Suetonius, a Roman writer of the early second century, put together The Twelve Caesars: short lives of the men who ruled from Julius Caesar through Domitian. This chapter is Vespasian, who took power in AD 69 after a year of civil war. The setting is Rome and an empire that ran from Britain to the eastern Mediterranean.

Vespasian is a tax-farmer's son and a soldier of Britain and Judaea, the land around Jerusalem. Eastern omens and western need after four emperors in 69 lift him. Suetonius likes him: blunt jokes, thrift, a urine tax, money does not stink. He begins the amphitheatre that will be the Colosseum, restores revenues, and disciplines armies spoiled by civil war. He leaves the Jewish War to his son Titus, takes the West, and makes Titus and Domitian the succession. He dies joking about becoming a god. This is a favorable life: warts, jokes, and an Italian from the towns who treats being emperor as a job and founds a dynasty.