The dynasty that built the Colosseum descended from a centurion who fled battle
Vespasian's grandfather was a centurion who ran from the field at Pharsalus in 48 BC. Within four generations, shrewd marriages and tax-collecting had lifted the family into the Senate, and in December 69 AD Vespasian became emperor, founding the Flavian dynasty that gave Rome its most famous amphitheatre.
The Flavians were new men. After the disgraced Titus Flavius Petro married the very wealthy Tertulla, their son Sabinus gathered more money as a tax collector in Asia and a banker in what is now Switzerland, and his marriage into the more prestigious Vespasia family opened senatorial careers for his sons. Vespasian served in the invasion of Britain in 43 and became consul in 51. Later Flavian propaganda claimed the family had been poor and out of favour under Caligula and Nero; modern historians regard that as spin meant to flatter the new regime.
Power came through chaos. Nero's suicide on 9 June 68 set off the Year of the Four Emperors, as Galba, Otho and Vitellius took the throne in rapid succession. Vespasian, then commanding against the Jewish revolt in Judaea, held nearly 80,000 soldiers and sat close to Egypt, the source of Rome's grain. His eastern legions declared him emperor on 1 July 69, and his forces crushed Vitellius at the Second Battle of Bedriacum that October. In Rome itself the fighting reached the Capitoline Hill, where Vespasian's brother was captured and killed; his younger son Domitian escaped by disguising himself as a worshipper of Isis. The Senate proclaimed Vespasian emperor on 21 December 69.
The dynasty was unusually compact: just one man and his two sons, with no adopted or extended heirs. Vespasian devised new taxes to repair the treasury. Titus, who had taken Jerusalem in 70 AD, faced catastrophe as emperor when Vesuvius buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79, followed a year later by fire and plague in Rome. His building programme produced the Flavian Amphitheatre, better known as the Colosseum. Domitian raised the silver content of the coinage and strengthened the fortified frontier in Germany, but could not win a decisive victory over the Dacian king Decebalus. Meanwhile Agricola pushed Roman conquest deep into Britain between 77 and 83.
It ended abruptly when Domitian was assassinated on 18 September 96. His successor, the veteran adviser Nerva, founded the long-lasting Nerva-Antonine line.
Source: Flavian dynasty
