writing have clearly arisen from the confusion be- tween the first stroke of an wt and the letter i. He is apparently the jurist who is cited by Maeci- anus, lib. ix. Fideicom. (Dig. 35. tit. 2. s. 32. § 4) under the name of '* Vindius noster ;" and if he be the same, Vinidius is probably the true name. He was one of the jurists who were in the consilium of Antoninus Pius, with Ulpius Mar- cellus, Volusius Maecianus, and others. He is cited twice by Ulpian, and once by Paulus. He probably wrote something, but there is no excerpt in the Digest. [G. L.] VERUS, A'NNIUS, the son of the emperor M. Aurelius and Faustina, was born a. d. 1 63, two years after Commodus and his twin brother Anto- ninus Geminus. Antoninus died in A. d. 165, and the two surviving princes, Verus and Commodus, ■were raised to the rank of Caesares, in October, A. D. 1 GQ, at th^-reguest of L. Aurelius Verus on his return from the ' East- 4s, that year. Annius Verus did not enjoy his dignity 'long? for he died at Praeneste, a. d. 1 70, in the seventil • jear of his age, in consequence of the excision of a" t^jnour under his ear, when his father was on the poir^t; of setting out on his expedition against the Marco- manni. The annexed coin has on the obverse the head of Annius Verus with annivs vervs CAES, ANTONiNi AVG. FiL., and on the reverse, the head of Commodus, with commodvs caes. anto- NiNi AVG. FIL. (Capitol. Antonin. Phil. 12, 21 ; Lamprid. Commod. 1, 11 ; Eckhel, vol. vii. p. 82, foll.) ^ COIN OF ANNIUS VERUS. VERUS, L. AURE'LIUS, the colleague of M. Aurelius in the empire, a. d. 161—169. His original fiame was L. Ceionius Commodus, under which head his life is given [Commodus, No. 4, Vol. I. p. 817, a.] ; but as a coin of him has been omitted in that place, it is inserted below. coin op l. aurelius verus. VESCULA'RIUS FLACCUS. [Flaccus.] VESPA, TERE'NTIUS, whose witticism at the expence of Titius is quoted by Cicero (de Oral. ii. 62). VESPASTA'NUS, T. FLA'VIUS SABI'- NUS, Roman emperor, a. d. 70—79, was bom in the Sabine country on the 17th of November, a. d. 9. His father was a man of mean condi- tion, of Reate, in the country of the Sabini. His mother, Vespasia Polla, was the daughter of a Prae- fectus Castrorum, and the sister of a Roman sena- tor. She was left a widow with two sons. Flavins Sabinus and Vespasian. On laying aside the toga virilis, Vespasian, with reluctance and at the urgent solicitation of his mother, took the latus clavus. He served as tribunus militum in Thrace, and was quaestor in Crete and Cyrene. He was afterwards Aedile and Praetor. About this time he took to wife Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of a Roman eques, by whom he had two sons, both of whom succeeded him. In the reign of Claudius, and by the influence of Narcissus, he was sent into Ger- many as legatus legionis ; and in a. D. 43 he held the same command in Britain, and reduced the Isle of Wight. (Sueton. Vespas. 4.) He was consul during the last two months of A. d. 51, and Pro- consul of Africa under Nero, in which capacity Tacitus says {Hist. ii. 97) that he was much dis- liked. He was at this time very poor, and was accused of getting money by dishonourable means. Love of money indeed is said to have always been one of his faults. But he had a great military reputation, and he was liked by the soldiers. He was frugal in his habits, temperate, and an enemy to all ostentation ; of a kind disposition, without the passions of hatred or revenge. He had many great qualities some mean ones, — a combina- tion not at all rare. His body was strong and his health good ; and it is recorded that he used to fast one day in every month. (Sueton. Vespas. 8.)
Nero, who did not like Vespasian because he was no admirer of Nero's vocal powers, forbade him to appear in his presence; but when he wanted a general for the Jewish at, thought nobody was fitter than Vespasian, and he sent him to the East at the close of A.D., At the head a powerful army. [Vitellius.] His conduct of the Jewish war had raised his reputation, when the war broke out between Otho and Vitellius after the death of Galba. He was proclaimed emperor at Alexandria on the first of July A.D. 66, at the head of daea, where he then was, on the third of the same month, and soon after all through the East. He arranged that Mucianus, governor of Syria should march against Vitellius, and that his son Titus should continue the war against the Jews. Titus, however, did little until the following year; and Antonius Primus defeated or gained over the troops of Vitellius, who was put to death about the 20th of December. Vespasian was in Egypt when he heard the news of the victory which his troops gained at Cremona on the 25th of October; and he entered Alexandria, where he saw Appolinus of Tyana. Dion Cassius says that he made him self odious to the Alexandrines by increasing the taxes and imposing new ones, and the Alexandrines according to their fashion, retaliated by satire and sarcasm. His object in going to Egypt was, to cut off the supplies of grain from Alexandria to Rome and so to compel Vitellius to yield; but this was un- necessary, forDomitian, the second son of Vespasian then at Rome, was proclaimed Caesar upon. The death of Vitellius. (Tacit. Hist. iii. 86.) The Senate conferred on Vespasian the imperial title, with a specific enumeration of powers, and released him from all the laws from which Augustus, Ti- berius, and Claudius had been released ; and the Senatus-consultum was confirmed by a Lex. A fragment of this Lex still remains. Titus was made consul for the following year with his father.
