ared less; and into the Capitol they chased the
latter's partisans, his son Domitian as well. The besieged defended
themselves with masterpieces, with sacred urns, the statues of gods,
the pedestals of divinities. Suddenly the Capitol was aflame.
Simultaneously Vespasian's advance guard beat at the gates. The
besiegers turned, the mob was with them, and together they fought,
first at the gates, then in the streets, in the Forum, retreating
always, but like lions, their face to the foe. The volatile mob, noting
the retreat, turned from combatant into spectator. Let the soldiers
fight; it was their duty, not theirs; and, as the struggle continued,
from roof and window they eyed it with that artistic delight which the
arena had developed, applauding the clever thrusts, abusing the
vanquished, robbing the dead, and therewith pillaging the wineshops,
crowding the lupanars. During the orgy, Vitellius was stabbed. The
Flavians had won the day, the empire was Vespasian's.

The use he made of it was very modest. In spite of his manifest
divinity he had nothing in common with the Caesars that had gone
before; he had no dreams of the impossible, no desire to frighten
Jupiter or seduce the moon. He was a plain man, tall and ruddy, very
coarse in speech and thought, open-armed and close-fisted, slapping
senators on the back and keeping a sharp eye on the coppers; taxing the
latrinae, and declaring that money had no smell; yet still, in
comparison with Claud and Nero, almost the ideal; absolutely
uninteresting also, yet doing what good he could; effacing at once the
traces of the civil war, rebuilding the Capitol, calming the people,
protecting the provinces, restoring to Rome the gardens of Nero,
clipping the wings of the Palace of Gold, throwing open again the Via
Sacra, over which the Palace had spread; draining the lake that had
shimmered before it, and erecting the Colosseum in its place.

In spite of Serapsis, Anubis and Isis, he had not the faintest odor of
myth about him; absolutely bourgeois, he lacked even that atmosphere of
burlesque that surrounded Claud; he was not even vicious. But he was a
soldier, a brave one; and if, with the acquired economy of a subaltern
who has been obliged to live on his pay, he kept his purse-strings
tight, they were loose enough if a friend were in need, and he paid no
one the compliment of a lie. He was projected sheer out of the
republic. The better part of his life had been passed under ar