Aulus Vitellius (; ; 24 September 1520 December 69) was Roman emperor, ruling for eight months from 19 April to 20 December AD 69. Vitellius became 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 added the honorific title Germanicus to his name instead of Caesar upon his accession. Like his predecessor, Otho, Vitellius attempted to rally public support to his cause by honoring and imitating Nero who remained popular in the empire.
Originally from Campania, likely from Nuceria Alfaterna,Suetonius, Vitellius, 4. he was born to the Vitellia gens, a relatively obscure family in ancient Rome. He was a noble companion of Tiberius's retirement on Capri and there befriended Caligula. He was elected consul in 48, and served as proconsular governor of Africa in either 60 or 61. In 68, he was chosen to command the army of Germania Inferior by emperor Galba. He was later proclaimed emperor in January by the armies of Germania Inferior and Superior, beginning a revolt against Galba. Galba was assassinated by Otho, and Vitellius then faced Otho in battle. He defeated Otho at the Battle of Bedriacum, and was recognized emperor by the Roman Senate.
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. He was not allowed to do so by his supporters, resulting in a brutal battle for Rome between Vitellius's forces and the armies of Vespasian. He was executed in Rome by Vespasian's soldiers on 20 December 69.
Early life
Aulus Vitellius was born on 24 September 15, in Nuceria Alfaterna, Campania. He was the son of Lucius Vitellius and his wife Sextilia, and had one brother, who was also named Lucius Vitellius. Suetonius recorded two different accounts of the origins of the gens Vitellia, 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. 1. Since his father was a member of the equestrian class and achieved the senatorial rank only later in his lifetime, Vitellius became the first emperor not to be born in the senatorial family. 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. 3, 2.
In his youth, he was one of the noble companions of Tiberius's retirement on Capri. Shortly thereafter, Vitellius was able to befriend the young Caligula, due to their common passion for chariots and games of dice.Suetonius, Vitellius, 3.2; 4.1.
Public service
Political and military career He was consul in 48, and proconsular governor 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. Vitellius was proclaimed emperor at Cologne on the following day, and then again on the day after.Tacitus, Histories 1.56–57. "In the course of the night of the 1st of January [...] the 4th and 18th legions had thrown down the images of Galba... [Fabius Valens] in the course of the following day entered the Colonia Agrippinensis with the cavalry of the legion and of the auxiliaries, and together with them saluted Vitellius as emperor. All the legions belonging to the same province followed his example with prodigious zeal, and the army of Upper Germany abandoned the specious names of the Senate and people of Rome, and on the 3rd of January declared for Vitellius." More accurately, he was proclaimed emperor of the armies of Germania Inferior and Superior. The armies of Gaul, Britannia 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 imperial honours on 19 April.CIL 2051: XIII K. Mai(as) 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 expanded the existing Praetorian Guard and installed his own men from his Rhine army.
Emperor
Administration
Suetonius, whose father had fought for Otho at Bedriacum, gives an unfavourable account of Vitellius's 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. He is even reported to have starved his own mother to death—to fulfill a prophecy by a Chattian seeress 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.Suetonius, "Vitellius" Chapter 14 Suetonius additionally remarks that Vitellius's besetting sins were luxury and cruelty.Suetonius "Vitellius" Chapters 13–14 Other writers, namely Tacitus and Cassius Dio, disagree with some of Suetonius's assertions, even though their own accounts are scarcely positive ones.
Despite his short reign he made two important government contributions 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.Tamsyn Barton, Ancient Astrology, pp. 47–48.
Furthermore, Vitellius continued Otho's policies in regard to Nero's memory, in that he honored the dead emperor and sacrificed to his spirit. He also had Nero's songs performed in public, and attempted to imitate Nero, who remained extremely popular among the lower classes of the Roman Empire.
Reputation Suetonius is particularly responsible for giving Vitellius the reputation of being an obese glutton, using emetics so as to be able to indulge in banquets four times a day, and often having himself invited over to a different noble's house for each one. One of the most famous of these feasts was offered Vitellius by his brother Lucius, at which, it is said, there were served up no less than two thousand choice fishes, and seven thousand birds. Yet even this supper he himself outdid, at a feast which he gave upon the first use of a dish which had been made for him, and which, for its extraordinary size, he called "The Shield of Minerva". In this dish there were tossed up together the livers of pike, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, with the tongues of flamingos, and the entrails of lampreys, which had been brought in ships of war as far as from Parthia and the Spanish Straits.Suetonius, "Vitellius", chapter 13 A noted gourmet of that time, Marcus Gavius Apicius, named after the emperor a less exotic dish of peas or broad beans mashed with sweet and sour ingredients. Edward Gibbon, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, refers to "the beastly Vitellius" among "the unworthy successors of Augustus", adding in a footnote:Vitellius consumed in mere eating at least six millions of our money, in about seven months. It is not easy to express his vices with dignity, or even decency. Tacitus fairly calls him a hog; but it is by substituting for a coarse word a very fine image.
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 sent several legions under Caecina to prevent the Eastern armies from entering Italy, but Caecina, dissatisfied with Vitellius's poor administration, attempted without success to defect to Vespasian. This undermined the morale of the Vitellian legions, and they were decisively defeated at the Second Battle of Bedriacum. Fabius Valens was then sent by Vitellius to rally supporting armies in Gaul, but forces loyal to Vespasian captured and executed him soon after. Vitellius, now deserted by many of his adherents, prepared to abdicate the title of emperor.
Abdication and death
Tacitus's Histories state that Vitellius awaited Vespasian's army at Mevania. The terms of abdication 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. However, as he was on his way to deposit the insignia of empire in the Temple of Concord, the Praetorian Guard refused to allow him to carry out the agreement, and forced him to return to the palace.
On the entrance of Vespasian's troops into Rome, Vitellius's supporters (mostly civilians) organized heavy resistance, resulting in a brutal battle. Entrenched on the city's buildings, they threw stones, javelins, and tiles on Vespasian's soldiers who consequently suffered heavy casualties in the urban fighting. Cassius Dio claims that 50,000 people died in the battle for Rome. Large parts of the city were destroyed, including the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Vitellius was eventually dragged out of a hiding-place (according to Tacitus a door-keeper's lodge), driven to the fatal Gemonian stairs, and there struck down by Vespasian's supporters. "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's 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 ...".Suetonius, "Vitellius" Chapter 17
According to Suetonius more than fifty years later, several years before Vitellius's death there was a prediction that he would fall into the power of a man from Gaul. Marcus Antonius Primus was from Toulouse in Gaul, and his nickname was Becco which means "rooster's beak": Gallus means both "a cock" and "a Gaul".Suetonius "Vitellius" Chapter 18
Personal life