II. Vespasian was born in the country of the Sabines, beyond Reate, in a
little country-seat called Phalacrine, upon the fifth of the calends of
December [27th November], in the evening, in the consulship of Quintus
Sulpicius Camerinus and Caius Poppaeus Sabinus, five years before the
death of Augustus [727]; and was educated under the care of Tertulla, his
grandmother by the father's side, upon an estate belonging to the family,
at Cosa [728]. After his advancement to the empire, he used frequently
to visit the place where he had spent his infancy; and the villa was
continued in the same condition, that he might see every thing about him
just as he had been used to do. And he had so great a regard for the
memory of his grandmother, that, upon solemn occasions and festival days,
he constantly drank out of a silver cup which she had been accustomed to
use. After assuming the manly habit, he had a long time a distaste for
the senatorian toga, though his brother had obtained it; nor could he be
persuaded by any one but his mother to sue for that badge of honour. She
at length drove him to it, more by taunts and reproaches, than by her
entreaties (443) and authority, calling him now and then, by way of
reproach, his brother's footman. He served as military tribune in
Thrace. When made quaestor, the province of Crete and Cyrene fell to him
by lot. He was candidate for the aedileship, and soon after for the
praetorship, but met with a repulse in the former case; though at last,
with much difficulty, he came in sixth on the poll-books. But the office
of praetor he carried upon his first canvass, standing amongst the
highest at the poll. Being incensed against the senate, and desirous to
gain, by all possible means, the good graces of Caius [729], he obtained
leave to exhibit extraordinary [730] games for the emperor's victory in
Germany, and advised them to increase the punishment of the conspirators
against his life, by exposing their corpses unburied. He likewise gave
him thanks in that august assembly for the honour of being admitted to