to celebrate some sacred games. This was
a privilege he granted to no other city.

He soon had Egypt subdued and sent from there a large supply of grain to
Rome. He had left his son Titus at Jerusalem to sack the town, and awaited
its capture that he might return to Rome in his son's company. But, as
time dragged in the conduct of the siege, he left Titus in Palestine and
took passage himself on a merchantman; he sailed in this manner as far as
Lycia, and from that country partly by overland journeys and partly by
seafaring he came to Brundusium.

After this he came to Rome, meeting Mucianus and other prominent men at
Brundusium and Domitian at Beneventum. In consequence of the consciousness
of his own designs and of what he had already done, Domitian was ill at
ease, and moreover he occasionally feigned madness. He spent most of his
time on the Alban estate and did many ridiculous things, one of them being
to impale flies on pencils. Even though this incident be unworthy of the
dignity of history, yet because it shows his character so well and
particularly in view of the fact that he continued the same practice after
he became emperor, I have been obliged to record it. Hence that answer was
not without wit which some one made to a person who enquired what Domitian
was doing. "He is living in retirement," he said, "without so much as a
fly to keep him company." [Sidenote:--10--] Vespasian though he humbled
this upstart's pride greeted all the rest not like an emperor but like a
private person, for he remembered his previous experience.

On reaching Rome he bestowed gifts upon both soldiers and populace; he
made repairs in the sacred precincts and upon those public works which
showed signs of wear and tear; such as had already crumbled to decay he
restored; and when they were completed he inscribed upon them not his own
name but the names of the persons who had originally reared them.

He immediately began to construct the temple on the Capitoline, being
himself the first to carry away some of the soil; and, as a matter of
course, he urged the other most prominent men to do this same thing in
order that the rest of the populace might have no excuse for shirking this
service.

The property of his opponents who had fallen in one conflict or another he
delivered to their children or to other kin of theirs; furthermore, he
destroyed contracts of long standing representing sums due and owing to
the public treasury.

Tho