Vespasian reigned for more than nine years, and his rule was thoroughly beneficial. It is difficult to judge of him, as Tacitus fails us here. Suetonius is a very sorry painter of character, and his opinions are of as little worth as those of the _Scriptores historiæ Augustæ_: in fact, he has no turn whatever for writing history. He is a learned man, and he does not write badly; but he cannot take a wide view. The earlier times are better handled by him; for there he had books before him: without books, however, he was not able to do much; and thus the times which he had seen himself, or about which he had been told by those who had seen them, are the very worst written. His work was certainly published before Tacitus’ _Historiæ_ came out; for had he had them before his eyes, he could not possibly have described the anarchy after Nero’s death in so wretched a way: it must have been a work of his youth, and not indeed of the time when he was secretary of state under Hadrian. We are in a sad plight here, and moreover the materials for the history of the emperors are throughout very bad: if we had Dio, we should be all right; but we only have the pitiful abridgment of Xiphilinus. We can therefore only dwell on single traits. Suetonius praises Vespasian, and yet he tells us things which either do away with the praise, or which ought not to have been recorded, as they were mere rumours: when we compare both of these statements together, we are justly astonished, and therefore feel uncertain on more than one point. Thus much may we look upon as borne out by facts. Vespasian was wanting in the higher qualities of the soul, nor had he such a heart as Trajan had; but he was still a very worthy person for the time in which he lived, being an honest and just man, especially in a negative sense, and one who was not guilty of tyranny: only some isolated instances of extortion are mentioned of him. His morals were as spotless as could ever have been expected in times like those. After the death of his first wife, he lived in a sort of left-handed marriage with a woman of low estate, to whom he, however, granted all the honours of a lawful wife, and with whom he was happy: she must indeed have been an excellent woman. He quite loathed the debauchery and the awfully vulgar and wasteful gluttony which had become so common among the Romans: luxury had then thrown itself into the fashion of extravagant feasts, got up at the maddest cost. Vespasian, on the contrary, who had kept his old simple tastes unaltered, reclaimed his subjects, as well by his example as by the open expression of his disgust, from this way of living: he thus brought about a reform in Roman life which is remarkable in history: Never again did this reckless prodigality become as rife among the Romans, as it had been in the times before Vespasian: it is true, as we see from Ammianus’ excellent description, that in the fourth century