuild the Capitol. (Tac. 3.86, 4.3–4)
Part of this law has survived on a bronze tablet. It is kept today in the Capitoline Museums, on the same hill that burned in December AD 69. (CIL VI 930)
Who was Vitellius? Tacitus answers briefly: the purple was offered to him by men who did not know him. He had candor and generosity, Tacitus admits, but without good sense these turned against him. And he warns that historians writing under the Flavians were happy to flatter the victors. (Tac. 3.86, 2.101)
Vitellius was not the monster of the anecdotes. He was a man with no will of his own, carried along by his soldiers. He died because he could neither fight nor leave.
The new emperor is in Alexandria. He has not seen Rome for years. Two years ago at Jotapata in Galilee a prisoner told him he would become emperor. He did not believe him then.