*The finances.* The most serious problem was that of the finances, for the extravagance of the preceding emperors had left the government in a state of bankruptcy and the provinces financially exhausted. Vespasian estimated that the sum of $2,000,000,000 was required to make the necessary outlays. To obtain this amount it was necessary to impose new taxes and avoid all needless expenditures. Yet he not only succeeded in making the state solvent but was able to carry out extensive building operations in Italy and in the provinces. In Rome the Capitoline Temple which had been burned in the fighting with the Vitellians was rebuilt, a temple of Peace was erected on the forum, and the huge Colosseum arose on the site of one of the lakes of Nero’s Golden House. Vespasian also granted state support to the teachers of Greek and Roman oratory in Rome. In 74 A. D. Vespasian assumed the censorship and took a census of the empire in addition to filling the ranks of the Senate which had been depleted by the late civil wars. He was generous in his grants of citizenship to provincials, and bestowed the Latin right on all the non-Roman communities of Spain, as a preliminary step to their complete romanization. *Vespasian and the senate.* Vespasian was the first princeps who was not of the Roman nobility. He was a native of the Italian municipality of Reate and his family was only of equestrian rank. He was furthermore an eminently practical man who made no attempt to disguise the fact that he was the real master in the state. Significant in this respect was his revival of the _praenomen_ imperator, which had been neglected by the successors of Augustus. He treated the Senate with respect, and recognized its judicial authority, but excluded it from all effective share in the government. A senatorial decree and a law of the _comitia_ conferred upon Vespasian the powers of the principate, yet he dated the beginning of his reign from the day of his salutation as Imperator by his army. All these things, combined with his refusal to punish the informers of Nero’s reign, earned him the ill-will of the senators. Some of them proceeded to open criticism of the princeps and a futile advocacy of republicanism in the form of a cult of Brutus and Cato the Younger. The leader of this group was Helvidius Priscus, son-in-law of Paetus Thrasea, whom Nero had put to death, and like him a Stoic. Although not very dangerous, such opposition could not be ignored and Priscus was banished. He was later executed, probably for conspiracy. In all probability it was the antimonarchical tendency of contemporary Stoic teachings that induced Vespasian to banish philosophers from Rome. *The praetorian prefecture.* To forestall any disloyalty in the praetorian guard, Vespasian made his son Titus praetorian prefect. Titus also received the _imperium_ and _tribunicia potestas_, and when Vespasian died in 79 A. D. succeeded to the principate.