Vespasian, 69-79 A. D.—Titus, 79-81 A. D.—Domitian, 81-96 A. D.—Valerius Flaccus, died about 90 A. D.—Silius Italicus, 25-101 A. D.—Statius, about 40 to about 95 A. D.—The father of Statius, about 15-80 A. D.—Saleius Bassus, about 70 A. D.—Curiatius Maternus, about 70 A. D.—Martial, about 40 to about 104 A. D.—Pliny the elder, 23-79 A. D.—Frontinus, prætor 70 A. D.—Quintilian, about 35 to about 100 A. D. [Sidenote: The Flavian emperors.] THE death of Nero was followed by a year of disorder, in which Galba, Otho, and Vitellius were successively raised to the highest power, overthrown, and killed. But the terror which had brooded over Rome in the latter years of Nero’s rule passed away with the coming of the Flavian emperors. Vespasian (69-79 A. D.) and Titus (79-81 A. D.) were firm but gentle rulers. Both were chiefly known as brave soldiers and able generals, but neither was uncultured or without literary interests. Vespasian wrote memoirs and Titus composed in 76 A. D. a poem on a comet. Their interest in literature and intellectual pursuits was, however, exhibited less by their own productions than in other ways. Vespasian was liberal to poets and artists; he paid attention to dramatic performances; he caused the three thousand bronze tablets destroyed in the burning of the capitol to be replaced by copies; and provided for the payment of rhetors, or instructors in oratory, by the state, being thus the first to establish a system of public education. The banishment of philosophers and astrologers during his reign was due to the reactionary politics of the philosophers, not to any opposition to philosophy on his part. Domitian (81-96 A. D.) was a very different character. Before his accession to the imperial power he exhibited a taste for poetry which led the writers of the day to flatter him as if he were one of the greatest of poets; but when he became emperor he relinquished all literary pursuits. No works by him are mentioned except a poem on the battle that took place at the capitol in 69 A. D. and a treatise on the care of the hair, a subject in which he was interested on account of his baldness. Nevertheless he restored the libraries which had been burned, and instituted public games in which dramatists, poets, and orators took part. But his jealousy and cruelty were greater than his literary interests. Twice, in 89 and 93 A. D., the philosophers and astrologers were banished from Rome, and though these acts may be excused on the ground of political expediency, no such excuse can be found for the cruelty which led him to persecute authors and put them to death on the flimsiest pretexts. The last years of his reign were a period of terror for men of letters even more than for his other subjects.